Saturday, July 5: Tech Fails, Embarkation in Ketchikan

We’ve had technical challenges before on our trips, especially with cameras (including a trip to Greece where Ron’s expensive Nikon DSLR was left safe at home).   Today we had multiple problems.  Ron dropped his Nikon and it displayed a cryptical error message and refused to work.  I had a decent Olympus and hadn’t brought the charger because the battery stays charged for months at a time.  Well, except for now.  It had very little power left.  We had my iPhone, but really?  Capture the glories of Alaska with nothing but an iPhone camera? 

Fortunately I had seen a Radio Shack in my travels so we headed there.  (Any excuse to get Ron to exercise.)   They couldn’t help us with the Nikon- not surprising.  They had a “universal” battery charger and showed me how the display model worked.  They sold me a slightly different version but said it would be similar.  It wasn’t.  We found that out after we’d gotten onto the ship.  (Radio Shack in Overland Park probably got its first return from a Ketchikan store after we got home.)  Fortunately, we’d also bought an inexpensive Nikon CoolPix at Radio Shack. I’d had one before and it was user-friendly, portable and a lot better than the iPhone (not to mention less of a financial loss it dropped overboard).  So, while we didn’t have all the technology we would have hoped for, we had enough.  (You will note that all the date-stamped pictures from the CoolPix have the year listed as 2013.  Guess I got the year wrong when I programmed it.)

Below is a back view of the ship.  Note the American flag and the "Juneau" location below the name.  Yes, this is one of the few cruise lines that has US-flagged vessels and pays its crew according to US regulations.  This was important to us.  It also meant that we didn't need to include any foreign ports (although there are many fine Canadian ports!) in the itinerary, which is a requirement for foreign-flagged vessels.  Our cruise was completely within Alaska.

The kayak dock descends when the ship is at anchor and anyone can take one out- all part of the included services.