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Alaska Ferry (part 3)
This week we resume my story of my four-day voyage on the Alaska Ferry. However, we begin with a logic puzzle, as usual.
Each tire can last for 20,000 miles. A car has five new tires, including a spare. The driver may switch tires as much as he likes. How far can the car travel?
Where we left off in part 2, I was on my last full day on the ferry and had just leftJuneau. Around 4:00 PM we arrived in Haines. This is another city on my voyage I had never been to before and was eager to check out. Unfortunately, the ferry terminal in Haines was miles from the center of the city. In the short one-hour stop we had there the only thing there was time to do was walk along the road and rocky beach.
After departing Haines, we arrived in nearby Skagway around 7PM, about two hours later. This time, the dock was right in the heart of town. Unfortunately, it was a quick stop which allowed for only about 30 minutes to explore the town. During this time, everything was closed and nary another human being was to be found.
Skagway was as far north as the MV Columbia gets on its weekly voyage. The ferry then returned to Haines for a quick stop. It was dark by then and I didn’t bother to get off. Eventually I settled down for my last night. By this point, I had relocated to a nice spot in the corner of the solarium.
I had grown accustomed to the roar and vibration of the engine. Somehow, they lulled me into sleep. I suffer from tinnitus and the engine noise very nicely covered up the usual hum I hear 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Around 1AM, the ship arrived back in Juneau. As a rule of thumb, the bigger the city,the longer the stops and the more passenger turnover. I estimate the next three hours were full of announcements and door to the solarium, which I slept right next to,endlessly slamming. When we finally left Juneau around 4AM I could finally get back to a deep state of sleep.
The next morning, I packed up and enjoyed a nice day as we made our way to my destination of Sitka. Otherwise, I did laundry and otherwise alternated between watching the Alaska scenery from the solarium and reading.
We arrived in Sitka around 4PM. I had arranged a taxi to pick me up the previous day. Ihad learned from previous trips to Alaska to not count on easily finding a taxi, but to book them a day in advance. Although I enjoyed my trip, I was ready to move on. The lady who scanned boarding passes getting on and off the ferry I had gotten to know a little by this point. She asked, “Are you leaving us?” as I got off. I said yes and she wished me a pleasant time in Sitka.
A week later, I would take another Alaska Ferry, the MV Tustumena on a round tripbetween Homer and Seldovia. Each way was about an hour. The Tustumena was designed to take up to 160 passengers, compared to the 499 of the Columbia. Otherthan being smaller, the look of the ship was pleasantly the same. There are nine ships in the Alaska Marine Highway system fleet. I have now been on three of them, including the Kennicott from a previous trip in 2021.
I hope you enjoyed my story and hopefully it will be the spark that causes at least one person to take a trip on an Alaska ferry. If you see me on board, please say “hello” or better yet, let’s play a game of giant chess in the lounge. I will close with some miscellaneous pictures taken aboard the ship. In a future newsletter, I plan to write about my time in Sitka and Homer.
The answer to the logic puzzle is 25,000 miles.
Between the five tires, they can travel 5*20,000 = 100,000 miles. However, a car requires four times, so we must divide that by 4: 100,000/4 = 25,000 miles. This could be accomplished by rotating the tires every 5,000 miles. Each tire would have been on the care for 20,000 miles and had a break for the other 5,000.