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There were two things I absolutely wanted to do on my first cruise adventure to Alaska. The first was the train ride from Anchorage to Seward (our ride was first day the train ran – phew) and the second was getting onboard the Aleutian Ballad and the Deadliest Catch Alaska Adventure.
My fellow Frequent Floater blogger Mike, who has been to Alaska a number of times, said I absolutely had to do this if I was a fan of the show Deadliest Catch (clearly, I am).
I can not tell you how geeked out I was to see all the things I had only experienced so far on TV up close and in person. Before we go farther some background about this boat. It almost sank and has in fact almost sunk a number of times. Take a look at a clip from the show:
Unreal right? Thankfully our tour was much calmer as they do not go out into the open sea during the excursion.
What they do do is show you a number of ways they fish from long line to pulling up pots. But first they took us to an indigenous reservation waters to feed some bald eagles. It was so amazing. Take a look:
After that is was time to pull up some pots. The first one they pulled was not a King Crab pot but a “Box Crab” one.
I had never heard of Box Crabs before (they are a type of King Crab) and have thus clearly never had them to eat but
Well maybe not this way 🙂 The crew did come around with a number of different critters for us to hold and look at and lightly play with.
They did finally pull up a King Crab pot but this was just for show as all the crabs in the pot were plastic. The tags are for donations for local indigenous population living on the island we were given permission to visit and feed the Bald Eagles (not allowed in US territory).
We were seated upstairs for the adventure giving a great, if not up close, view of the goings on. It also gave us the chance to visit the wheel house of a real life crab boat – what a thrill!
As I pen this post I am again grinning from ear to ear and can tell you, if you are a fan of all of the above, you just MUST book this for your visit to Ketchikan Alaska. The crew are just amazing and kind and I took home memories that will last a lifetime.
On the way back to the dock we even had a chance to see a float plane take off on the water “runway” right next to us. What a perfect way to end the day.
Some final thoughts. They do provide coats for you should it be raining or cold but Lisa and I planned ahead the picked up these outstanding waterproof gear that kept us dry and warm for not just this adventure but also for time on our forward balcony when viewing glaciers from the ship.
Would I do this again? You bet I would and the only drawback for us was that NCL does not park right next to the boat (like most other ships do) but you are shuttled about 30 minutes from a remote dock to get to the departure location! – René
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