The M/V Columbia

There is something about waking up in bunk beads that brings back a sense of childhood adventure. Am I waking up at a summer camp? or maybe a student hostel? Will I roll over and fall off the top bunk? Or did I choose the low clearance, forehead cracking bottom bunk?

I woke up on the bottom bunk in room 146 of the M/V Colombia ready for our first full day of ferry exploration and a very large coffee. We had slept through our first port call to Juneau (arriving at 11:45pm and departing at 1:45am), but were eagerly awaiting out next stop in Sitka. The M/V Columbia pulled into Sitka around 11:30am and we quickly disembarked, determined to make the most of the 3 hours we had in the city. After a short bus ride into town, we set out on foot to explore all that downtown Sitka had to offer. We decided to follow a path that took us to the Totem Heritage Center where we walked along a densely forested trail and took in the stunning craftsmanship and scale of the totem poles that surrounded us.

After walking around the park for a bit, we decided to seek out lunch before heading back to the ferry. We reached out to some friends we had made while traveling in Costa Rica a few years ago who lived in Seattle but operated a fishing lodge in Sitka for some recommendations. They suggested a restaurant called “Mean Queen 2” and encouraged us to order the Russian dumplings on the menu. We navigated our way through Sitka to the harbor-side restaurant, ordered the pelmenis and a few cocktails and proceeded to have out minds blow. They were delicious!!

We were on a strict timeline, so we quickly devoured our food and caught the bus back to the dock to return the M/V Columbia. We quickly boarded the ferry and watched as it pulled away from the dock and started navigating through the narrow straights toward out next stop. That afternoon we scouted out some vacant lawn chairs in the solarium and hunkered down for some quality whale watching. We spotted a multitude of porpoise, a couple of distant humpback wales, and one especially sporty adolescence humpback whale who proceeded to chase the ferry while breaching and playing the wake.

After the sun had set, we headed back to our bunk beds looking forward to our next full day of ferry adventures.