This was one of my favorite mornings of the cruise. I think my kids were finally getting adjusted to the time change and had slept in, which meant I got to go off on my morning routine by myself. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE when my gets get up with me and we get to explore the ship together in the morning, but on this day we were making a slow approach into Ketchikan and I found a spot on a deck 4 lounger and enjoyed my Cove Cafe coffee (say that five times fast) while enjoying the scenery on a beautiful sunny morning. I probably spent an hour there in the peace and quiet, which was an amazing start to a fun day ahead.

Admittedly, I was a bit nervous for this day. We had booked the Knudson Cove Salmon Fishing port adventure, which was something William and I really wanted to do, but I wasn’t sure how excited Alyssa and Emily were about it. On top of that, it was estimated to be a 5-hour port adventure, which meant we really didn’t have much time to do anything else in Ketchikan due to our late morning arrival.

Because we couldn’t get off the ship until around 10:30, there was really no rush for us to do anything that morning. Eventually we made our way up to Cabanas to get something to eat and our plan was to go ashore, browse the shops, and take a family picture in front of the “Welcome to Ketchikan” sign.

Ketchikan is a great town to explore on your own. There are lots of shops and restaurants right near the dock and you can easily find things to do and see within walking distance. We would have liked to try the lumberjack show, but we just didn’t have time. We only spent about an hour in town because we had to meet for our port adventure at 12:15.

Once we had taken our seats on the bus, a representative from the charter company walked through the aisle and presented each party with the name of the boat they would be chartering. The bus ride to Knudson Cove was about 20-30 minutes and there were 50 or so people onboard with us.

Another thing that I have noticed I need to improve if I am going to be a “real blogger” is taking pictures of the actual signage for the places that we visit. Anyway, after we exited the bus, there was a group of 12-15 charter boat captains waiting for us and we were assigned based on the names of the boats we had been given. Our captain’s name was Hannah and she was maybe 20 years old. She led us down to our boat – the Taylor Ames – and we prepared for our day fishing on the ocean.

Before we could head out, we got boarded by the U.S. Coast Guard, who wanted to do a safety inspection. Hannah was funny because she was very annoyed by the timing of their request and asked if they could come back later or inspect someone else’s boat. We had no such luck and the inspection went fine, but it meant we got a later start than everyone else. Hannah turned out to be a really awesome boat captain and she was great. at helping us keep the kids entertained with trivia and games of I Spy.

This turned out to be a really fun port adventure and one that I would recommend. The actual act of fishing was different than what I had been picturing in my head, but when the hook sets and you have a salmon on the line, it’s a real rush reeling it in!

Hannah explained to us that the salmon population is actually in decline, despite the fact that Ketchikan is the salmon capital of the world. So in an effort to preserve the species, there are strict rules about what you can do with a salmon that you’ve caught. In order to keep it, the fish must be at least 18 inches long. If it’s not long enough, you can’t even bring it into the boat in order to give the fish its best chance at surviving after being hooked. So when we reeled the fish close to the boat, Hannah would inspect the fish and if it wasn’t long enough, she would release the hook while the fish was still outside the boat and the fish would be free to swim away.

We caught 6 salmon in total, but none of them were long enough to keep. Unfortunately for me, that meant I could not hold one and take a picture with it, which was really all I wanted out of this port adventure to begin with. It was still really fun, but this is the best picture I have of any of the fish that we caught:

Though we were on the water for about 4 hours, it didn’t feel that long. The time went by really quickly and we spent much of it just enjoying the scenery, the cool sea breeze, and the occasional humpback whale sighting.

Surprisingly, this very authentic whale call didn’t bring any closer to the boat (sound on):

We thanked Hannah for a great day and headed back to the bus. We later found out that only two out of the 12+ groups caught a fish big enough to keep and they chose to have them frozen and shipped home, which is what I would have done. I also learned that the really big fish tend to live a little bit deeper than where we were fishing, so if I was going to do this again, I might research some different private charter options. Though I don’t know if the amount of time we had in port would allow us to go out much further. Overall, we had a great time and I would love to go salmon fishing again whether it be on a private charter that I book on my own or another round of this port adventure.

If I remember correctly, we got back to the ship around 4:30 with a 5:15 all aboard time. Ketchikan is one of my favorite ports of call on any cruise and I was really sad that we didn’t get to spend more time there. Reluctantly, we got back onboard and went back to the room to get ready for dinner.

We were scheduled for Animator’s Palate that evening and the Animation Magic dining experience, but we also had a 7:00 Palo reservation. Animation Magic is one of our favorite dining experiences and we didn’t want to miss it, so we took the kids and had dinner with them. I ordered (two of) one of my favorite appetizers – the caprese salad – which worked out really well because that’s what I would have ordered for an appetizer at Palo. Now I got to try something else.

Dinner went by pretty quickly, and, as usual, it was really fun to see our drawings dancing on the screen.

We had a delicious dinner in Palo that evening (as always). We dined with some friends who were on their first Disney cruise, so it was fun to hear about their experiences. And also to tell them that they needed to order the chocolate soufflé.

It was sad that our last port day was winding down, but we were excited for one more day at sea ahead.

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