Dutch Harbour

 Finally we have reached land, and into a spectacular harbour in the City of Unalaska, on the Island of Amaknak. After sailing through some pretty nasty seas, at 7 am this morning we tied up at our berth in Dutch Harbour in tranquil conditions. The weather is still overcast and there is a bit of drizzle around, but we have made landfall.

A view of the town of Unalaska from our ship

We are safely alongside in calm conditions

A fishing boat returning to discharge their catch

It is nice to final arrive at a destination, and have calm conditions on our arrival. The next challenge is to clear USA immigration and customs, before we can go ashore. There is a process in place to send groups through immigration, based on a ticket you are issued. Apparently, these tickets were available on a first come basis, but the communication sent out was not that clear and we ended up with a immigration clearance time for 10.45 am. We dutifully turned up and were told that the clearance was delayed by 30 minutes as it was taking longer than expected.

We did our best to entertain ourselves for the delay, which was actually 40 minutes and eventually fronted up to go through clearance. The USA Immigration and Customs people could not have been more helpful and it took minutes to be processed. The cause of the delay is a bit of a mystery.

Now the next challenge is to get into town. The shuttle bus plan was already advised as problematic, due to the availability of only 3 school buses and a foyer full of people waiting for one. We decided we would walk the 4 km into town, even though the weather is very unpredictable. I am sure we saw a lot more than those who caught the bus.

Not far from our berth is the airport. It seems there are regular small plane flights into Unalaska, and we were fortunate to see one arrive (and more fortunate that we were not onboard). The airstrip is located on a flat piece of land between two mountains. The cross winds are horrendous, and this guy was being tossed atround wildly as he came in.

Cars and trucks have to stop when there is an incoming plane as the main road runs around the end of the runway.

Looking down the runway from the road

The airstrip, on a narrow strip of land between two bays, from a distance. The red roofed buiding is about the middle of the runway.

Further along the road we reach the Visitors Centre/ WW11 museum. Will call in here on the way back to the ship.

WW11 museum / Visitors Centre

We soon start to see some wildlife close up. Bald Eagles are like seagulls here. They are everywhere and hang around the fishing fleet looking for a free feed.

It is still a fair way into town, and probably not a real lot to see, as this place is one big fishing village, but there is plenty of road activity with vehicles constantly passing on the road and refrigerated containers heading to and from the port consistently.

Along the way, we pass the Norwegian Rat Saloon, which looks like a popular place. We were told in our presentation yesterday that Dutch Harbour had the dubious honour of having the roughest pub in USA.

Finally we reach the centre of town. It is 3 C and there is an icy wind blowing with occasional misty showers, but this didn't deter us. The highlight of town is The Grand Aleutian Hotel, which looks a lot better from the outside.

Grand Aleutian Hotel

We went inside to warm up and see what it was like. There was a small handicraft market set up in the foyer area, a coffee shop and a small buffet restaurant offering lunch buffet for $16.50 + tax.

Handicraft market in the foyer

Fur products are a specialty, in particular the Arctic Fox stoles (complete with legs, head and tail)

Having seen the prime establishment in Unalaska, we venture back out into the cold to move on to our next attraction, the Museum of the Aleutians.

This is the store where you appear to be able to buy everything (there was also a large Safeway supermarket)

The museum is only a short walk from the hotel, and in quite a picturesque spot.

View from the Museum Entrance

It was nice to step back into a warm environment and we were pleasantly surprised when we reached for our wallet to pay admission, that Viking had prepaid for anyone who wished to visit. It was a surprisingly good museum, filled with information about the native people, the arrival of the Russian Fur traders seeking sea otter pelts, and the eventual sale of Alaska to USA by Russia. Of course, the Japanese Invasion in WW11 also got plenty of coverage.

There was a good display of local birdlife

It is hard to believe you would go out in water close to freezing point in one of these skin covered kayaks

There was a lot of information about Dutch Harbour's role as a major USA  fishing port, shipping out 1.7 billion pounds of frozen seafood per annum. Most of this is fish of all different types, but the king crab also features in the museum as does their proud association with the TV series "The Deadliest Catch"

Apparently this region of the Bering Sea is am amazing fishing ground. The largest Pacific Halibut ever caught was in Dutch Harbour in 1996. It was 8 feet long and weighed 459 pounds. Amaknak Island has many bays that provide excellent fishing yields. One of the locals told us that in another bay where she lived they had a record catch of sockeye salmon this season.

Our next attraction is the Ascension of Our Lord Russian Orthodox Church. When the Russians settled here in search of sea otter furs, they converted the local people to the Russian Orthodox religion and established this church. We soon discover it is far to far away for us to walk there in this weather, so we took a picture of it across the bay.

we reached a major fishery complex before turning around to retrace our steps home. The scale of the industry here is amazing and my guess is that nearly all of the 4,000 permanent residents are in some way employed by the fishing industry.

We saw 2 sea otters lying on their backs paddling along but didn't have the right camera to get a good zoom shot. The black log like item in the centre of the photo is one of them.

We assume this is workers accommodation, appropriately named Bayview.

On our way back past the  Museum of the Aleutians, we spotted a school bus, being used as a shuttle bus, so jumped aboard to save us a bit of a walk back to the ship. We alighted at the WW11 museum, which was the last of the advertised attractions. Once again, we found that Viking were picking up the admission fees, so we hurried inside to enjoy the warmth.

Once again, it was a good little museum which covered what must have been an horrific time for the local people. Most of the activity of the invasion by Japan took place on islands closer to Japan, and native people to taken as POW's and transported to Otaru, where we were in Hokkaido. They were held their until the end of the war.

There were many displays depicting the various key aspects of the invasion. This reproduction of the communications room was filled with old radio equipment used at the time.

Eventually we had to brave the deteriorating weather and head the final 1.5 km back to the ship. It was into the freshening wind for most of the way, with a bit of biting light rain on occasions. We were back on board by 2.15 pm and very happy to remove the now quite damp warm outer clothing and enjoy the ships heating.

The fishing vessel off our bow has been discharging there catch for hours, all frozen and pre packed on board, it is removed in pallet loads using the ships crane and immediately taken by forklift to be loaded into the refrigerated containers on the dock.

Containers on our dock awaiting shipment

On the other side of the bay there are plenty more

Departure from port was scheduled for 5 pm, and we left  not long after then. There was a very strong breeze (gale) blowing us on to the dock, so we needed the assistance of a tug to pull our bow away from the dock.

Getting out of the harbour was reasonably straight forward once were were sufficiently clear and had turned enough to allow us to clear the breakwall. Within 15 minutes we were approaching full speed and on our way to Kodiak. Our route will require us to pass through the chain of islands to reach the southern side where the island of Kodiak is located. There is promise of better weather and calmer seas tomorrow, which will be an at sea day, with arrival in Kodiak scheduled for 8 am the following day.

I suspect will go through the gap at Akutan. Dutch harbour is the Northern Bay on Unalaska.