We’re on our way south now and able to put our feet up for a bit before we continue Leg 3 of the Tuk Moke Trip.

We have a cozy Stateroom on the boat that sleeps 4. But don’t let the fancy nautical language oversell this room. There are two bunk beds and a single chair in the room. To hang out in the room you can lay on the top bunk, sit on the edge of the bottom ones, or grab the single chair.

There are other places on the ship to hang out, but we hermits seem to prefer the relative quiet of our room.

Being a state-run operation (the Alaskan Marine Highway) makes things a bit interesting, and certainly affordable for us.

In particular, the pricing for food on the ship is actually very reasonable. We were paying a LOT more money for food & meals up north in Yukon. They also prohibit tipping of staff, because all staff are state employees and tips are essentially considered bribes. As a result, the prices here are down-right amazing, considering what you would expect to pay on a travel/vacation adventure.

We basically stuck to two meals per day on the ship and that seemed to be enough: breakfast & dinner. And we would do both of them in the dining room. We kept asking to be seated over in a section waited on by Sawyer, who was a young guy who is working and earning hours in his marine career. He lives in Juneau, which is one of the ports we hit, and has been working this year on the MV Columbia.

It sounds like the crew has 12 hours shifts for two weeks, then gets two weeks off. They all have a room on the ship and they have multiple roles; when they aren’t working the dining hall, they are out cleaning rooms or doing other odd jobs around the ship. All the crew was really nice and helpful and were always up for a chat.

There were 8 stops along the way, including the start in Skagway, AK, and the final stop in Bellingham, WA.

• Skagway, AK
• Haines, AK
• Juneau, AK
• Sitka, AK
• Petersburg, AK
• Wrangell, AK
• Ketchikan, AK
• Bellingham, WA

The trip spanned 5 days. We got on in Skagway at 3pm on the first day. 1 hour of sailing later we were in Haines for a pickup. Over night we docked in Juneau. The next morning, day 2, we docked in Sitka, which is on the western edge of the islands. Petersburg and Wrangell were overnight stops between day 2 and 3, while Ketchikan was a late morning stop of day 3.

The stop at Ketchikan was 4 hours long, so we took the opportunity to disembark and walk into town to stretch our legs and see something new.

The port is north of the “main” center of town; apparently more in the residential area. Further south, about a 30-45 minute walk, is the more touristy area of Ketchikan complete with all sorts of souvenir stores and jewelry shops. A couple of cruise ships that we also saw docked in Skagway were in-port there and the streets were filled with tourists.

We stopped by ‘Daly Float’, deep down in the tourist & cruise ship area to snap a few pics. Then we stopped by a Scottish fast-food place and grabbed some milk-shakes and then headed back to the ferry.

Day 4 was pure sailing time. Historically they have stopped at Prince Rupert in British Columbia, but during COVID they stopped docking in Canadian ports and that service has yet to resume.

We spend time reading books, wandering the ship, or watching for whales on the deck. Tim and Dad got a good close view of a humpback whale that came to the surface. Phil spotted the tail of one whale, and then another one surfacing at a distance.

The Interior Passage here is quite fantastic. The views are phenomenal. We were lucky that we had pretty good weather almost the whole trip, so views were not obstructed. We’ve heard plenty of stories from others who took the ferry or cruise ships and happened to have rainy or foggy weather. Not us!

We loaded up the Mokes on the evening of day 4 of the ferry ride in preparation for disembarking the next morning. Our Mokes are parked right at the front of the ship, so if we are ready to roll out immediately, we are hoping to have the crew let us squeeze by and get this Moke Trip back on the road!

Starting Location & Time	Skagway, Alaska – 4:53 pm (first day)
Ending Location & Time	Bellingham, Washington – 8:05 am (last day)
Total Kilometers	1530 km
Total Time	4d 15h 12m