5/4 – Land ho! Kodiak, AK here we come

It is an ugly day out there as we sail into Kodiak harbor. Pouring rain, drifting fog, 40 degrees F with gusting wind. Ugly doesn’t even describe it. We are up really early as we want to go to the gym and have breakfast before going down to Immigration at 7:30. Surprisingly, everything works really smoothly – they even start the immigration process early and we are done and stickered before it is even 7:30! Perfect planning. Now, we get to just hang out and see what develops…..

….more rain is what develops! Bummer. What can you do though? And we’re prepared – so off we go to the tender a little before 10 (nice perk of being 4 Star Mariners now is that we get priority tender tickets), making our way ashore on the 2nd tender. We are dropped right at the main harbor in the middle of town – which is actually a big bonus as opposed to being docked out by the Coast Guard facility and shuttled into town.

Our original plan was to hike around the Near Island this morning – tons of trails there and the Brown Bear center – then come back for the afternoon Fort Abercrombie tour. Plan B! It is still pouring rain – no hiking in our future! Instead, we set our sights on the museums in town – first the History Museum which opens special for us cruise passengers as it is Monday, when they are normally closed. Nice little bonus. And the museum itself is really quite the find. Located in the original Russian-American Magazin (the Russian word for store), built in 1808, you can still see the original Spruce tree logs used to build the Magazin, weathered with the building all these years.

In addition to a storied building history (from store to home to rooming house to museum), there is also a ton of fascinating information on the Russian conquest and how the Aluquitiiq people fought off the invasion for 20 years until 1784, the US purchase of Alaska in 1867, the assimilation of the Alutiiq and Russians into American practices, the American Commercial Company (the most important business in Alaska at the time, located right here in the Magazin), fur trading and fox farming (started here in the 1920’s, spurring the development of over 600 fox farms across Alaska by 1930) and the Russian Legacy that still exists in Kodiak today (Onion Domes and backyard banyas).

In more modern history, there is also a section dealing with the 1964 Tsunami that devastated Kodiak as well as some very interesting artwork, called “Not in My Baqckyard,” that comes with a content warning disclosure!

A really nice little visit and well worth the time and cost. Back out into the streets, the rain has let up a bit…but only a bit…as we try to visit the Alutiiq museum, which is not open specially for us today. Ah well, everyone needs a day off! Heading back toward the tender pier, we pass by the Holy Resurrection Church, then stop at the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge Visitor center (along with every other cruise passenger aboard!) to find a sweet compact center full of information at the Kodiak brown bears (great video about bears and other wildlife), life size bear models fishing in a stream and tons of other good information on the abundant wildlife here. Sadly, though, it is jampacked with cruisers, so much so it is difficult to even get close to a display, which makes our stay shorter than we’d like, as we abscond to the less crowded and much fresher – albeit rainy – town streets.

Heading back to the pier we stop to admire – or really gape – at the massive amount of fishing and other small ships in the main harbor. Deadliest Catch to the max here! Continuing on with our mission, we manage to hunt down one of the ShoreX guys at the pier to tell him we aren’t going on the afternoon Abercrombie hike and not to wait for us. As we are telling him that, another couple comes up and does the same thing (I mean, really, in this rain and fog? Won’t be a pleasant hike or worth it to try). So, now we are free for the afternoon – and where do we go? Where else – The Kodiak Island Brewery!

We visited the brewery way back in 2008 when they were located inside a NAPA store (yep, inside the store). Ben, the owner, whom we had a huge, long conversation with in 2008, remains steadfastly behind the bar today as well – a much, much larger bar that is! The new space is wonderful, lots of different seating areas, games, the brewing area walls designed to look like an old fisherman village, lots of nautical themed accessories all over. Very nice. And Ben us just as fun and loquacious as ever – pouring our Sea Level Kelp Gose (for Ed of course!) and Wing Nut Brown Ale for me.

Very nice to spend time with him again – and here in the much-expanded space. Leaving, we of course bought another T-shirt. No way we aren’t commemorating this visit with a shirt almost 20 years later! Then we’re headed back to the tender pier, walking through the main shopping center area, passing by Tony’s Bar – The Biggest Navigational Hazard! Cute.

The tender ride is made quite enjoyable as we spend our time having a conversation with some guy who says he owns a Deadliest Catch vessel (he has a jacket with a boat name on it but we can’t quite get the whole name), who used to live here and was visiting some friends – and who is clearly stoned – oh, the smell of weed in the afternoon – which makes for quite the fun trip back to the ship! A quick bite for lunch, then relax into the afternoon with our sail away from the Crow’s Nest – you can see the day did not improve all the much!