The Zeiger Family Homestead Blog

Reader, Judy’s next question about cruise ships (see Living With Cruise Ships (Part 1)) was “Can you actually wave at the passengers on the top deck of the ships?”

Most cruise ships pass our place too far out for us to see individual passengers. We do wave to friends and family coming and going on the Alaska Marine Highway ferries, but these boats are much smaller, and often pass a bit closer, to the point where, while we can’t recognize individuals, we may recognize a loved one’s walk on deck, or see them through binoculars.

The cruise ships present a much more massive view, in which people get swallowed up. We can sometimes tell where they are by the flash of cameras as they try to take photos of Rainbow Glacier, which appears on the opposite shore of Chilkat Inlet, yet seems to hang above our homestead on our Chilkoot Inlet shore.

But, there are waves, and then there are waves.

Princess Cruise Line’s Ruby Princess cruises south on a summer evening (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).

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Now that I’ve offered some background information and review about the cruise ship situation in our region (see Living With Cruise Ships (Part 1)) I’m ready to start on Judy’s actual questions, beginning with:

“How often do the ships pass by your homestead cabin: every day, several ships?”

Cruise ships pass our homestead just about every day from mid-May to mid-September. Most of them head to Skagway, north of Haines, but some are Haines bound. Either way, they pass going north in the morning, and south in the evening. Usually, there are several, sometimes as many six or seven on the busiest days.

Sadly, a lot of the ships arrange for the upper Lynn Canal leg of their journey to occur in the early morning. After a full day in Juneau, they cruise very slowly up the fjord, to arrive near breakfast the next day, on what for these ships should only be a 4-hour journey.

The Celebrity Millennium works its way north (Photo: Michelle L. Zeiger).

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