While in Skagway, I saw there was an opening last minute for the ferry to Haines, Alaska, on the day I wanted to leave Skagway. It cost $65 to ride the ferry; however, it would have taken me 6.5 hours to drive there. I’m sure I would have spent a lot more on fuel. As it is I will be driving a large portion of the Alaska Highway twice, so any chance to not to drive a highway twice is awesome. There are very few roads in Alaska and the Yukon, so there no other choices to drive for new scenery. Just looking at the map, I will have to drive at a minimum 1,000 miles of highway I’ve already driven just to go from Alaska, through the Yukon and then to the British Columbia border.

This will be the second time I have ridden a ferry. This process makes me so nervous for some reason. Maybe because all of my possessions are on my RV!?!

When it was finally time for me to board, I was surprised I was to park inside the ferry. And that space seemed so small!

Thankfully, they have a very skilled staff to help me maneuver into my space. My handler was Michael, and he took his time with me. As you can see in the photo above, you pull in, but then they have you back into your space. I told Michael I was terrible at backing up my RV in tight spaces. He just had me make very small movements to wiggle me back into my spot. And that space was very small and tight!!! Thank you Michael!!!

It was so nice to finally drive off that sardine can!

Haines is a beautiful city surrounded by tall mountain ranges. I really enjoyed staying here for several days. I stayed at an RV park right on the beach and next to the harbor. An area next to the RV park was a shallow marshy beach. Maddie had a blast running through the shallow waters.

Haines is situated next to beautiful Chilkat Inlet!

Maddie and I had a lot of fun touring the small harbor and trying to photograph the gulls and terns there. I say trying because they were feeding and flying by quickly and at a distance.

I did manage to get a couple photos good enough to ID the birds. I got two new species at this harbor to add to my Life Bird List – Short-Billed Gull and Bonaparte’s Gull.

And as usual, there were bossy crows too. This crow was interested in me for some reason. He landed right on the fence railing in front of me while I photographed the harbor. I don’t mind, I love crows!

While in Haines, I realized I had a water leak start under the kitchen sink. The hot water line started leaking in a join in the plumbing. I saw there was a very fine crack on the plastic housing. I’m not sure how this leak started as I haven’t had freezing weather in a long time. I also use a pressure regulator on my water line whenever I hook up to city water. I’ve noticed several plastic pieces have broken on my RV due to what I think is age related.

I did put some crack filler on the hairline crack. But the leak didn’t stop. So, it was apparent that the join in the line needed to be replaced as well. Sadly, I’m not near any RV repair businesses and won’t be for many miles. Hopefully I can get it fixed soon. The carpet in the hold underneath the sink is totally saturated and trying to mold. Yuck! I’ve learned to turn on my water pump only when I need to use the sink. This keeps the pressure off the line and slows the loss of water.

While in Haines, I took a river raft tour down the Chilkat River. The tour route drifted us right through the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve. As with everything else, I was too early for peak activity. It was still a wonderful tour. There were 42 of us on this tour. They put 8 of us in each raft with our own personal guide/rower.

I was in the very first raft. I’ve never been river rafting before. Thankfully this particular river tour would not go through any rapids!

Our guide Noah was a wonderful guy! He was so strong (as were the other guides). They do several tours a day most every day of the week. They were all strong and lean. I could see that it took skill as well as pure strength to navigate even this placid river. It was only about 3-6 feet deep but the current was very swift.

The scenery was truly stunning! The high peaks of the mountains of the Chilkat Range to the west and the Takshanuk Mountains to the east were breathtaking. I enjoyed capturing images from the water.

We did see a few bald eagles. At the first sighting we saw two eagles perched high up in a tree.

Further downriver we were treated to an eagle sitting on a branch right next to the river. He was wet after hunting, so he was perched trying to dry off his wings. I was so happy to have this beautiful bird so close!

And kudos to Noah, he skillfully maneuvered the raft to keep us on the spot as long as possible and turn the raft so everyone could get any photos they wanted.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my adventure to Haines. I had a wonderful stay!

My next post will be about my drive and stay at Valdez, Alaska!