Our chariots arrive.  Terry's Mountain Air plane leads Michelle's Island Wings plane into the dock to discharge their passengers before we board.

None of us had ever done anything like this before, so from start to finish we had a blast.  Take-off from and landing on water were surprisingly smooth.  Much smoother than a normal plane.  Ketchikan has an airport along the waterfront that, during summer has 6 inbound + 6 outbound Alaska Air flights each day, plus a couple of Delta flights.  Between the big planes and the seaplanes Michelle says that there are over 1400 flights EVERY DAY in Ketchikan, putting that area on par with Atlanta's airport (i.e. the busiest airport in the U.S.)!  As such, for the first 5-10 minutes of the flight they disable the onboard microphones so the pilots can focus purely on the Air Traffic Control chatter.  I was sitting in the co-pilot seat on the outbound leg of the trip and could hear the ATC calls through my headset.  Those in the back don't hear that traffic.

On-board Michelle's plane.  From right to left: W, S, A, D, R, E.  This would be the return leg - D sat co-pilot outbound then swapped with W for the inbound leg.

Michelle has over 22,000 hours of time at the controls.  Like any good pilot she sets the aircraft's trim controls and basically lets the plane fly itself.  In fact, she spent parts of the flight eating her lunch - albeit with a couple of fingers hooked around the yoke at all times.  There was only one moment of anxiety (for us, not for her).  At one point during the outbound flight the engine sputtered a bit and Michelle suddenly stabbed for some controls and played with the throttle to calm things down.  She explained that she has two fuel tanks and that the back tank had just emptied, so she was switching over to the front tank. I will admit that my blood pressure spiked for a moment!

Both planes landed on Manzanita Lake.  Since Michelle has a license from the Park Service she's allowed to tie up to shore and let passengers off to stretch their legs on land.  This is one of the big reasons that CruiseCritic citizens love Island Air.  Most of the other companies (there are apparently 17 companies flying in Ketchikan) have to stay away from shore and only let passengers get out onto the plane pontoons.

Stretching our legs on the shore of Manzanita Lake.  Left to right: J, C, N, M, H, W, A, S (partially hidden), R, D, E.  Michelle's aircraft is immediately behind us, Randy's aircraft in the background.

Views from the air are stunning.  At one point we flew over a mountain top covered with goats, and in other places we could see old logging roads and various parts of the forest lifecycle showing areas that had been recently clearcut as well as areas starting to grow new aspens.  From start to end we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Ho hum.  Just another spectacular view from the air.

A high mountain lake with waterfall.

Banking into final approach aboard Michelle's plane.  The stern of Norwegian Sun is visible and Radiance is behind it.

Landing in sight of Radiance.

It seemed like no time at all had passed before we were taxiing back to the dock and leaving.  On the way back to town I asked Shona (who was driving) for lunch suggestions.  She came up with Annabelle's (which I had already scoped out as a possible option) or The Fish House (over by the Lumberjack Show).  She did warn us to avoid The Fish Pirate.

Upon drop off I sped off to Annabelle's to see whether they could handle our group of 11 - we only had about 90 minutes before we had to meet the kayak folks.  Not surprisingly, Annabelle's couldn't handle us in any combination of tables - they were simply too busy.  So we turned around and walked over to The Fish House....only to see a line coming out the door.  Wary of The Fish Pirate, we instead turned to Plan C, which was the fish and chips stand at the dock, next to the visitor center.  The food was actually pretty good, but very pricey ($21 for an order of F&C with a soft drink).  We sat outside at picnic tables just across the street from Fish Pirate and enjoyed the afternoon.  Despite Ketchikan's reputation for rain we never saw a drop.

Following lunch we walked the 50 yards or so to the rain gauge where we met Brandon from Southeast Seas Kayaking.  He walked us over to their dock (also next door to the Lumberjack Show) and we all got ourselves outfitted for kayaking inside the floating office.  We were given water proof pullover jackets, then a rubber skirt that hung from our shoulders and flared out into something resembling a stiff skirt, and finally a life vest.  From there we went back out to the kayaks and breaking into pairs (or a triple in the case of me, E, and A) we worked our ways into our kayaks, after first getting a quick lesson in proper paddle technique and an explanation on how the rudder worked.  The back seat in each canoe has pedals to control the rudder.

E, A and D.  The day turned out to be warm and beautiful. I am in the process of removing my waterproof jacket and will stow it under the skirt.  A has already removed his jacket - one of our guides (Chloe) kindly came alongside and took his jacket from him so he didn't have to mess around with trying to undo his skirt.

From there we were off on our adventure, guided by Brandon, Ella, and Chloe each in their own kayaks.  Sadly, the tide was too low to paddle up Creek Street.  I was particularly disappointed at this because I had really been looking forward to that part of the paddle.  No matter.  We turned around and crossed over the channel to Pennock Island.  Before we crossed Brandon had to get on the walkie talkie to (I suppose) Air Traffic Control to advise them that a group of kayakers would be crossing over what was, effectively, the seaplane runway.

S & W get up close with a bald eagle.

Our intrepid band poses for a group photo.  We're just off Pennock Island here.

On our way back, just before crossing back over the channel, the Norwegian Sun gave a horn blast and started out of her berth.  Kind of fun to see her exit from the seaward side.  Another call to ATC and we were clear to cross the channel again.  We were barely past the center of the channel when a seaplane zipped in just behind us.

While ziplining was my #1 favorite activity, kayaking was #2 - and was #1 with almost everyone else.  We had so much fun, and also saw a huge number of bald eagles throughout the trip.  We agreed that paddling a kayak was not as difficult as any of us anticipated, but while pushing the steering pedals was easy,  going in a straight line was hard!  :-)  Overall I believe everyone enjoyed our day in Ketchikan more than any other day of the trip.  We'd go back there in a heartbeat!

We had just enough time for some quick showers before dinner.  We had finally drunk up our stock of wine so ordered some bottles for dinner.  From there we made our way over to the theater for the 2nd production show, called "City of Dreams".  This show allowed the female vocalists more range than the show earlier in the trip and they were much better.  The dancing was a bit more spotty - there were a few numbers that were really excellent, but others were just so-so.  (All of our party have extensive theater backgrounds, so we tend to view performance much more critically than most.  In addition, we're all attuned to technical aspects such as lighting and costumes.)