When the Rain in Haines Falls Mainly on the Fort, Go to Plan B or C

Day 6, 2024 Majestic Japan

Friday, Sept. 6, 2024; Haines, Alaska

You know what they say about best laid plans going awry. That described today for me. Nonetheless, I enjoyed myself and ended up with a watercolor to show for it.

I’ve learned that Southeast Alaska rain isn’t like rain back in Dallas or Kansas City, where storms bring driving deluges or lazy rain falls constantly for hours. Rain here seems more like mist to me, with a parka hood being adequate much of the time.

When we stopped in Haines in early July, I joined a morning photography tour, exploring the area and seeing eagles and a young bear. In the afternoon, I walked around the small town. Today Haines offered a complimentary shuttle to the town center, but I had decided to concentrate on Fort Seward just up the hill from the pier.

On my earlier visit, the distinctive large white wooden buildings surrounding a grassy parade ground caught my interest. At one time the fort helped to bring some law and order to a rowdy frontier near the Klondike Gold Rush. Today many of the buildings have been converted into a hotel, bed and breakfast and condos.

In planning for today’s visit, I thought the fort would offer a great painting location. But upon arrival, I knew the constant mist would not play nicely with my watercolors. Instead, I headed ashore early while rain wasn’t actually falling to take photographs for reference once I was back on the ship.

This is where my plan fell apart. By the time I had walked the few blocks up the rather steep hill to the fort, I realized I had forgotten my smartphone with its camera. There was no way I could imprint on my memory the details for later recall. I headed back down the hill to the ship to retrieve it, but by then a light rain was falling. My Plan B was to search online for images of the fort to use for reference. Instead, I implemented Plan C – painting the scene from the windows of the Lido deck. That made for an enjoyable afternoon.

We have one more Alaskan port — Dutch Harbor, which sits in the Aleutian Islands that stretch toward Asia. Then off to Japan and the 13 ports we will visit. I fell in love with Japan on Holland America’s 2017 Grand Asia cruise – my first visit to Asia — and have returned twice before. This cruise attracted me because it will provide more than just four or five stops.

Six of the Japanese ports are new to me, including Nagasaki and Hiroshima. In both ports I booked excursions to the memorials to the atomic bombs dropped on these cities. Otherwise, I hope to explore on my own, leaving me with time to paint in each port. It is requiring more planning than I thought, searching online for potential picturesque locations and how to get to each of them. On previous Japanese trips I’ve found enough English signage to get around, but I will pay close attention to upcoming port talks for more background.

I’ve settled into my cabin, finding a place for everything. I’ll track our journey around Japan with a small wall map. Unlike its sister ship the Zuiderdam, the Westerdam’s cabin walls are magnetic, so I’ve hung hats and bags. I even put up a clothesline with tiny clothespins to display my paintings.

After Dutch Harbor, we will have five sea days before reaching Japan and another 10 between Japan and Hawaii. I see a few new titles have joined the list of about 100 movies available to watch on the cabin television, so I marked a few as favorites to see during those long stretches at sea.

I’ve started reading the next book for my high-school alumni book club – Agent Josephine about Josephine Baker’s little-known role working with the French Resistance during World War II.

I doubt I will be bored.