WHITTIER

 Whittier is the deep water port for Anchorage to which it connects by a tunnel built by the Army Corps of Engineers. It's a very small town of around 250 persons who mostly live in the same apartment block.

You can see my trophy fish. Whittier closes down on 15 Sept but reopened for our visit, the last cruise ship of the season. Trains stopped running on the 15th. There was a big army base here from the 30's up to end of the cold war - firstly to combat the Japanese who invaded the Aleutian Islands off the tip of Alaska and then the Russians who are just across the Bering Sea. There were some big battles in WW2 to take the Aleutian's back.

The weather's not great we have some typhoons in the area some of which caused damage in Taiwan, China & Vietnam. Typhoon Halong a category 4,  is just approaching Japan and is due to turn towards us in the next 3 or 4 days. We already have high winds & big seas, you can't go on deck and the ship is crashing & bashing.

We are crossing the international Dateline tomorrow. At the moment we are 12 hours behind you, tomorrow we will be 12 hours ahead of you. I think there are 6 or 7 people with birthdays on the 8th and we are going straight from the 7th to the 9th - hey ho, not another year older.

Linda's off at the laundry.