The ship ploughed on in rich gloom until about an hour out of Dutch Harbour when the skies cleared and awesome majesty loomed. Cragged cliffs, glacier gouged fjords, spouting whales and sea lions were all spotted before we came alongside. Dutch Harbour is actually only the name of the bay, made famous on a TV show about crab fishermen called The Deadliest Catch. The town itself is called  Unalaska on the island of Amaknak. Can’t wait to explore tomorrow, fortunately no zodiacs involved it’s all shuttle buses.

After a quiet night alongside the pier in Dutch Harbour we were able to take a shuttle bus into the “town” of Unalaska which meant we avoided the early rain. Our first stop was the Museum of the Aleutians which provided an insight into the early life of the residents with displays of fine basket work, using dried grass and water proof clothing made from whale intestines an early form of gortex. After purchasing the obligatory china puffin we walked to a nearby craft market via the Alaska Ship Supply (aka Bunnings) which turned out to be more fascinating than the craft market. Between the chrome tow balls for boat trailer were Remington 275 smokeless cartridges, anchor chains, deep freezers on special and bulk peanut butter. We found our pair of scissors and some greeting cards and avoided the chocolates and Jim Beam at the checkout.

We then took a walk through the fish processing area that makes this the most profitable port in America, our shuttle bus driver works as a “Crabber” for about 8 weeks each year and expects to make about $100000.00 in that time if he survives the storms. We then took the  shuttle on to the Old Russian  Orthodox church but for all its splendid bling it was out shone by the magnificent Bald Eagle perched imperiously on the cross atop the dome. A few metres away a small wooden foot bridged crossed a stream running through a gravel bed to the nearby ocean. There must have been thousands of visible salmon spawning and then dying stretching away as far as we could see. Perched on the bridge just out of arm reach was the fullest juvenile bald eagle you have ever seen, he was that stuffed with salmon he could not even be bothered flying away. We made it back to the ship in time for lunch and then  incomplete sympathy with an over fed eagle went to a lecture on the volcanos we will see as we sail further up the island chain and then a few dozen humpback whales as we left harbour.

Next stop Unga 52.457N 168.21W