— by Ed Sutton —
Un-Cruise Adventures brings small cruise ships to East Sound on Wednesdays through the Fall. Photo: Lin McNulty
Did anyone notice that a cruise ship was in East Sound on Wednesday afternoon? No, really!
It was anchored just off Indian Island. From a distance, it looked to be a paddle-wheel vessel like one might see on the Mississippi River.
So, it comes to be that a local cruise line “Un-Cruise Adventures,” moored at Fisherman’s Terminal in Seattle does, in fact, have a fleet of modest-sized cruise ships that travel to Alaska in the summer. And, this is the second year that the company is having cruises into the Salish Sea on Wednesdays during the Fall. The vessel in East Sound had left 60 passengers at Rosario earlier on Wednesday who then went to the top of Mt. Constitution, and returned to Eastsound in the later afternoon to rejoin the ship.
According to the Captain who was on-shore at the public dock near the Odd Fellows Hall, the company offers weekly trips in different areas of the northwest including up the Columbia River to the Canadian border. Each vessel has 30 staterooms and a dining room. The rear of the ship has twenty kayaks stored on racks which are available to the guests for forays onto the Salish Sea.
Un-Cruise Adventures’ fleet of eight vessels travel to such diverse area as Hawaii and the Galapogas Islands. Their tours tend to emphasize outdoor activities like kayaking and hiking.
The ships will return to East Sound on Wednesdays through October.
Thanks for finding out what this was all about. We were wondering.
It’s pretty neat to see this un-cruise company bring folks up through the Pugest Sound and check out the islands from an unconventional perspective. They’ve been having these small tours through this area for a little over a year now and they’re all wonderful people from different parts of the country.
It’s also great that they’re utilizing the community dock too!