The M/V Chester B... our home for a week. This 50 foot long and
18 foot wide ship is as fine a vessel as you will find anywhere in Alaska.
Unfortunately, it doesn't hold 2000 passengers.

Oh wait, that may not be a problem. It certainly was not for us.
This ranks in the top five vacations of life.

Buck.

Nothing else to say except Buck does not like snoring... long story.

Buck kept us safe from whales, dolphins, elephants and most other threats.
No need for a gun with Buck around. He has good balance, too.

Capt. Kent, Rachel and Buck.
They work together to put on a great show.
They are really easy to live with.
"Book 'em, Danno..." you'll never regret it.

I wish I had a photo of him when we picked up the pod of dolphins crossing Fredricks Sound. He went crazy and we thought he was going
to jump into the water.

Capt. Kent is the consummate host. He knows where all the fish are buried.
He could probably find Jimmy Hoffa. He is also the very image of laconic.
(Click to see definition)

Looks, however, can be deceiving. Just ask Perry about the eagle story... "achoobullshit".

Every morning and evening Buck would jump in the skiff for a ride to the beach. He has the bladder capacity of a super tanker. I would watch him drink gallons of water and hold it until the morning.

Wish I could do that with beer.

Meal times were community activities.
Except for the night we killed the vodka, it was pretty tame...
good food, conversation and fun.

Perry brought great wine and the rest of us whined a lot. 

At the beginning of the voyage, Capt. Kent and Rachel gave us the tour.
Not much to see on the Chester B. Once you've seen the stateroom, galley (don't touch the stove) and marine head (probably not what you think)
there is just relaxing and leave the cooking and driving to us!  

Charts are just fancy maps but they are really, really fancy maps. The map of our trip is the same one Capt. Kent is looking at. Mine has pink ink on it. Capt. Kent is too much of a man to use pink ink. 

Here we are learning how to use a marine head.
It resembles a toilet but the resemblance ends there.
No, it's not brain surgery but it is close.
By the end of the trip you have it pretty well figured out.

This is either a life ring or the marine equivalent of a lawn sign.

We never had life rings at our house although we did have a lawn jockey once, until the 1964 Civil Rights act passed and he hopped on his horse and moved on.

She has a great cookbook. Buy it for the art. No matter how good you think you are, you will never cook as well as she does. 

God loves a happy cook. We do too!

Rachel could cook dirt and make it taste great.
Unfortunately, she cannot cook less filling.
I gained about 10 lbs in a week.
It was her fault. She made me eat.
Really! I'm not kidding. She's worse than my mom!

This is both a photo of the salon and a photo of Maria and Perry
before the start of the pocket grope.

(See the MG and Perry page)

Food, glorious food... what else could you ask for?
We ate really well. Rachel cannot cook anything that DJ and Maria
could not eat. Those who know them will understand.

Thank goodness that I brought my own Cheetos.
(Marie ate a whole bag and deprived me.)

One reason I like Rachel Barth is that she just hops into a kayak
and disappears. She doesn't get lost.
(neither do I, regardless of what Diana tells you)
She just takes a little row and we pick her up in open water.

If we're lucky, she picks berries and makes muffins.

I stole this photo from Capt. Kent's website.

Click here to go to it.