After our jaunt to the post office, we crossed the street and caught the city bus, The Ride, blue line out to the Fortress of the Bears. We let the driver know where we were going and purchased day passes. Adults 18-59 day pass is $5 and 60+ or 17- are $3. If you are a senior it is cheaper to buy the day pass than paying $2 per ride. The Ride was a great and inexpensive way to get around Sitka. Keep in mind that the blue line picks up at the tourist spots every 60 minutes. Not a lot of cruisers take the city bus.
When we got off the blue line bus, we walked around the bend maybe 200 yards to the entrance of The Fortress of the Bears. There are 6 bears, 4 Brown and 2 Black in the three enclosures. The bears are fascinating to watch and the volunteers provided a bunch of information. If you are not part of a tour group, then go into the “Admission and Gift Shop” to purchase your tickets for $10 each.
If you are adding this up in your head, for 2 people we have spent $30 to see the bears. Oh, and an hour was plenty of time to walk to the entrance, pay, see the bears, use the restrooms, buy a hat & magnet, and walk back to the bus stop with 15 minutes to spare. If we had not gone to the post office we would have done the raptor center or the Sitka National Heritage Park. But since we running a little behind schedule, we decided to take the bus back to town and have lunch.
Across the street from the shuttle and bus drop off is a great restaurant. The Bayview Pub is on the 2nd floor and actually has a nice view of the small boat harbor. There are a bunch of Alaska beers, but I settled on the Spruce Tip Ale from Baranof Brewery in Sitka. Spruce tip beers are very unique and quite tasty. I had the Fried Calamari appetizer with French Fries for lunch. The calamari was soft and yummy with a nice light batter. It comes with either tartar sauce or a sriracha aioli. I highly recommend the aioli and ask for extra for the fries.
After lunch we headed back to the ship with one last stop at the shops at the pier. I picked up a few more pairs of Alaskan made socks (check the labels and make sure you are buying items made in Alaska and not China). At the crab restaurant I was allowed to pick up one of the Dungeness Crabs from the tank. Of course Walt took pictures. The crab’s pinchers were huge, but the young man working there showed me how to pick it up correctly. I was surprised at how many people were scared to pick one up. You only live once and it cost nothing, so pick up a crab and have an adventure.
Note: Baranof Brewery’s website states that they open at 2pm. We found out from our fellow cruisers that they open at 11am in the summer. I recommend calling the breweries with hours that do not work with your port time to verify their hours. We had wanted to go to the brewery, but with it being an hour away from the shuttle stop and the last shuttle being at 3pm, it logistically did not seem possible. There is a bus stop on the blue line near the raptor center…not far from the brewery or the main post office.