Ketchikan Port & Harbor Department — Local services in Ketchikan

The facilities are pretty good, but the availability of slips for larger boats is not good. And the waitlist system is terrible. They charge a $150 application fee for each small section of the harbor you want to wait for, and then surprise, they charge you another $50 for each section every six months to remain on the waitlist. I am pretty sure that charge was not listed among fees when we first applied 8 months ago. Furthermore, in the winter, if you want to have a more protected space that is temporarily unoccupied by folks who took their boats elsewhere, then you have to pay an additional $50 to be put on the list to wait for one of those spaces. The amounts here are not necessarily my complaint, it’s that these waitlist fees were not publicly documented anywhere to read in advance. We were basically just told about them as we were expected to pay for them. Another small complaint is that bathroom facilities are only available at the harbormaster office and the hours are limited. This can be problematic if for some reason your heads aren’t working properly for a period of time, or your tanks are full and your engines aren’t working well enough to move you to a pump out station. Perhaps some boats have systems where you don’t have to worry about that, but I suspect that not having bathrooms be available 24/7 may promote some illegal dumping. Otherwise though, besides these few policy complaints, the staff is friendly and helpful, and the facilities are...

Very busy marina, with a lot of fishing traffic. We were at float 8, slip 6 and it had a very narrow dock. Potable water was easily available, as well as electric. The smaller the slip number, the closer you were to shore. This marina is close to Safeway, True Value Hardware and several banks. There is also a Landry facility (separate from the marina) within walking distance which is reasonable (washers $6/load, Dryers $0.25/3 mins). The one real drawback is the restroom/showers. Not sure about the woman's, but the men's has one shower ($2/8 mins). Worse is that there is no code to gain access to the restroom (which also contains the shower), so anyone in town could use it. We were there two nites...one evening the shower was fine, but the second evening the shower had dirty socks (they were there all day) and half eaten food on the floor). The shower was nice and warm with a decent spray. But not having some sort of security on the door is an issue. Note that the door to the shower has a lock, but not the main door leading to the...

Ketchikan is always a fun place to visit with so much to see and do. Wildfire spotting of whales, seals, bears and deer. Kayak, hike delicious fresh seafood or fishing excursions. And my last stop is always the Sourdough Bar for a beer, baseball score update on the TV and write a couple of postcards! I highly reccomend...