KMXT 100.1 FM Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska
The Alaska Marine Highway System Ferry Tustumena at Pier 1 in Kodiak. Photo courtesy Kodiak Island Convention and Visitors Bureau
There will be a period of almost six weeks this winter when Kodiak will not get any ferry service. The ferry Tustumena will be off-line for almost two months and the Kennicott will be needed elsewhere for much of that time.
The Tusty’s last visit before the maintenance will be Saturday, October 16th. It will return on Saturday, December 11th. The Kennicott will serve the Kodiak-Homer run until Tuesday, November 2nd. Then there will be no ferry service until December 11th.
Operations manager for the Alaska Marine Highway System, Chuck Van Kirk in Ketchikan, explains.
The ferry schedule is available here .
— (Ferry 1 39 sec "Well the reason this … October-November window.")
The Kennicott is the only other ocean-certified ferry in the Alaska Marine Highway fleet, and therefore is the only other ship capable of serving Kodiak, but it’s needed to fill in on other ferry runs in Southeast while the Tusty is in dry dock.
— (Ferry 2 34 sec "The Taku is going … the service of the Tustumena.")
Van Kirk says he understands how important ferry service is to Kodiak, but says the scheduling conflict couldn’t be avoided:
— (Ferry 3 40 sec "It’s a difficult situation and … our dates a little bit better.")
The shaft work on the Tustumena will be done at either the shipyard in Ketchikan or Seward, the only two in the state capable of taking ships as big as the Tusty out of the water.
(Read only after story is posted) You can find a link to the ferry schedule on our web site, KMXT dot org.
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