"I knew we had hit a rock," said the 44-year-old Sitka man.*"It felt like a sandbar at first, then I knew it was a rock. Everyone jolted forward."

After that, many went into a*"panic mode," he said. "Everyone was running for their families." Gamble said he, too, hurried to find his family, but otherwise remained relatively calm until he heard a radio transmission from a nearby crew member reporting the boat was taking on water down below.

"Then I was thinking, Titanic," he said. "I was thinking about sinking. ... I knew I had to stay calm."

Gamble was one of 56 LeConte passengers who arrived in Sitka at 5 p.m. Monday at Crescent Harbor on the St. Tatiana, one of the Allen Marine Tours catamarans. A second vessel, the St. Eugene, arrived with the remaining passengers two hours later.

Pam James, 48, of Angoon, and Barry Lestinkof, 40, of St. George, said they were on the stern deck, leaning on the rail and watching the scenery, when the ship struck ground.

James was looking down at the water at the time, when she felt a hard jolt, knocking her side hard against the rail.* "I thought I was going over," she said.

Lestinkof said he was paying attention to the route, and had become concerned when the ferry passed close to an AML tug and barge approaching from the opposite direction.

"It looked like we were going to hit the barge," said Lestinkof. "We never slowed down, (the ferry) kept on going, and we ran up on the ground. It stopped us awful quick."

SueAnn Sexton-Hill, 34, of Sitka, said she became nervous when she saw how close the ferry was coming to the barge.

"When we were going toward the place we were going, I was thinking, 'Whoa, that's scary,"' Sexton-Hill said. "We passed an Alaska Marine Lines barge, which we came very close to."

When the ship stopped, she thought it had struck a sandbar. She said she was knocked to the ground, but was uninjured. She said her three children, Gabriel, 10, Shiloh, 9, and Samantha, 9, handled the ordeal well.

Before giving the signal to abandon ship, the crew made sure all passengers had their lifejackets on, and performed a number of head counts. Jeremiah Anderson, 30, of Whitefish, Mont., said the situation was fairly chaotic. He was particularly concerned at the time about his young children, Shanti, 4, and Soren, 2, who had problems with the fit of the bulky children's lifejackets.

"They need to address that," Anderson said of the marine highway system.

Bob Doll, a former ferry skipper and DOT official who is now director of the citizens group Better Ferries for Alaska, said the incident is "unfortunate."

"But the fact remains, compared to all modes of travel, ferries are still the safest way to travel in Alaska," he said.

The Daily Sitka Sentinel