August 17, 2013
Juneau – whale watching, the Mendenhall Glacier

At this point I started having trouble keeping up with writing and photos because every day we were too busy doing things and taking more photos!

We woke up in Juneau, which looked like a busy city compared to Skagway. Again, we woke up to rain and fog. Would our luck hold for another day? Would it clear up or were we going to spend the morning on a boat in the rain?

Again, we had no trouble finding our tour and soon we were on the bus heading for the boat. It was a nice drive and we were able to see a lot of Juneau on the way. We could stay indoors on the boat if it was raining, but again it seemed that luck was turning in our direction and the weather was clearing up. By the time we got to the dock the rain had stopped and bits of blue were starting to show in the sky.

We were seated behind the boat captain (Ally and Derrick on the Raven – so I can remember and write a note on Trip Advisor) and we could hear him talking on the radio to other boat captains who were reporting the locations of whales. Clearing skies, whales in the area, things were looking good!

We stopped near some other boats, and there were whales everywhere! First we spotted a mother and calf. Then we spotted some other adults. I think altogether there must have been close to a dozen whales! It was amazing. We would be watching for one to resurface, and we’d hear another blow on the other side. Or, we’d see a group of two or three coming up together, while a few more were blowing farther out. Sometimes it was hard to figure out what direction to look because they were all around us! At one point, a whale surfaced right behind another tour boat. Those folks must have been so excited.

Watching the whales was such an amazing experience that I hated to leave, but we had the glacier waiting for us. This is the same glacier we had seen on Thursday, but today we were going to see if from land.

The glacier was also amazing. It was made of compacted snow that had fallen hundreds and thousands of years ago! What a thing to be so near such an enormous force of nature. This whole area is full of glaciers but most of them are high in the mountains. We were told that in centuries past there were many more glaciers that carved the earth into the huge mountains and valleys that it is today, and some volcanoes also forced lava up through the ice to make some mountain peaks.

We returned to the ship about 1:30 PM which was good so we could catch our breath a bit in the afternoon. We went to the deck to watch the boat leave port which I always find interesting, and then I settled at a table on an upper deck to watch the scenery and do some work on the computer.

The day wasn’t over yet though! We were going through the same water where we first saw the whales on Thursday. The naturalist announced she was going to keep an eye out and let us know if we passed any whales. Sure enough, first there were a small group of them on the starboard side, and a short time later there were more on the port side. Then, she announced there was a whale being very active on the surface, and as we came closer we could see it leaping out of the water and breaching over and over! Wow, that was totally exciting and I was really glad that I saw it and also caught a couple shots with my camera.

This was all the excitement we could handle for one day. We got some dinner and watched the views roll by the windows until it was too dark to see, and then we went back to our room and turned in for the night. We were tired and had an early morning coming, and Joel was coming down with a cold and feeling under the weather. Hopefully he’ll get a good night’s sleep and he’ll feel better in the morning.

By the time we arrived at the dock it was turning out to be a really beautiful day.

WHALES!!

An eagle in a nearby tree.

A mom and baby whale!

Mom and baby again

A glacier in the nearby mountains.

There was a group feeding together. Here I see two backs, a tail, and maybe a fin?

The group again

The people in that boat must have been excited

A gorgeous day, and we didn’t know this was only part of our whale watching for today.

We headed back to the marina where this big yacht was parked. The guys were cleaning it barefoot because the owner didn’t want footprints on his boat (according to our boat crew).

Next we head to the Mendenhall Glacier. Mama bear had been fishing in the salmon stream, and one of her babies was still asleep in the tree over the parking lot. (that black clump is a baby bear in a tree)

We were told that this type of salmon is called “Christmas salmon” because when it’s spawning time they take on these red and green colors. There were many of them swimming upstream here, and the water was perfectly clear so it was easy to see them.

Again, do not feed the bears, not even by accident.

An Alaskan bee!

The glacier kept the whole valley cooler – natural air conditioning (quite unnecessary in our opinion. It was quite cool enough even in the sun)

Kayakers paddle to the glacier for a closer look.

The view from the visitors center. Note the lake area part way out to the waterfall.

We saw something in the water and thought it might be the ducks we had seen enter the water a minute earlier.

When the picture is enlarged, that is not a bunch of ducks! It had better not be a bear because it’s headed towards the path that goes to the waterfall. It’s probably a beaver, but who knows for sure?

Joel checking out the 200 year old piece of ice. It was as clear and pure looking as glass.

Some people hiked to the base of the waterfall.

Time to head back to the ship. It was lightly raining again and everything was wet, but still pretty with buckets of flowers everywhere. the cables ahead are for cable cars that take you to the top of the mountain.

The ship pulls away from the dock – sideways!

Another beautiful hazy gray afternoon in the rain.

The sun came out just enough to make this huge rainbow for a few minutes. The photo definitely does not do it justice. It was a full arch across the sky and the colors were intense.

The naturalist announced that a whale was on the port side doing a lot of “surface activity”

The whale was breaching and splashing repeatedly and putting on quite a show!

It was something to watch with a bunch of other very excited people on deck!

I was so excited when I checked my photos and saw that I can captured a bit of the action!

Shortly after another whale was spotted on the starboard side rolling around and slapping the water with its fins!

This one was farther away and it was hard to see exactly what was going on, but there was a lot of rolling around and activity on the surface.

Eventually quiet returned to the seas as dusk fell and this fishing boat made its way in the distance.