Juneau (Mon, Aug 20)

Another lovely sunrise and a blue-sky day. I had been watching the weather forecast and it had changed from rain to partly cloudy. In fact, the weather was awesome! It was cool but not cold, sunny but with a few clouds in the sky for interest. We were so fortunate!

I had signed up for two excursions on this trip, and today was “the big one” — Whale Watching and Mendenhall Glacier Photo Safari. I figured this would allow some time for picture taking so I wouldn’t be left behind very often. 🙂

The ship docked in Juneau about 1 PM and the meet-up for the excursion wasn’t until 2:30, so I had some time to walk around the touristy area near the pier. On the pier are some cool whale-tail sculptures and I couldn’t resist getting a shot of one.

I got and mailed a couple of postcards, looked in some shops, got an ice cream cone and headed back to the meet-up point. There turned out to be 10 of us, and we headed out on time with our wonderful guide Kasey. She’s a photographer herself so was able to give everyone hints about camera settings and photo angles. She also gave us great info about the area.

First up was “The Trail of Time.” It’s called this because there are markers along the trail showing where the glacier was at certain years, starting with 1916. It’s retreated a long way! I got a couple of forest pics, then we came to the glacier viewpoint. This is a really impressive sight. For scale, I got a picture of the glacier, then a picture showing the right side of the glacier and a waterfall, then a close-up of the waterfall where you can see the people standing at its base. Whew!

I got another picture of the glacier from a lower viewpoint, then we were off to the boat for whale-watching. Saw a couple of eagles overlooking the marina.

Once on the boat with Captain Jen, we were off in search of humpback whales! On the way, we found some sea lions lounging on a buoy. They were not at all intimidated by us as we went by…I’m guessing they’ve seen a lot of tourist boats.

Kasey gave us good info about whale behavior that would explain what we would see. Whales are here this time of year to feed, which they do on deep dives. They come to the surface to blow (breathe) several times at couple of minute intervals. Once they’re ready to dive, they arch their backs (thus the name humpback) and head down, flipping their tales above the water. So we watched for the blows, and the back arches, and got ready to take whale-tail pictures.

And I got some good ones! (Courtney, these are for you!) Kasey recommended setting the camera on high-speed continuous shooting, so I got a LOT of pictures. I chose only a few. I hope they’re as exciting to look at as they were to take. The scenery was gorgeous, the weather perfect, and we found whales. Wonderful!

And after dinner, my “pet” for the night was a lobster. Cool!

Tomorrow, Glacier Bay!