Whales!

 Whales!
September 11, 2010


Today started early. We picked up the shuttle at 7:00. This hotel is actually in Mendenhall which is outside of Juneau by about 14 miles. Once we got in town, we boarded a small ship called 'Adventure Bound' to tour 'Tracy Arm'  45 miles away. Tracy Arm is a 32 mile long fjord that is known for its glaciers and has the largest ice bergs in Alaska. The trip to the fjord was cold so we all stayed inside but the scenery was breathtaking. Everywhere you looked and everywhere you went was different and spectacular.

We found a pod of Humpback Whales along here and stayed to take pictures and have a once-in-a-lifetime experience. These whales were all around us feeding. They would come up, blow, and sink down again. You would only see them blow, their back and dorsal fin. Occasionally they would dive and then you could see their tails. Everyone wanted to see tails! We stayed there a long time. Even people on the boat who had been whale watching in other places said this was the best they had ever seen. The whales make you seem so small. so insignificant. In the photo, make sure you look at the background too - awesome.

Do you see all the fogs and clouds? Some of the time we were totally fogged in. Couldn't see a thing! But , as the captain said, we had bigger things to see and off we went to Tracy Arm.Once we got to the fjord the scenery changed again. It wasn't foggy any more for one thing! As stated before, the fjord is 32 miles long. The scenery was different again. We did stop for waterfalls - beautiful!

Eventually we made it to the end of Tracy Arm. This was South Sawyer Glacier. It was beautiful! There was a colony of harbor seals floating on the ice chunks. They were all very laid back but didn't really want us to get too close. We were able to watch the glacier calve before we left to go to it's twin glacier, Sawyer (no south).

The wave was incredible. It rocked the ship but the seals never batted an eye. We checked the temperature on the boat - it was 48 degrees. I'm not sure what the wind chill was though when we were on the go! Everyone  adored the seals. We got quite close to these two. Can really see the speckles on them. I was surprised at how much variation there was amongst the group. don't you just want to reach out and cuddle?

Many, many pictures of seals, glaciers, whales and scenery. When we got to Juneau, we ate salmon at 'The Twisted Fish'. It was wonderful! Then we took a city bus back to the hotel. Quite a taste of Juneau!