Day Four in Alaska

Monday, August 04, 2008
Day Four

Today we experienced Juneau, Alaska. We got up early, around 7am and went to find breakfast. The dining rooms were closed, so we had to go to the buffet for breakfast. I REALLY don’t like it there. The food just isn’t the quality that we get in the dining rooms. Oh well, it was all we could get at the time.

After breakfast, we just hung out and watched Ratatouille as we waited to disembark the ship to go into Juneau. We rubbed our eyes and emerged sleepily to hunt for lunch. Finally, we found lunch at the grill on the top deck. I had pizza and fries…yummm…Tim had his cheeseburger that he has craved.

It was finally time to get off the ship and head to our whale watching with Captain Larry! What a treat! After a short ride to the pier, we got on his purple boat (I wish I had taken a picture!) and headed out to the whales in Lynn Fjord, the deepest and longest fjord in the world! On the way, we saw this amazing lighthouse. The guide, Sean, said that the lighthouse was privately owned, and the owners planned on turning it into a bed and breakfast. How cool would it be to stay there??? Partway through, someone on the boat said that they spotted a whale. Captain Larry got on the microphone and said, “Do you want to see one or two whales or go the Captain Larry way?” That shut us all up because we knew he was an expert at finding whales. Little did we know what a treat he had in store for us! A fisherman radioed Captain Larry to tell him that a pod of whales was bubble netting. That means they go in a circle, blowing bubbles, causing the krill to go to the surface. When they have enough trapped, they all rise to the surface, mouths open, all at once. When we arrived to the area, they all rose to the surface in this way just minutes after our arrival. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing! We continued to watch the whales as they dove and showed us their tails, rolled on the surface, and breeched. Finally, they rose to the surface one more time to catch their food.
We had to move on. The lady who was on staff told us that you cannot hang around a whale more than 30 minutes in order to let them have their peace. The next whales that we saw were a mom and her baby. The momma breeched out of the water just as we were arriving in the area. The baby was energetic and did a few tricks for us before settling next to his mother and swimming in sync with her. My favorite moment watching them was when they both dove at the same time, and we saw their two whales (momma’s large one and baby’s little one) disappear into the water at the same time. Too sweet! There were also whales on the other side of the boat doing tricks.

During the tour, we also saw sea lions. A bunch of them were lounging around on one of the buoys. One was laying on his back and leaned up to say, “Hi,” and then flopped back down to sleep some more.

It was an extremely successful whale watching trip. We saw so many amazing things!

It was time to head over to Mendenhall Glacier. We were in for a treat! When we arrived, we looked out at the glacier. It was a mixture of blue, white, and clear ice. I had seen pictures of the glacier, but they didn’t do it justice by any means. It was gorgeous as it cascaded majestically down the valley of the mountains. Waterfalls gushed at its side and also several yards to the right. We hiked over to one of the waterfalls. At one point, the trail turned into an area of rock that we had to maneuver through. It was a challenge, but we felt even more triumphant when we finally reached the gushing water.

After taking several pictures, it was time to head back. We went back to the parking lot and found another trail that we were told had salmon spawning as well as a possibility of a bear sighting. Tim really wanted to see a bear. Although we saw the salmon swimming upstream (they were HUGE!), we did not see a bear. Poor Tim; maybe next time.

When we got back to the parking lot, our original shuttle had already left. We had planned for that though, and the driver said that we could pick up any shuttle by MGT or Alaskan Tours to get back to Juneau. We got on the first bus we saw, and it wasn’t the one we were supposed to catch. However, the driver kindly said we could tag along. We ended up on a bus with a ton of old people. It was a nice ride, and we soon ended up back at Juneau.

We tried to go to this one little place to eat called Tracy’s Crab Shack, a little shack that had stools around it. However, to our surprise, the prices were outrageous for food! We ended up at the Twisted Fish, and we really enjoyed our clam chowder and halibut burgers. Yum!

We bought some smoked salmon as gifts for friends and family and shopped around for a whale necklace that I wanted. The first store we went to had one for around 6o dollars. Eek! The next store had one for 13.95…wow! We thought he had said 30.95, and we were ready to buy it for that. However, it was the lower number.

Finally, we headed back to the ship. When we got back, we wanted some dessert, so we went to the dining room and asked if we could just get dessert. Sure! We enjoyed our desserts and the rest of the evening.

A great day in Juneau! I wonder what Skagway has in store for us?