Today we headed down stream on the
Fyordland catamaran with 50 other people for some whale watching, sightseeing,
a tour of the state capital Juneau and Mendenhall glacier. The weather in the morning was cold and rainy
but the enclosed catamaran conditions were very pleasant. There was a big deck on the back for viewing
and picture taking. During the 4 hours
it took to get to Juneau, we saw several bald eagles, seals, sea lions, humpback
whales and glaciers.
these are sea lions |
| Bull Sea lion. |
Nu
Nursing calf sea lion
When we arrived at the first dock a miss
communication found us with no bus to town. So we were
able to travel another 40 minutes by boat to Juneau to get hooked up. Made it more of an Alaskan trip by boat. Our deck hand, Libby, was a high school senior
and very much involved in sports. A
Class 2-A school in Haines, they many times travel by ferry to compete with
other schools. Wonder what our kids would
think of that? Not a short trip by bus
at all!!!
Once on the bus, we were drop off in
Juneau for some self directed touring. By the time we arrived in Juneau the
weather was beautiful nearly 80. We had
lunch at the Hangar Restaurant. It was the first airport in Juneau. Sea planes that is. We watch several sea
planes taking tourist up the see the Mendenhall Glacier. It was quite an interesting operation. The cruise ships that were in Skagway on
Monday, were in Juneau on Tuesday.
Thought we had pics, but you'll have to look at Don's blog for those, I guess.
We loaded on the bus and went to the
Mendenhall glacier. There were lots of
people there. We had been to the glacier back in 2009 on a cruise. It was good
to see the old gal again. I had forgotten about the big waterfalls adjacent to
the glacier. We spend about 1 hour there
and admired the beauty. When you visit the visitors center and see the overview
of the glacier you realize that there a several other glaciers that make up
this grouping. (I wondered where all that water came from) actually Mendenhall
is one of the smallest visible glaciers.
The trip back to Skagway turned out to
be nearly as smooth as glass. It didn’t start that way, the boat captain (Not
Captain Bob) told us that he had been doing this trip for 13 years and only 4 times
had he encountered north winds. Well folks, this was his 5th. He instructed us to sit down, tighten your
seat belts, put your head between your legs and kiss your ( you know what) good
by (not really but it sounded good didn’t it?). It started out rough with waves breaking over
the bow. This was exciting! After a
short while, we pulled into a cove where the salmon boats were all tied up
waiting for the winds to calm down. They were forecasting 35 mph and 4 to 6 ft
seas. Did we stop and tie up with them? Oh no, we pressed on. But you know what, after
we left the cove the water laid down. We
saw several humpback whales of the way back. Even stopped and turned off the engine on the
boat to listen to a magnificent waterfall. It was spectacular.
A quick picture taking session on the back the deck. It was a long day. We departed at 8 am and returned about 8:30 pm. Our RVs are parked right next to the port, so it was a short walk back..
No comments:
Post a Comment