Today things kicked into high gear. I was up at 5:00am, just itching to see and do everything. As mentioned previously, we did cancel our catamaran tour of Tracy Arm. But we weren't disapointed with what the view from the ship gave us.
I had heard that humpback sightings are common as the ship approaches Tracy Arm quite early in the morning. Being a morning person, and adding the 3 hour time difference to the mix, I was ready and at the rail by 5:30am. Sure enough, the whales put on quite a show. They primarily hugged the shorline, but I could make them out without the binoculars, even seeing a breach. In total, we probably saw a dozen individual humpback whales before entering Tracy Arm.
It was at this time that we also began to see icebergs. The vivid blue color of the ice is beyond words.
Arriving at Tracy Arm, the landscape quickly became the focus. The path carved by glaciers in this area left sheer cliffs as high as 4000 feet in some spots, which was the perfect backdrop for several waterfalls.
But the highlight this morning was a small pod of 3 orcas off in the distance. Little did we know at that time, this particular sighting would be miniscule compared to what awaited us in Juneau.
The Zuiderdam docked in Juneau around 2:30pm. It's no secret that Alaska summers are known to be wet & cool. But today the sun was shining, and temps were in the mid 60's. Eileen, Dave, Kevin, Sarah, Alex and I went on a combo whale watch and Mendenhall Glacier tour. The whale watch was the first part, and saying it was incredible does not suffice.
We saw several humpbacks, including a sow with her calf. After viewing each of those for a few minutes, we continued on. Then seemingly out of nowhere, a large pod of about 7 orcas surfaced. The captain stayed within view of them for at least 30 minutes, and they really put on a show for us. (Today I took almost 700 photos, and Alex shot tons of video.) Eventually we had to leave because Alaska has strict rules, not only about the time spent near individual whales, but also the distance as well. On our way back to land, we passed a humpback who was breaching repeatedly. Already late due to staying with the Orcas for so long, we whizzed by, but I was able to get a couple of photos from a distance.
Back on land, we reboarded our bus and headed towards Mendenhall Glacier. The bus, by the way, was used for public transportation in San Francisco in the 1960's (JIMMY!). It was surreal, to see how the glacier has changed since 2002. I thought the changes would be more subtle, so I was surprised. Alex, Kevin, Sarah and I found the needed answer to claim a find for a geocache located here. The kids were ablet to touch the ice, and according to Kevin "IT'S COLD!". Eileen took a photo of us in the same spot as 8 years ago, and we had fun watching the barn swallows swoop all around us from the eaves of the shelter.
Given the times we were in port (2:30pm-10:30pm), we missed our regular dinner seating in the dining room this evening. Alex and I had prearranged to have our dinner delivered around the time we reboarded the ship. It didn't arrive. We waited, and yet it still didn't arrive. After a couple phone calls, we were able to track it down and eat before we crashed for some much needed sleep.
Moe
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