Compared to Ketchikan, our port time in Juneau was quite long (8 am to 9 pm). Juneau is the capital of Alaska but interestingly enough can only be reached by plane or boat...there are no roads leading into the city. Size-wise, the city is the second largest in the United States with an area close to the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. With a population of a little over 32,000, it just barely beats out Fairbanks for the title of second largest city in Alaska.
Because of the extended port times, we had a busy and quite full day planned. Part I of our day was a whale watching cruise that I had booked online with a highly rated company called Harv and Marv's…Part II took us to Mendenhall Glacier and Part III had us exploring the area around Juneau via rental car.
After the ship docked at 8 am, we had instructions to meet up with the representative from Harv and Marv’s on the dock at 8:20. We found him right away and were told they were looking for the rest of the group so we should wait on a nearby bench. Luckily the bench was under a covered area because it was drizzling rain.
At 8:40 we were still waiting when Kent and Laurel got off the ship to meet their morning tour…a helicopter flight over a glacier. Eventually everyone showed up and we were divided up into vans for the ride to the marina where we would begin our tour.
The ride took about 20 minutes or so and gave us a chance to see a little bit of Juneau. Our driver pointed out some of the sights including an area where eagles congregate, a glimpse of Mendenhall Glacier…and oh yeah…the Walmart.
Once at the marina, Captain Liz quickly found the six who were in our group and we headed to the small boat. Right away, Bob and I pulled on our rain pants as the boat sailed into the rainy and foggy Auke Bay. Having our rain gear and waterproof binoculars was a blessing and allowed us to spend time outside the boat watching for whales.
There were other whale watching tour boats in the area and they would radio each other whenever whales were spotted. Seeing how crowded some of these other boats were made me realize why Harv 'n Marv get such good reviews...our boat only carried six passengers.
The first sign of a whale was the spout and we would see the whale blow several times. Next would be the arched back…and finally the tail as he dove down into the water. Liz would start timing at that point and knew the whale would resurface again in 5 to 8 minutes. Sometimes it would be in the same general area…other times it had swam quite a distance before coming to the surface.
Each whale has unique markings on its tail which you can see on this photo. A poster was hanging inside the boat with photos of dozens of different tails from whales in the area. The boat captains used this to help identify the whales.
I'm not sure why I didn't take a video of the whales. Instead I just kept trying to get the perfect whale tail photo...but without much luck. My timing was "off" so that I ended up with pictures of many backs...but not too many tails.
As we were zipping back and forth across the bay looking for whales, we ran across a sea lion having a little lunch.
I had my camera set on the "burst" mode to take a rapid series of photos and was surprised that when I uploaded the pictures to Google+, these photos became animated! (This was NOT a video...just a series of photographs!)
The sea gulls seemed to be harassing the sea lion and at one point one landed right above him and the bird stuck his beak down into the water.
From looking at the photos closely I’m pretty sure that the gull must have stolen what was left of the fish right out of the sea lion's mouth!
The sea lion popped up and seemed to be yelling…”give me back my fish!!”
A buoy in the middle of Auke Bay was a popular spot for some other sea lions. So popular in fact that there was a bit of a disagreement going on over who was going to get a piece of this prime real estate.
The very vocal argument went on at length and while we were enjoying the drama, an eagle swooped in!
Eventually everyone settled down and agreed to share and play nice.
I had high expectations for our whale watching tour. Despite the fact that it was a soggy morning..and...we did not get a chance to see any whales bubble-net feeding or breaching I still considered the morning a success. And the best part...there was still much of our day left!
Coming up...Part II...hiking at Mendenhall Glacier!
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