June 24: Juneau Whale Watching

If it is possible, this evening's Whale Watching adventure was as spectacular or MORE so than this morning's visit to the Sawyer Glacier! Before I even start trying to describe the adventure of this evening let me tell you that it is impossible to recapture what we saw tonight either in video or still photographs. I think that maybe, MAYBE if we had been filming with a professional-grade high definition camera and IF you were watching on a jumbo HD screen you might come close to what we witnessed. But truly, it was an amazing experience! To quote the environmental narrator/guide who was on our excursion,  "....I am out of neurons! What you saw tonight has NEVER happened on this tour. In twenty five years of living here and watching whales I've NEVER seen all three of the special events occur in one outing. AND - the number of whales, and whale sightings you had tonight is easily more than the combined number of whales & whale sightings seen by the rest of these tours COMBINED for this past week! I don't know if you can appreciate how special tonight has been......" 

Juneau Whale Watching Highlight Video

The evening started off without much fanfare as we saw several boats circled around what seemed to be a whale site, and we even caught a glimpse of a dorsal fin. But our captain decided she'd take us further south to see smaller wildlife on Skull Island and then come back for a good look. We saw some seals and birds, but then came back near the many other boats. Before left port our bus driver had said how remarkable it had been that we did NOT have rain yesterday in Ketchikan - it rains EVERY day (over 15 feet per year!). And we had had a spectacular morning in Tracy Arm....but now clouds were gathering and there had been some light rain on the way to tonight's boat and while we were boarding.

There appeared to be clear skies in the direction we were going but heavy rain clouds were followign us. Well, when we stopped to look for the whales the first thing that happened when the first sighting of whales occurred was in the distance there was a spectacular show of lightning. Not such a big deal to us Floridians, but the narrator told us that she'd seen lightning here at best five times in her lifetime! WOW - she said, "it is most certainly going to be a special evening!" Within moments, nearly simultaneously a humpback whale breached (lept out of the water - yes, just like on the Prudential commercials!) and off to the side an amazing "bubble feeding" occured! The site of so many whales coming up at the same time AND the whale leaping out of the water was almost too much to comprehend. Luckily as you can see we captured in on film - though trust me, it just isn't the same as being less than 100 yards from this actually happening!  For the next several minutes we saw one "blow" after another followed by the hump back whale surfacing and then diving again leaving either it's dorsal fin and/or side fin to slowly slide back into the water.

At one point this "bubble feeding" occured several times RIGHT AROUND a smaller vessel, so much so you wondered if their boat was going to just be overcome with the activity, or if the whales would come up next right through the bottom of the boat. Our captain manuevered closer and shut down the engine. They dropped a sonar microphone and we could hear the whales communicating just before they surfaced oh-so-close to us in yet another bubble feeding frenzy. The photos we caught - especially Kim's clear photograph were pretty amazing as you can see. We stayed for some time after this, and while we had many more sightings, we didn't have any nearly as close. But it had been breath taking to not only see so many whales, but so many whales, so many times.....and especially the one sighting so close to us.  As we headed back to port the narrator / environmental guide reiterated just how spectacular an event we'd just been a part of. Dan talked to her personally and you could tell she was genuine - this kind of thing just DOESN'T HAPPEN! When we got back on board we were too late for dinner, but not too late to celebrate an AMAZING DAY with matching frozen mudslides!

June 24: Tracy Arm Fjord/Sawyer Glacier

This morning was billed as the "highlight of the cruise" by our Cruise Director, Patty. And it would be hard to surpass what we saw and experienced today. We had been told last night that the captain anticipated our arrival around 5:30 a.m. It was explained that we would go up the fjord and arrive near Sawyer Glacier around 7:45 so you could sleep in until that point, but we all thought......who would do that!???!!!! And we all agreed at the end of the morning that the trip up the fjord was at a slower pace, and with better scenery than the way back. I was up and out of bed by 5 am and Kim joined me around 5:30 to go upstairs to get two cups of coffee and bring it back to the cabin. For the first 45 minutes to maybe an hour we saw exceptional snow covered mountains, waterfalls, and valleys; very little ice - at least from what I had remembered from our first trip here (on our first Alaskan adventure).   But around 7 to 7:30 the on-air narrator, Brent - the naturalist who'd given the whale talk - made the announcement that ".....if you have family who are not up and on the balcony, you need to get them up now......" We rounded what was called "The Big Bend" and we could see alot more ice; then we went through the famous "S curves" which were two near-90 degree turns and we got our first glimpse of Sawyer Glacier. Even if you watch the video or see any of the nearly 150 photos I took (or 57 video sequences I shot) you cannot appreciate the spectacular vistas. Nor can you truly understand how the captain navigated this massive luxury liner through the water which was literally "invested" with large, massive chunks of ice.   When we were here the last time I recall being told there was too much ice to get close to the glacier, and it was still spectacular. But today we got "up close and personal!" Check out the pics......we also saw seals swimming around! And the near total silence of the fjord allowed us to hear the roar of the waterfalls as they tumbled into the fjord from the top of the mountains. Just an amazing day!

Tracy Arm Fjord Video Recap

June 23

Sunday June 23

Ketchikan: Wilderness Exploration & Crab Feast

What a wonderful adventure we had today! The scenery was amazing and the crab feast was ultra-delicious. And, as I told Sue & Dan as we were in line to board the ship after our adventure, "....as awesome as today was, I am betting that tomorrow morning's excursion into Tracy Arm Fjord to see the Sawyer Glacier will make today's scenery look ordinary....." But let's start at the beginning of the day. 

For some reason I woke up around 4:30 a.m. I looked out our balcony window and the sun was just beginning to creep over the tops of the mountains through the entry channel into Ketchikan, Alaska. I quickly grabbed my camera and clicked off a couple of photographs. I put the camera away and went back to bed. But barely before my head hit the pillow I could tell the lighting outside was changing as the sun came oh-so-close to coming over the top. So I grabbed my camera again, headed out onto the balcony and took some more pictures, and took a video. The colors in the clouds and on the mountains was really special! Again, I headed back to bead. But within minutes the sun had broken through and now it was truly a spectacular sight to behold. Yes, I got my camera and began snapping off images again! 

The best two of the collection are presented above. Obviously the 2nd picture is one of the later ones with the sun behind the clouds in the distance; and the bottom photograph is one of the earlier ones with the sun creating a beautiful pinkish hue in the sky.  I did finally get back into bed and was able to stay there until close to 7:15 am, though I was never completely out of it. We headed up to the cafe on Deck 14 and had our morning coffee and a light breakfast. The vistas of the Ketchikan harbor were just so cool, so I clicked off a couple of panoramic shots (one of which is the featured banner at the top) and then we headed back to the room to begin to get ready for the day. The four of us admired the boats in the harbor after we were ready to go and eventually decided we'd go onshore early and walk a little while around the town of Ketchikan. Not a lot to see, but we enjoyed walking for about 45 minutes and getting a feel for "the local color." Back to the pier where we met our bus which would take us to George Inlet Lodge - the site of our exploration by boat and the subsequent crab fest. At this point came the only "glitch" to the day. The bus driver for our trip out was a young, college-age girl and if I were to guess she was new to the job. Her driving was great as we made it to the lodge quickly without issue. But her narration of the surrounding area and points of interest......well, let's just say that she appeared to very "new" to the position and very, very little to tell us (so much so that when we were on the boat there were at least three times when the boat narrator said, "your driver told you about..... - and all of us shook our head with the response of 'no - we did not hear that!"). We arrived at last and were offered a van ride down to the dock - why? Because to take the stairs meant descending down seventy-nine steps! Yes, 79! But we were brave adveturers and walked all the way down! The weather was spectacular all day - in fact, on my iPhone it had said rain and 60's for the past several days and for the rest of the week. But today it was in the mid-70's and sunny! I debated - as did everyone else - about what to wear, but we all settled on something warm, figuring that the open-air while on the water would be chilly. And indeed it was! We travelled out on the water for about 30 minutes - made one stop where we saw whales! (see the video) And then we arrived at the location of where the crab pots were submerged. Two brave souls volunteered to pull them up!  The girl who volunteered did a great job, but the guy who went second pulled his cage up the nearly 70 feet in a mere 32 seconds - so impressed was the boat guy that he asked to have this information posted on the lodge's Facebook page! Our tour narrator/guide pulled live crabs out of the cage and showed everyone how to hold them - did you know that if you are holding a crab and lay him on his back in the palm of your hand he will instantly fall asleep? Me neither! Happened over and over again as most took turns holding the crabs (this didn't appeal to any of the four of us!). All the way out and back in the scenery of snow-capped mountains, forests, and water everywhere was just gorgeous. I knew as I snapped off photograph after photograph that (a) I had W-A-Y too many pictures and (b) that in the end I wouldn't be nearly as impressed after the spectacular vistas I was expecting for the day at the glaciers tomorrow. You can see the spectacular shots of the amazing Alaskan countryside below. When we got back to the lodge we were seated and then we got a brief demonstration on how to "attack" the crabs. Then out they came with one set of crab legs after another. We all had at least four rounds of delicious Dungenous crabs.....so easy to get to the big, juicy pieces of delictable meat! And the meal was topped off with a small slice of blueberry cheesecake. Although props to all four of us for not having more than a couple bites!

We climbed back up the flight of 79 steps and boarded the bus to the ship. We had to wait a while to get back onto the ship as it seemed all 3,000 passengers were coming back at the same time! We relaxed through the late afternoon and didn't head up for pre-dinner drinks until about 6:30 pm, with dinner to follow at 7:30 pm. We had such a great conversation at dinner that we didn't even notice it was after nine o'clock! I'm sure part of that was due to daylight still lingering on (it's been light until close to 11 pm!). We quickly headed down to the theatre and saw an amazing muscian perform on his self-invented electric xylophone of sorts. He was truly astounding to watch! It was close to 11 by the time we headed back to our cabins....but we all set our alarms to be up and at 'em before 5:30 am when we are scheduled to make our way into Tracy Arm Fjord and what promises to be a spectacular morning of sight-seeing!

June 22

Saturday June 22 - Day At Sea

Saturday was our first full day at sea and we had a very busy and adventurous day despite what you might think! We headed up to Deck 14 for our breakfast and we were both "good" as Kim had an egg-white omlet filled with veggies and I picked out some fresh fruit and a couple of pieces of English bacon. We then went outside to the exercise track and promptly walked 3 1/4 miles! YAY us! We met Sue and Dan who had equally healthy breakfast choices and they too were logging miles on the track. As we were walking there was a big commotion at one point with everyone pointing over the one side......WHALE sighting! You could just see his dorsal tail on several occassions - see it highlighted below! 

After the morning walk, Kim has won the previous day a workout in the Fitness Center with a personal trainer. So while she went through her exercises, Sue, Dan and I headed down to the main dining room where the Culinary staff was conducting a tour of the galley. We were surprised to find that there was a huge turnout of guests; so many so that we were divided into groups of twenty at a time and there had to have been about 15 such groups!

Before we headed into the kitchen area, "the man in charge" - Martin - introduced the entire chef staff, who each had their own specialties - either restaurants or types of food preparation. And finally the Master Chef - Bobby (who was from Australia!) - was introduced. It was very interesting because as two groups would go off (one into the Level 3 galley while another toured the Level 4 galley) Martin would walk around the room and take questions from the guests, while Bobby would answer them. Some of the statistics they laid on us was the fact that 90% of the food is brought on board at our initial departure site - in this case Seattle; and that the ship serves about 15,000 meals.......A DAY! Another interesting question was about how much waste there was over the course of a cruise like this. Chef Bobby answered that in preparing for a cruise they look back over the span of nearly a year's worth of cruises and see how much food was actually consumed, then they take an average of that number and add 10%. He concluded by saying that surprisingly there is very little food left over and/or wasted. He said, "We have this down pretty good!" 

The galley tour itself was not that long, and honestly the kitchen area was much smaller than I would have guessed. It was difficult at times to hear (much less understand) the chef who led our group (his specialty was the desert menu....yum!). But just seeing the behind the scenes was pretty cool. For much of the tour Sue, Dan and I were trapped at the back of the group and with the narrow confines of the galley we couldn't hear what was being said. But by the time we'd gone half way we had worked our way near the front, and Sue actually achieved "front-row status" by the end of the trip! It was very interesting....and at the conclusion when we exited the galley the chefs of the "Specialty Restaurants" had laid out a spread to represent their menus. Below is that prepared by the Tuscany Grill, a specialty spot we plan to take advantage of later on the cruise. 

Later that afternoon Sue decided to try her hand at the slots......yes, as you can see in the photo we took before dinner, she was HIGHLY successful! You can see the Alexander Hamilton bill on top ($10), but what you cannot see is the Benjamin Franklin bill ($100) on the bottom - just with a few spins on a one-line quarter machine! YEA Sue! 

In mid afternoon we went to the main theatre where a naturalist, Brent, gave a very informative presentation/show about whales. He had listed several times we would have an excellent chance of seeing whales, not just one off in the distance mind you, and made the comment that "if you don't see whales, you must be dead!" 

It was great to hear him say that the very BEST place to see whales was on the Juneau tour, "Evening Whale Watch" - which we are booked to go on this coming Monday! He said that naturalist teams are constantly going out on scientific missions and that the excursion companies track those missions with GPS satellites so that by the time the travellers from cruise ships like ours show up they know EXACTLY where the whales are! We are very hopeful of having a "close encounter" with multiple whales! 

The last "event" of the day was our first "Formal Night" - everyone was dressed up to "the nines" including the four of us as you can tell by the photos. We watched the live entertainment - a tribute to Broadway shows (including Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, and Jersey Boys) and then we were truly "party animals" as the we headed out of the theatre and into the "late night, Adult comedy show" produced out of Las Vegas by Sin City from Planet Hollywood Casino. It was very funny and had just enough burlesque to tease without being even a strong "R" rating. When Kim and I headed back to our cabin we were greeted by a perfect moon glistening over the waters as the Celebrity Solstice continued on it's journey towards Ketchikan, Alaska.....the first stop on our week-long adventure!