Alaska's Capital

Our coach driver "Big Momma" - Julie
see all photos »

Today we arrived in port before we woke up and this time were lucky enough to have the dock right next to the middle of town. Our first tour for the day left at 8am. We were loaded onto a bus with a comical driver named Julie that was wearing a Moose hat. She is 23yo and we both decided that she's gone crazy!! She told us this is not hard to do when you are assigned the shuttle run in Juneau, where for 5 hours straight you drive around in a 1 mile loop and every time you stop in town, everyone asks you "Is this the shuttle". You end up hearing it in your sleep!!

Humpback's tail showing while doing a dive..
see all photos »

Anyway, our first stop was the Glacier centre near the Mendenhall Glacier. We were told to leave all food on the bus as this was a very active bear area. We walked down a path to the edge of the water and took photos of the magnificient hue of the glacier. There was also a glacial waterfall nearby that we got shots of. We walked down a number of paths to get different aspects of the glacier. It was then up into the Visitor Centre for some info on glaciers and informative short videos. It was then back on the bus - two of our constituents nearly didn't make it back onto "Big Momma" - the drivers name for the bus. We waited past the departure time and eventually they came running down the walkway when the bus started to roll away.

A whale of a time...

The Mendenhall Glacier
see all photos »

We arrived at the ferry dock and boarded a boat for a whale watching trip. This was very pleasent and after about 25mins we were rewarded with the sight of mighty blow-holes and arc-ing of whales backs. We stopped for 30 mins and viewed these massive creatures from a distance, blowing air out their bow holes, arching their backs and diving deep showing their tales as they filled their mouths with Krill. We got heaps of pictures of their tails as they flew out of the water before their deep dive. After moving on we stopped again when a pod of seals were spotted in a feeding frenzy. While watching these, a mother and baby humpback appeared bobbing up and down in the water. A number of the seals went and harrassed the baby humback until he made it known through a loud moaning blowhole noise that he had had enough of their playing. It was great to see these large animals - although none really close to the boat. We did meet a very nice couple (David and Pat) from West Virginia.

Mirror image in the water
see all photos »

On our return to dock it was off to the Gold Rush Salmon Bake. It was lightly raining by now, but the eating area was generally covered with marquees. On offer was salads, bbq spare ribs, braised chicken, very sweet corn bread, smoked bbq's salmon, seafood chowder, blueberry cake for dessert, and real lemonade and hot tea and coffee. After this we returned to the boat, and on the dock, David invited us to join him and his wife and another couple Don and Mel for dinner that night in the restaurant at 8pm. We decided to have a quick walk around the town of Juneau, but as expected, the only things to see here were the jewellery and souvenier shops. It was still raining lightly, so I think the shops were doing a good trade with people coming in from the rain. As the ship departed dock, we had an escort from the coast guard, which was a little unsettling when we saw that the craft had a machine gun that was manned.

An iceberg shaped like a Pelican
see all photos »

That evening we went to the show lounge to see the ever changing nightly show at 7pm before dinner. This evening it was a instrumental comedy, where the entertainer was playing all sorts of weird instruments, and plying his comedy. After this we joined our dinner companions and had a most enjoyable dinner. The other couple, married 50 years, had won a competition on board and cracked their winning champagne for the table at dinner. This was a most delightful dinner, exchanging stories and cultural quirks. The night ended about 10:30 after much food and good company. On return to our cabin yet another interesting towel creature was waiting for us from our cabin steward.