26 July - Tuesday - Cruise Day 4 - Skagway - Shopping and Haines Eagle Raft Ride

G'day All,

We arrived at Skagway around 6:20 am and we slept in a little and had a breakfast delivered to the room so had a later start than normal. It was out for a bit of shopping prior to our 1 pm pre-booked Raft ride at Haines, a sanctuary for the Bald Eagle. It was another rainy day but not too cold so we headed out as planned. Shopping wasn't too exciting so we were really looking forward to seeing the bald eagles along the shallows of the most heavily populated area of bald eagles in the world. Another 40 min ferry ride to the township of Haines to take the raft ride down the river. The rafts held up to 8 people and is a gentle float along the river avoiding any rapids. The river is a spawning ground for salmon and feeding ground for the eagles. Unfortunately for us very few salmon were running and we only saw a handful of eagles over 300 metres away in the trees. A little disappointing for me as I was really looking forward to taking some great photos of the eagles :-( best I could do was to snap one a we passed by the tree it was roosting in.

One of the few Bald Eagles we saw.

None the less the raft ride was nice and relaxing with the guides doing all the rowing and us taking in the views and information. The river is in the form of a delta and ranges in depth from over your head to a few inches, yet because of the silt you couldn't tell the depth, the only hint was the dead trees lying in the river.

Rafting down the river in Haines, Alaska.

From the raft ride we returned back to the ship around 7 pm and had something for tea, the ship departed at around 8:45 pm. Next destination was a day on the water cruising viewing the glaciers of Glacier Bay from the ship.

Cheers
Gary and Penny

25 July - Monday - Cruise Day 3 - Juneau - Whales, Glaciers and Bears

G'day All,

Quite morning preparing for the day trip to Juneau the Capital of Alaska and our whale and glacier tour. We docked at around 12:30 pm and left the ship to meet our tour operator, Adriane, on the dock and took a bus to the tour boat for a 2 hour whale watching tour. The money back guarantee (if we didn't see a whale) wasn't required (and apparently hasn't for 15 years) as it wasn't long before we saw whales. We got to witness a rare event, humpback whales performing bubble net feeding. I had recently seen this on one of David Attenborough's wildlife shows; a small number of whales have perfected a method of hunting herring that is only performed in Alaska. It entails a lead whale circling a school of herring and blowing bubbles as it circles causing the herring to bunch into a tight ball and in a coordinated attack the other whales in the group form a circle below and lunge upwards into the school of fish on an audible signal from the lead whale blowing the bubbles. We saw no less than 10 humpbacks in the group perform this method of feeding about six times.

We had been watching the seagulls, they anticipate a free feed from the whales from this form of feeding, and they seemed to be heading our way when, to our astonishment we heard the lead whale's signal to attack from under our boat and in an instant, no more than 30 metres from our boat, the group performed another bubble net feed. I had only just added a 2x tele-converter to my lens to capture them further away when this happened meaning that they were nearly too close for me to capture the action. It was an amazing thing to witness.

Humpback's bubble net feeding

The tour boat captain (Jen) and Adriane had not see this sort of action so close to the boat before either, so it was a special day for them as well.

After the excitement of the whale watching we headed back to shore, on the way seeing a few sea lions on a buoy and couple of other whales in the distance, getting ready to take a gentle walk to see Mendhall Glacier. Another quick bus trip to the park trail for the short walk to see Mendenhal Glacier. No sooner had we hit the trail and we saw red salmon swimming up a small stream and not far away a black bear enjoying fresh fish. The bear was about 20 metres from the pathway when it decided to cross over to the other side of the path behind us. All the while Adriane urged us onto the small bridge over the stream to get out of its way. I don't think it was too interested in us as it headed straight for the stream after crossing the pathway. As I reached the bridge I turned and got of a quick photo (not a very good one) as the bear was only about 5 - 10 metres behind us. We left that bear behind and walked on about 15 metres to find yet another bear below us devouring a fresh catch of salmon in the forest below.

The bear that crossed behind us (not the best photo but was taken on the move)

Chowing down a fresh salmon away from prying eyes.

We left the bears behind to continue a short way to the observation deck to view the Mendenhall glacier, there had been quite a lot of rain over the past few days so the lake in front of the glacier was swollen and lightly flooded.

Two Aussies with a Mendenhall Glacier backdrop

We headed back to the bus but not before seeing a porcupine sleeping in a tree and yet another bear walking below the viewing platform alongside the stream. After the tour we walked through the town of Juneau collecting our "free" gifts and ducking and weaving from the several store attendants looking to sell us a "bargain". Back to the ship for a late dinner and sleep before we head to Skagway tomorrow, ship departed Juneau around 10 pm.

Cheers
Gary and Penny