“But... I'll fall in.”
“No you won’t... go ahead”
“But... But... what if I slip.”
“You wont... go ahead... I'm here to catch you.”
“Oooooo, neat... it’s so blue”
“Yes, that’s because it so compacted, Taste it.”
“I'm not sticking my hand in there....”
Yeah... ya gotta wait till we get that far, But First - a word about the weather in Alaska so far:
F A B U L O U S!!!
We have been blessed so far with outstanding weather to view and experience all the great sights.
Wednesday morning found us in Juneau scrambling to get breakfast done, and off the ship to find our first tour, Whale Watching out of Auke Bay.
It was a short bus ride to a motorized catamaran with open decks above and warm quarters below with a galley, free coffee and hot chocolate and loads of binoculars for our use. Along the way we pulled over for some great photos of the Mendenhall Glacier, where we would be headed later in the day.
After boarding our boat, we headed out to the prime watching sites; we came across a mother humpback and baby. Mom was feeding and the baby was showing off... we didn't expect to get this close and it had everyone mega excited. Since we can only stay with a whale for 30 minutes and with only one 
lunge feed for our cameras, we moved on to other spots. Along the way, we spotted lots of Bald eagles in the tree including one on a rock in the channel and came upon a group of harbor seals sunning on some rocks.
With our eyes on the water, watching for the tell-tale sign of blow geysers as whales surfaced for air, we headed towards a grouping of other boats and came upon a dozen whales practicing a rarely witnessed behavior of cooperative feeding know as “Bubble Netting”. This had the entire boat crew super excited as this truly was a rare occurrence. Here’s how it goes:
One Whale goes deep and blows bubbles... seriously... he blows a large fine stream of bubbles. The others start to herd herring towards the column of bubbles, and then one whale, called the “stinger” emits a unique sound that scares the fish into the bubbles where they are momentarily trapped and all the whales lunge upward together gobbling up the fish in the bubble net.I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP! We followed this dozen talented mammals as over and over
again they continued to bubble and lunge upward, all breaking the surface together in unison in a magnificent surge. They would then blow geysers as they grabbed a breath, arched their backs and as their elegant “Fluke” [tail] waved at us... they would again dive to start the process all over again. What a ballet, It was INCREDIBLE to see these sea giants performing this cooperative behavior and the whole boat was abuzz about it. The only regret is that our sister ship was almost on top of this and must have gotten some outstanding photos while we had to stand off about 300 yards to keep from spooking the whales in to dispersing. You can see our pictures in the album for this NOWAT at the link noted above.
On the way back to our dock we ran across a buoy noted for its location above a favorite feeding site for herring where a group of fat harbor seals where lounging around on the buoy as if they had a herring hangover, seemingly oblivious to our cameras that were clicking away.Without a doubt the Captain really knew his stuff because he continued to find great sea life spots for us to click away. And as usual... Chuckie was two fisting it with the 35mm in one hand, and the video camera the other. With too much glare to see the digital screen well he abandoned trying to catch the whales on video and used all his film on this excursion alone. He really hadn’t planned on using it so much but could not resist using his tele-photo lens to try to catch the bubble netting exercise. And of course... KODAK ain't cheap up here... nothing is.
We headed back to the dock past the newly mechanized lighthouse with the Dragon Lady grinning from ear to ear... she had seen AND FILMED her whales, giggled at her Seals and stared, jaw agape at the majesty of the elegant eagles.
And all was well in her world.
We met our bus driver, who is a riot and headed back to the ship with her running commentary on the Juneau sites along the way. She even pointed out the Governors mansion where the Lipstick Queen hangs out when the legislature is in session. With an 85% approval rating state wide, Sara the Lovely is not the most beloved Alaskan in Juneau since she supports the move of the capital to Anchorage, and the locals fear the move will threaten the tourist industry in Juneau.
We'll cover the Helicopter landing on Mendenhall in the next episode which might explain the opening dialogue, or maybe not. It’s getting close to dinner time and we’re already a day behind in getting this recorded. Getting the pictures edited and up on the Picasa site is more time consuming than expected... hope your enjoying them. Let us know if you are.
Ciao 4 Now
Chuck and the TOTALLY Giddy over seeing the whales, Eagles and Seals,
Dragon Lady.
AWESOME! XO SKS
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