Alaska 2: Whales in Juneau

On Tuesday, August 2, 2016, our ship arrived in Juneau, Alaska.

Harbor in Juneau

It was cool to see this bald eagle flying by and landing in a tree.

Bald eagle in Juneau.

Our whole group took a bus (which we almost missed) to go whale watching with juneautours.com. Along the way, we saw the Mendenhall Glacier in the distance as we crossed a bridge. It was cool seeing it loom above the town like that.

Mendenhall Glacier over Juneau. And a random lady.

Then we got on a little boat and headed out into the bay. Our whale-watching tour had a guarantee that we would see whales or our money back. And they certainly delivered. Before long, we found some boats that had found some whales, so we joined in and watched. Soon a group of 11 humpback whales surfaced!

It turns out that they were "bubble net feeding." They go down and blow bubbles in a circle. The fish don't dare swim through the bubbles, so they are trapped. Then the whales all swim up with their mouths open and swallow fish all the way to the top!

After they come up, they swam around, blew their spouts to get some air, and then took turns diving again.

We could see people standing on the lighthouse, getting quite a show.

Here are two tails and three backs at the same time.

Here are a couple of attempts at video. Our little boat rocked enough to make it very difficult to video well on high zoom. (You might want to go full screen on the video, and turn down your sound on the second one, since there's a lot of wind noise).

They repeated the cycle about every 10 minutes. Our guide said that bubble net feeding is a learned behavior, and that out of about 10,000 humpback whales living, only about 400 have learned it. So it was really cool to get to see 11 of them in action.

We weren't the only ones watching. Boats could not approach closer than 100 yards to the whales (though, of course, if they approached you, you could stay put and let them).

After they came up, they often swam in a circle with their pectoral fins ("arms") out of the water.

Our guide used an underwater microphone to listen to the whale songs. When he heard them whooping it up, he said "Here they come!" and, sure enough, up they came.

This guy just fished right on through while the whales swam nearby.

It was so fun!

"There she blows!"

Their tails can be 15 feet wide.

And here's yet another round of bubble net fishing.

Our captain Greg was very nice.

And behind us here was the "first mate" Jon.

Finally, it was time to head back. I'm not sure what that guy does on that little floating hut.

As we neared the shore, we happened upon a couple of porpoises.

Our crew was super excited about what we had seen. They said that they often see one or two whales, but we really got a treat.

And here's a shot of our group, back on land. (The Childs had gotten away before we took the picture).

And here's everyone speaking whale and stuff.

Next stop was the Mendenhall glacier, which is about 20 minutes outside of Juneau.

There was a boardwalk from which you could look down and see fish and, occasionally, bears.

We had to settle for the red "sockeye salmon".

It was so green there!

The Mendenhall Glacier is about 13 miles long, and has retreated 1.75 miles since 1929, thus forming Mendenhall Lake, as seen in the foreground.

Everyone took pictures in front of the glacier.

Rob found a piece of glacier ice floating in the lake.

Glacier ice tends to be very clear because all of the air gets crushed out of it under the massive pressure.

Here you can see that there are some people kayaking near the base of the glacier. It's big.

Glaciers get their blue appearance because the density of the compacted snow scatters blue light (like the sky) more than the red. Or something like that.

Steve and Melissa Elmes and Steve Duke took a "shortcut" to the waterfall.

It was a little chilly, and you can just barely see that I'm wearing a stocking hat, which happens to say "Alaska" on it, which I had gotten the day before in Ketchikan.

Melissa Elmes saw it and said, "Oh, I like your hat!" and I beamed and said, "I got it in Alaska!" For some reason that hit us funny.

We explored off the path a couple times, too.

At the end of the trail was a fun waterfall.

Mendenhall Glacier and Nugget Falls

Nugget Falls

We all took our pictures with the water and ice in the background.

Then it was time to hike back.

I was still amazed at how green and mossy everything was. Apparently it rains a lot there.

There was a visitor center that had an 18-minute movie that we watched (or napped during), and there was a nice view from where the center was built.

We all piled on the shuttle back to town.

This waterfall is visible from downtown Juneau.

At that point, we spent a few minutes wandering around the town.

A few people tried out a local restaurant.

For some reason this made me think of our family.

And a bit of silliness ensued...

I had planned on riding the tram, but by that point I was pretty wiped out, so I decided to skip it. Steve Duke went for it, though.

At the top there was a live bald eagle on display (I think it was injured or blind or something).

And there were hiking trails.

It was a long but awesome day of whale watching, hiking and exploring. And eating and stuff.

In our next episode, we go zip lining in Skagway and nature watching in Haines.