Sea Otter Video

As I mentioned in a prior blog post  I took a video of a group of sea otters swimming in Glacier Bay.  Since I'm home I have the bandwidth to uploaded it to Youtube so I can share it with you.  

Many thanks to Katie for the editing help, title, and opening/closing effects. 

Click the link above and enjoy! 

Back Home Again...

Well our vacation is over.  Back in our house after an early morning alarm and a long travel day.   No pictures today, just a quick post to let all know we got home OK.
I do plan to post the otter video and possibly a whale one sometime soon, so check out this page next week.  But tonight is for unpacking and a starting the time zone transition process so that Monday morning alarm doesn't seem too early.

Last Day at Sea

Well, our cruise is coming to an end.  It's been a very nice, relaxing vacation, but quite cool.  

Mary and Andy went to the cooking show and kitchen tour this morning while Katie did line dancing. We had burgers and pizza for lunch, but it was cold on the deck so we ate in the buffet area which was very convenient for getting desserts.  This afternoon we watched a movie, "12 Years a Slave".

This evening is a turkey dinner, then packing suitcases for our early departure tomorrow.  Due to our early flight we need to take the "walk off" option where we take our own luggage off the ship.  At least we don't have to set it out this evening! 

So many memories of a nice anniversary trip.  

Ketchikan

Today was our last Alaska port as we head south to Vancouver. We arrived late morning at a pier a fair distance from town, but the town offers a free shuttle service -  got to get those cruisers to the shops so they can spend their money!
Mary did some shopping today, then returned to the ship while Katie and I did a zip line excursion. The weather did not cooperate very well as there was a light rain all day. 

The course was very good with 7 lines and 3 bridges, all while over 70' in the air!  The zipline runs faster in the rain so we hit a good day for hitting top speeds. The longest line was 750' long and riders hit speeds of close to 30 mph! With these speeds, stopping at the end of each segment proved to be a challenge.  Also I had to frequently clear my glasses as they picked up a lot of rain during each transit.  In the end, we both had a very good time. 

Here we are all decked out for doing the course:

Juneau

Our main event in Juneau was a whale watching excursion.  But prior to that we had some shopping time in the city.  Well, at least Mary got in some shopping while I did a small walking tour of the city looking for cold medicine for me.

We had sunshine during our whale watching ride and saw at least 4 humpback whales today.  Ideally the vessel will find a feeding whale that is surfacing every 4-6 minutes.  All the whales we saw today were doing 8-10 minute dives so we did not get many opportunities for "tail diving" shots.  But one whale gave quite a show for us, swinging around it's pectoral fin, then splashing it down.  

I did get one video of a dive, but that will have to wait to be shared until I get home.  

As we headed back to the dock we passed a Juneau landmark - the sea buoy where juvenile sea lions hang out. These were busy sunning themselves, with no battles for territory on the buoy. 

The rain returned as we headed toward our ship so we got wet re-boarding.  The movie "Gravity" was starting as we returned so I hustled to watch it with Katie.  

Lobster & King Prawns was on the menu in the dining room tonight which was delicious!  And it was topped off with Mary's favorite dessert - Floating Islands!!  

It was a very good day.

Skagway and Hanes

On Tuesday we visited Skagway, one of the 3 cities in lower Alaska that has roads to the outside world. Rain greeted us in the morning and we had spotty showers all day. 

Our excursion took us to Hanes by fast ferry, a 45 minute ride.  Andy and Melissa, our son and daughter-in-law, had a similar excursion and were on the same ferry with us which was nice. After a bus ride to our rafts, we set out for a 1 1/2 hour float through Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve.  We experienced rain, sun, clouds, wind and just about every other type of weather on our float.

We were well bundled up as the temperature was in the low 50's and very windy.  My favorite Australian hat thought that the river looked so inviting it jumped off my head and took a dip, but was quickly rescued. 

Eagles, eagles and more eagles!  At one point we had 5 of them flying near us! Lots of views of eagles sitting in trees or on sand bars, even one in her arie (nest).  Here's another one of a mother and a young eaglet (their heads do not turn white until age 5). 

Glacier Bay

The highlight of today was watching the Marjorie Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park.  Three park rangers came on board and did a presentation before narrating our trip to and from the glacier.  I'll only post a few of the 46 pictures I took today!  Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of the glacier calving.  It calved a few times in the first 1/2 hour of watching, but nothing of significance in the second half hour when I was setup to capture that event. 

After dinner this evening we headed for the top deck for some whale watching.  We did not see any whales, but we did see a lot of sea otters!  I made a video of them, but need to wait to upload it until I get off the ship due to the expensive internet time. 

I also caught one of this cure guy resting on his back which is how they make a table to work on clams or other food they find.

Hubbard Glacier Day

We celebrated out 40th wedding anniversary today on the Crown Princess with a day at sea and glacier viewing of the Hubbard Glacier.  For the most part it was a quiet, relaxing day, with a British "pub lunch", bridge play, and an anniversary dinner at the specialty restaurant, Sabetini's. 

Besides our celebrations, the highlight was seeing Hubbard Glacier.  The ship was maneuvered to less than 2 miles from this 350' high, 7 1/2 mile wide glacier.   Hopefully these pictures convey the size of this glacier. 

Tomorrow is Glacier Bay which we will watch calve from 1pm - 2 pm Alaska Standard time (4 hours behind Eastern Time)  

Land of the Midnight Sun

We are south of the main part of Alaska and the sun sets at 10:39 p.m. and rises at 4:22 am, we have been wondering what it looked like, wondering if it ever gets dark.  I was unfortunate enough to wake up at 2:48 this morning so I took the opportunity to look outside and see what it looked like.  I was quite surprised at the sight so I grabbed my camera and snapped this shot. 

So I guess this really is the land of the midnight sun!

Heading to Our Ship

Our cruise begins today!  We had a 9:45 train departure to take us to our ship.  We had a very pleasant and uneventful ride to Whittier with seats on the second deck with a great view towards Cook Inlet.
Here are a two of the many mountain view pictures I took today. The one on the right is called a hanging glacier.

We passed through two tunnels to get to Whittier, with the second being the shared car/train tunnel we drove through yesterday.  As we emerged I got an updated version of my favorite picture from our first Alaska Cruise in 2005.  Love seeing that white ship in the distance!

Boarding went very smooth with little waiting and we quickly found our cabins.  Andy and Melissa are next to Mary and me while Katie is a few decks below.  We enjoyed a buffet lunch and have unpacked our luggage.  The ship does not sail until after 8:00 pm tonight so we will have supper before the muster drill and sail-away party. 

Touring Kenai Peninsula Area

Today was a driving day south from Anchorage as we visited the towns of Portage, Whittier, and Girdwood, along with driving part of the Kenai Peninsula. 

Unfortunately we had a very rainy day.  As we drove south the light rain turned into a steady rain so we skipped the Alyeska Tram, hoping to see it later.  We arrived at the site for the Portage Glacier boat and again decided to defer due to weather. So we headed toward Seward. After driving for quite a while we saw we still had another hour ahead of us and it was getting close to lunch time so we reviewed our options and turned around, heading for Whittier.  

After a somewhat unproductive morning we arrived in Whittier via the Car/Train tunnel.  This is a 2.5 mile long tunnel that is only wide enough for a train so car traffic is single file, with the direction changing every half hour. Prior to 2000, it was a train only tunnel and all car traffic had to be loaded onto train cars.  It was quite a thrill to drive through it. In Whittier we had lunch at a nice fish 'n chips establishment, drove around what little we could (not many roads..), then headed back to the tunnel and spotted the train we'll be riding tomorrow from Anchorage to Whittier! We watched it head back through the tunnel as we waited our turn at the tunnel to leave Whittier since trains always have the right of way over cars.

Since it was still raining as we left Whittier we skipped the Portage Glacier boat ride and headed back toward Anchorage.  On the way we spotted the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center and did a driving tour.  They have a lot of native animals, including wood bison which are working to reintroduce to Alaska. They also rehabilitate injured animals so they can be released into the wild. 

As you can see we got very close to a resting moose and also watched this pair of musk ox square off and push each other around a bit.

Near the exit some reindeer were being fed.  As you can see, one of them even had bells on his bridle so we called him Rudolph! All in all we had a great time at this place.

As we approached Girdwood the rain stopped so we checked out the Alyeska Tram  and decided to take it. We could not see the 5 surrounding glaciers due to clouds and once at the top it fogged up so much that for a while we could not see the ground! But it cleared again as we descended.  

Our tram operator mentioned that today was projected to have a large bore tide so as we drove we decided to wait and check it out.  It was projected to have a 3-4 foot high wave, but from our vantage point it looked to be more like a 1-2 foot wave.  It was cool to see this local phenomenon. 

After that we headed for Anchorage, grabbed some supper, turned in the rental van, and are now getting ready to head for the Crown Princess  in the morning. It was a full day and very enjoyable once we got on track after a run-around morning. 

Touring the Anchorage Area

After a restful night (well some of us woke up at 4:00 am which is 8:00 am Michigan time...) we enjoyed a nice hot Springhill Suites breakfast, then headed northeast to Wasilla.  We saw lots of views of the Wrangle Mountains. on this drive.  Along the way we spotted a sign for Thunderbird Falls and thought that might be nice to see. But after we found the projected 1000 yard walk was going to be 1 mile, we bailed and headed on to Wasilla.

Since we wanted to make an 11:00 trolley tour of Anchorage we did not stay in Wasilla very long.  The trolly guide gave a nice narration, mostly focused on the 1964 earthquake, but with a nice tour of the float plane area as well.  The planes launch from two lakes and they even have their own control tower!  

After a nice salmon burger lunch at local restaurant called Humpy's (well at least that was what Mary and I had), we headed for our float plane tour. 

Our pilot was quite young (and the owner's son), but has been flying since before he had his driver's license.  We sat Katie in the front by him, with Mary and I in row 2, and Andy and Melissa in the back row.  The plane looked a bit dated so I asked and found out it was nearly as old as me! But it looked to be in great shape and well maintained.

Overall it was a super ride!  While it was a bit bumpy at times, we saw several moose from the air and circled Mt Susitna before heading back toward Anchorage.  This picture shows a moose and her calf trailing behind her .  On the return, the pilot surprised us with a landing on Figure 8 Lake.  The landing was amazingly smooth, especially compared to our commercial jet landing the day before.  

Now we are off to Moose's Tooth pizza parlor for supper, then back to the hotel to crash for the night.  

Off to Alaska!

Today was our travel day to Anchorage so not much in the way of pictures. It was a very long day starting with an early 5 hour flight out of Detroit to Seattle,  a 2 hour layover, then a  3 hour flight on to Anchorage.  Lots of travel time, followed by a reindeer sausage pizza for supper in Anchorage.  Yum! 

Mary snapped this shot of Mt Rainier as we left Seattle. 

Here's a shot of the Wrangle Mountains as we left the Anchorage Airport for our hotel. Tomorrow we plan to visit downtown Anchorage in the morning, and then, after lunch, head to the seaplane lake for a 1 hour flight-seeing adventure!  Very excited about that!  And hoping to fly over the Wrangle Mountains and get some cool pictures form the air.

More tomorrow!