Wandering Woollies Travel: Alaska

Showing posts with label Alaska. Show all posts

Saturday, 1 August 2015

Not far out of Juneau, a thirty minute bus trip, Mendenhall Glacier, was not as big as Hubbard Glacier, but it was solid and not breaking up.We only had an hour and the walk around to the Glacier was 45 minutes return. So we set off at a brisk pace, to get as close as possible, in the time frame.We were walking through thick bush, on a paved trail, with ‘beware the bear’ signs along the way we stopped to take photos, whenever we got a break in the trees. There were small streams winding their way over rocks, creating a perfect photo opportunities.
Beside Mendenhall Glacier there is Nuggett Falls. Due to our time frame, we can’t get close enough to get to the base of the Falls to see where they originate, but is a tremendous amount of water cascading down the rock wall.Our guide tells us we can cross to the opposite side of the Mendenhall Glacier and walk on it. We would love to have had this experience, but we were out of time

Crab for dinner back on board

Bombe Alaska for desert back on board

The perfect place to buy diamond jewellery is Juneau, every second shop is a jewellery shop, with diamonds, being the most popular, followed by tanzanite, a jewel from Africa.
Juneau is the capital city of Alaska. The Celebrity Century docks at Juneau at 7am and we have disembarked by 10am for a walk around the town. We don’t have a lot of time to explore, as again we need our 5 bodies, so we can experience everything. Our lovely ladies from Toronto have chosen to ride the tramway up to the top of Mount Roberts, which overlooks the town. From the top there are hiking trails, eating places, you can see artisans crafting timber animals and totem poles.Bryce our bus driver is very chatty and tells us about his childhood in Juneau and points out the bald eagles, which are numerous. They are perched high up in the trees, ready to swoop down to the river, as it flows into the inlet and we can see the salmon jumping, a ready meal for the eaglesOur catamaran travels up Favorite Channel, with two levels, the top is open air and a perfect viewing place to photograph the wildlife. It is softly raining, so I stay inside until after about twenty minutes we eventually come across some Orca whales playing and moving through the water. We follow them for quite a while as they play with each other, sometimes a family of three, at other times in singles.We leave the Orca’s reluctantly, but our Captain tells us his sister boat has come across a large pod of humpbacks which are feeding.What a spectacle, as we watch them bubble net feeding, spouting and flipping their tails. Then they will dive and disappear under the water. Our naturalist estimates there are about twelve in the pod. We watch the seagulls to try and pick where the whales will come up next, but sometimes even the birds are tricked and they will do a 180 degree turn and pop up a distance away in the opposite direction to what we last saw them swimming.We can smell whale breath before we see them, it is not very pleasant. The excitement is building. There are numerous boats following the whales, some private and smaller tourist boats and all trying to work out where they will make an appearance.
We are about 200 metres from another large tourist boat and all of a sudden the pod breaks through, they are bubble net feeding. What a spectacle. They look so close to the other tourist boat, I am sure they would have been sprayed as they spouted and splashed in a frenzy of feeding. I stopped photographing and turned the camera to video mode and just stood and watched and filmed as they performed for us.
Juneau certainly knew how to turn on a whale show.

A family of Orcas

Orca Whales

Killer whale

Humpback whales bubble net feeding

Seagulls following the humpbacks, waiting for a feed

Humpback whales spouting

Bubble net feed humpback whales

Bubble net feeding humpbacks

Imposing, impressive, sensational. The Hubbard Glacier is 23 mile long and 3 mile wide at its narrowest point.
It rises up from the fjord and its cracking and calving are thunderous.
The captain of the Celebrity Century has opened up the fore deck so that the passengers can have a clear view of the glacier.
As each large ice berg breaks free, the crowd ooohs and aaahs, as they watch this spectacular sight.
The ship must turn its nose to the falling ice, so it can ride out the waves that it produces.

Leaving Vancouver we travelled through Sunday night and the next day. Reaching Icy Straight Point about 2.30pm on Tuesday.The area Icy Stait Point on the Chichagof Island is owned by the Huna people. They have a strong sense of culture and community. They believe in looking after the ecology of their island so that it can be preserved for future generations. Our cruise ship the Celebrity Century was too large to dock at the pier, so we had to tender a short ferry ride to the landing pier at Hoonah Trading Post.
I had chosen a field excursion, searching for bear and wildlife in the Spasski River Valley and bear search. I should have realised that a bear SEARCH was not going to find any bears. When we left the trading post to board our bus, it took me back to my school days, when the old school bus with rattling windows, squeaky brakes and grinding gears, would pick us up at the end of the farm and chugged its way into town to school.We had a twenty minute ride to the Spasski River Valley. We visited a sink hole, which can swallow animals, humans, and even vehicles if parked in the wrong spot. The area that was home to the sink holes , was like a boggy marsh, with stunted, struggling trees, pools of greasy water which our guide pointed out was caused by decomposing vegetation. Intermittently he would speak into his two way radio, indicating that his co-tour guide had spotted a bear in another area !!!!
After another ten minutes of walking we came across the Spassky River. The Huna people have erected viewing platforms and this particular platform was well hidden in the trees and undergrowth. We didn’t see any bears, but a beautiful bald eagle decided to perform for us and was gliding over the river, obviously looking for salmon, which our guide said this year they were very scarce and should have been “running”, but for reasons unknown were nowhere to be found.The river was very shallow, with the crystal clear water trickling over huge round pebbles. We could see fish jumping every now and again, but not much sign of salmon. We had two more viewing platforms, each about a ten minute walk apart. Each time we all watched intently and were told that yesterday a tour guide saw a big grizzly bear on the path “just over there”.The bald eagle performed again for us and perched himself in a beautiful large Douglas Fir, long enough for those of us with long lens’ to capture him in all his glory. The darting dragonfly and his mate were too fast for me. He wouldn’t stop and rest on the bracken ferns and undergrowth while I

a took a photo, so all I had was a memory.The bus trip back told us of bear encounters, which we didn’t have and delivered us to the trading post, where we were enticed by local hand made quilts, beautiful artwork of local scenes and totem poles, animals carved from timber, smoked salmon in vacuum sealed packages, fresh salmon in cans, and jewellery of jade, haematite and fur hats in the shape of wolves, bears and fish.

When we were booking our cruise of a lifetime, the inside passage of Canada and Alaska, we considered whether to book a balcony state room or just take a state room with a window, our friends both of whom had been on the same trip within the last twelve months, told us there was no need for a balcony as it was too cold to spend time outside, once into Alaska. Anyway it was going to save us a great deal of money if we chose a window room.
We checked in and our luggage was delivered to our room. The room was comfortable, fresh and well presented. Our bathroom was clean and contained all amenities. We unpacked, there was plenty of drawers and cupboard space. Room to store my camera gear and still have a nice tidy room.
When getting ready for bed, Graeme noticed the floor on his side of the bed was wet. He rubbed his fingers on the wet carpet and he thought it smelt like cleaner and we surmised that the previous guests had spilt something on the floor and it had been cleaned by the staff. The next morning, my side of the bed was wet also.

During the day we spent time exploring the ship and quite enjoyed ourselves. After dinner we went to the show in the theatre and the Motown Show in the Crystal Room and it was about 11.30pm when we went to bed.

I couldn’t sleep, there seemed to be a lot of noise going on and I heard it start to rain about midnight. We were on deck four and there were eight decks above us, so the rain had to be heavy for me to hear it. Then I heard dripping and water running. This was our first cruise, and I was a little nervous. You can imagine the state of panic when fifteen minutes later, water was dripping from the window ledge onto our beds, hitting us on the head. We both sat bolt upright.
I flew out of bed in a panic, turned on the light, checked to see if our room was flooded or not, raced to the bathroom and grabbed a towel, to catch the constant flow of dripping. We had visions of the Titanic in its last death throes. Trying to check where the water was coming from and waiting for the siren to sound to signal, abandon ship.
We finally calmed ourselves down and went back to bed and fell asleep.
The next day we reported our rather unplanned shower to guests services, who sent a maintenance staff member in to check out our room and we were then asked if we would be prepared to move to another room, which we were more than happy with.

The new room was on level nine, not only did it have a balcony with an opening door, but part of the service for our new room, was a bottle of champagne each day, together with canapés, which included, salmon moose, crackers, cheese, olives and chocolate coated strawberries. Complimentary room service for meals was also part of the package.
Somebody was looking after us and decided we had made the wrong decision after all.

Why you need five bodies to enjoy CELEBRITY CRUISES ABOARD CENTURY

The ship is magnificent, not huge, but as we are soon to find out, there is so much to do and see, you need five bodies.

One to eat and drink

Two to do all the tours on shore leave

Three to do half the activities on board

Four to do the other half of the activities on board

Five to find time to go to the gym and exercise.

It is almost time for dinner and we find a very comfortable lounge with large windows looking out at islands and the ocean as we pass, it has a bar and we order a wine and a beer each.

We have chosen to sit for our evening meal at 6pm. The other choice is 8pm. We make our way to the Grand Restaurant and we walk into a very elegant, wood panelled room, set for a silver service dinner, with linen napkins, silver cutlery and sparkling glasses. We are to share our table with two other people, but they don’t turn up. So we are left to share our evening meal with just ourselves.

There are four courses on the menu, appetisers, soups and salads, entrees – which we call mains and dessert. We are hesitant about consuming four courses, but they are small and delicious.

My choice for the evening are a prime beef spring roll with sweet chilli sauce, vermicelli noodles and cucumber. This is followed by wild mushroom soup and with a small bowl, it is enough to enjoy the flavour and ready for the next course. The waiters are extremely efficient and have the table cleared very quickly and the next course of pan seared salmon, served with fried zucchinin and golden squash, with squashed potato and olives.

Woolly’s choice was shrimp cocktail, French onion soup, with melted tasty cheese on top, and beef rib with green beans and potato mash. Graeme can’t resist home style apple pie and it was served with ice-cream. My dessert choice was crepes and blueberry and banana and ice-cream.

There is a family of five sitting at the table next to us, with the children aged from eight to three. They are from New Zealand and we feel quite at home with them next to us. They are up to the antics of most children this age. Their main course of hot dogs and chips are not terribly interesting. But when the strawberry ice-cream arrives, it is a different story. They have cleaned up their bowls.