JUNEAU WHALE WATCHING

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

ICY STRAIT POINT - ALASKA

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.