A Whale Tale!

The next day we visited Icy Straight Point.  This port has no dock and tourists must tender to shore.  It isn't a destination of very many cruise ships.  But it is so beautiful.  I had done some investigation and decided to take an independent tour here.  I read they had lots of whales in this area.  So, instead of being on a cruise ship tour with 100 other people, we were on this little boat with only 6 of us and the boat captain, Duane.
He had seen a bunch of whales the day before while fishing with his son and asked if we would mind going a little further than the usual trip.  None of us objected because we wanted to see the most whales possible.  And, my, oh my it was so worth the trip.
While the people from the cruise ship tour headed into fog and only saw 1 whale and they brought them back into shore.
In this little cove there were so many whales.  And what a show they put on.  Slapping tales on the water.  Slapping fins on the water.  Breaching.  Lots of tails!!!!!  Beautiful!
 It is hard to pick just a few photos to show you.  I alone took over 350 photos here.  

 This magnificent bird greeted us at the dock.

 You can see at least 4 whales blowing in the above shot

 Love the whale tails. 

 And the fins

 You can see how close they were to us at times

 Breaching

And so we had a fantastic morning on the water around Icy Straight.  More photos of this place tomorrow. 

Sailing a Fjord

We next headed to sail Tracy Arm Fjord to Sawyer Glacier.  This day was totally spent on the ship and still I had 281 photos!!!  How do I put just a few up here?  We got up early because they usually see whales going into the channel.  When we got up, I looked outside our window--yep there was one diving.  But we didn't see too many after that!  It was a gorgeous day spent in the fjord.  I managed to sight 2 bears along the water sailing out.  Curtis has the photos on his camera taken with the big lens. They were saying on the ship,  cruise ships probably won't be let up in these fjords much longer, so I am glad we got to experience this. 

Can you see the colour of the water???  Yes, that is what it is like!

 Ice flows from the Glacier..  How blue can they get?

 Can you glimpse the whale in the photo below.  Barely visible.  But Curtis managed to capture the tail as it went under the surface. 

Today has been just a plain crazy day!!!  And I am so tired.  I went into work for 9:30 to cover for a bit while a co-worker had a physio appointment.  Came home- put in a load of laundry and had some lunch.  Then I headed back to work at 12;30 for some mandatory computer education.  So, not pertinent for our unit.  Biggest waste of time.  Then the unit asked if I would go and pick up some special formula for one of our babies.  Off I went to the grocery store and then back to work to drop it off.  Home at last around 4pm.  Don't think it will be a very late night for me.  Hope you all  enjoy the photos. 

Mendenhall Glacier

Just a little bit outside of Juneau is the beautiful Mendenhall Glacier.  We have been to Juneau before but have never visited this glacier.  Last time we went whale watching, because this is a great place to do that.  But, this time we wanted to try something different.  And since most of the Glaciers are receding, we took a visit here. 

 What you first see when you arrive at the Glacier

 The scenery is beautiful around it. 

 Can you see the little water falls on the right and the lake in front

 Put the telephoto on so you can see how blue the ice is!

 You can walk to Nugget falls if you had more time than we did there. 

 The yarrow  was blooming

Fungi in the forest

 Chunks of ice in the lake in front.

 A little creek there had more salmon spawning. 

 Fireweed was blooming too!

I was back to work today.  It was a busy afternoon and I am bushed. Heading to bed so I can have a repeat performance tomorrow.