Second Port Day: Alaska's Capital - Juneau

Making the right choice of tour to join was certainly difficult. In the end we decided to pick the whale watching tour, which guarantees whale sighting. We had to wake up early and go upstairs for breakfast before we disembarked the ship to wait for our tour. At last it was time to board the bus. It smelled a little fishy but after a while we got used to it and we were soon on our way to Auke Bay. As we drove into the city of Juneau which is the capital of Alaska, the bus driver shared with us jokes about the happening in Juneau and interesting facts about Juneau. And of course a magnificent view of the Mendenhall Glacier:

After a ride of over 30 minutes, we arrived in Auke Bay. We hopped of the bus and onto the catamaran which had a lower and upper deck. We climbed up and settled ourselves down on the seats which had binoculars for our use. Soon our captain briefed us and introduced us to the naturalist and we were off.

Very soon we were greeted by the first Dall's porpoises. They look like little killer whales and they happily swam next to our boat. They love to ride on the waves of the boat and our naturalist even told us to look out for them when we get back to the cruise ship. It wasn't easy to get a clear shot of them, but here's the best that I could find:

Next we saw Steller sea lions. The captain parked as close to the little island as she could. But hey you couldn't miss them as there are so many of them. We both went to the outside of the boat to have a good look.




As we were driving off, daddy spotted this:

Can you see it? I had already zoomed in so that you can get a clearer view of it.. A bald eagle.

The captain told us that the law forbids them from driving the boat up close to a whale if we spot one. But of course, if the whale decides to take an interest in us (as we are of them..) then it is ok. Well we spotted a whale after driving for quite a while, so she stopped the engine and we watched the whale. It was so far away, daddy was complaining about this telephoto lens as it could not zoom as closely as he had wanted.
Rather far, isn't it? Can you see the fin on the back of the humpback whale?

Well we went off after that in search for more humpback whales. And guess what? We were in luck. There was first one whale then more and more whales swimming in the same area. You could see them on the left and the right. And one even decided to come really close to us:

But best of all we could see them making dives after dives. And they even made deep dives which we knew as the naturalist told us that when you see their tails as they made a dive it means it was a deep dive. Here are 2 getting ready for a dive:

See their tails?

We were treated to smoked salmon on crackers with hot chocolate and the naturalist continued to share with us facts about the whales and sea lions and even showed us the baleen which is the "teeth" of the whale which is a filter for the whales for the food they eat.

We soon arrived back at the dock and hopped on another bus which brought us back to the city. As it was still early, we stopped at the city and walked around to look at the city.
We stopped at a fudge shop and watched the man make fudge. Doesn't it look yummy? Of course we could not resist it and ended up buying a piece of fudge and some popcorn which you insisted on buying.
As we headed towards the dock, we stopped to take pictures of the stairs which we would not have noticed if the first bus driver had not brought it to our attention. They were stairs leading to people's houses. Can you imagine climbing up these stairs just to get home everyday? And what would happen if you realise you forgot something only after you've reached the bottom of the stair!!
Oh yes, we also stopped at a shop which sold everything from the Alaskan Brewing Company. Of course daddy had to take a picture to remind him of the yummy beer he's had throughout this trip. And this was the perfect place, as Juneau was the home to the Alaskan Brewing Company.

At last we headed back to the port to the ship for lunch. And of course the lunch menu was cheezy pizza for you and we had whatever was on the buffet table.