Juneau 3/8/18

Sailed overnight through fog shrouded channels to Juneau, the capital of Alaska, population 33,000.

Tracked down some Ben Gay for Reg’s sore leg, then loaded onto a minibus for a 20-minute ride to Alan Marine on Auke Bay.  There we embarked on a catamaran for the Whale-watching Cruise.  We set off through Saginaw Channel towards Hump Island and Lincoln Island where we encountered our first Humpback Whales.  Fifty feet long and weighing up to 35 tons, these behemoths are surprisingly elusive.  Their presence is betrayed by a plume of exhaled breath and water when they surface.  They can then surface again a few times at short intervals, finally taking a deep breath and sounding for up to 25 minutes to feed.  All one has to do is spot the plume in a 360 arc of ocean, raise one’s camera, frame the beast, zoom in, focus and press the shutter release.  As you can imagine, the whale is gone by then.  That’s why you see so many pictures of whale tails.  Kudos to the nature photographers whose endless patience and persistence captures the whale’s beauty for the rest of us to appreciate.

Pressing on, we spotted colonies of sea lions beached on Lincoln Island.  The reason became obvious when we were suddenly surrounded by two pods of Killer Whales or Orcas (Latin for Sea Wolf).  Our naturalist commentator was emitting girlish screams of excitement as the Orcas broached all around us in ones and twos, even approaching our boat and swimming alongside like dolphins do several passed under the boat, clearly playing with us as we excitedly charged from one side of the boat to the other.   This went on for 10-15 minutes before they lost interest and sped off at 35 knots to resume their 100-mile-per-day perambulations.

Orcas!

Steller Sea Lions hiding from the Orcas

We carried on to our turning point at Little Island where a large herd of Sea Lions was wisely staying out of the water until the orcas were gone.  Homeward bound, we saw a few more Humpbacks before docking and returning to our ship.