SKAGWAY,  AK

August 4, 2011

We had an early morning out today.  It was a cool, rainy day and would be a long 12 hour day.  We car pooled to the dock as we were taking the Fjordland taxi to Juneau. The Captain told us the Lynn Fjord was 2,400 feet deep in some places. On the way to Juneau we detoured to Haines to pick up other passengers.  We were served a blueberry muffin and coffee.

For most of the trip it was foggy but we were lucky enough to see another pod of whales bubble net feeding.  This time it was a pod of male humpback whales. The Captain put a microphone in the water and told us about the "kill signal" and sure enough when we heard it all the whales came up with their mouths open trying to swallow as many fish as they could.  There were also Dall porpoises and lots of eagles that were easily spotted because of their white heads.  There were sea lions hanging around a buoy we we passed by.
  

Juneau is only accessible by air or sea.  We would land in a harbor on Auke Lake as the cruise lines and commercial fishing boats are all in Juneau.  At the dock, the Captain's brother brought a Gray Line bus to take us to Juneau.  It turned out the Captain and the Bus Driver were brothers.  He told us there were three areas in Juneau, The Valley, Downtown and Out the Road.  He told us about the local economy, history, the cruise lines, the state capital building, and a tour of Juneau which has a total of 90 miles of roads.  We were only given 3 hours in downtown Juneau.

We had lunch at the Twisted Fish Company and then went shopping, trying to patronize locally owned businesses.  The bus driver told us that the cruise lines own the shops closest to the docks. We even saw Sarah Palin, holding a fish, in the entrance of one store. 




At 3:00 the bus picked us up to take us to the Mendenhall Glacier which is a few miles outside of Juneau.  After watching a movie about the glacier and viewing it from the indoor observatory, we strolled out to on the boardwalk to get a closer look.  As it was raining out we stayed just long enough to have our picture taken by another caravaner. 

We heard more about Juneau on the bus trip back to the harbor. Back on the boat we were served a cup of seafood chowder and again witnessed more bubble netting by whales.  By the time we got back to the Skagway harbor we were all tired after a long day at sea.