The Party's Over....

 We head south in the afternoon and soon sun pokes through the Alaska clouds.  Traveling toward British Columbia again we are treated to a marvelous sunset and flat calm water.  Tomorrow is an entire day at sea, arriving in Victoria in the early evening.  I am totally amazed at how many Humpback whales we continue to see, all traveling north.  The blows are so distinctive, as are the huge flukes as they dive.  Pacific whitesided porpoise jet away from the ship in a group of over 100!  Then along come the Dall porpoise showing off their dressy black and white costumes.  Steve sees Orca whales.  I miss them!  Another passenger said she just saw 12 - 15 Orca off the other side.  She's from Vancouver Island, so I believe her.  I wonder wonder wonder....are these the Southern Resident Orcas that seemed to swim out as I left last week and haven't been back in local waters yet?

We dress up ok...and the penguins in the pool help!

It's been a fine week of cruising with cousins and enjoying our floating resort, the MS Oosterdam.  Truthfully, the ship is a bit big for us.  This is only a one week cruise, there are many families, 256 kids,  and it's just so busy!  We heard one mom declare to her kids: "No elevators for you this week!"  And they took off jogging up the stairs.  Good plan.

Nan's bench on the sport deck....sport of resting?

Once again our room is graced with towel animals.  I dress them up a little, just for the fun of it!

Tonight a monkey surprises us as we enter after dinner.

Down jackets are the perfect Alaska duds....even for July and August.

Interesting to think about going home to "warm up"!

Goodbye towel animals, room stewards, prepared meals, room service, beautiful views, Humpback whales, Sea otters, dolphins, and life without much for daily responsibilities!

Moon rise over B.C. mainland


HELLO HOME....

Last Stop...Ketchikan!

Yo!  Bear!

Ketchikan awaits!  I expect a small town, a creek with jumping salmon, a boardwalk around the creek and historic buildings.  It's all there...but to get to Creek Street, I have to forge past streets of tourist stores, including one of the biggest: Ketchikan Mining Co.  I think: mining for tourist dollars!  Oh the t-shirts, oh the hats, oh the jewelry counters and the hawkers on the sidewalk bidding to to "step this way."  Maybe there is some resemblence here to the actual mining days in Ketchikan?

My new best friend....

It's not raining today...yet...but still the Alaska grey and cool.  We head for the Potlatch Totem Park on a group tour.  It's a perfect place to have fun with my camera.






Then it's back to Ketchikan, to find our way to Creek Street.  No salmon jumping today.  Lots of tourists as there are three cruise ships in port.  We spend a little time walking the boardwalk and watching the Harbor seals cruise the creek for lunch.

Judging by the size of these seals...they must have a good strategy.  It appears it idea is to swim upstream toward the little waterfalls.  Then, quickly flip over on your back, nose in the air, but eyes underwater and watching for....fish!  Then just stay in place with flippers flipping and wait for the food to come to you!

Here fishy, fishy.....

The Potlatch Totem Park is very well done as far as construction of authentic First Nation Peoples dwellings and totems.  We take our time strolling ....cameras clicking.        

This is a short port call and the MS Oosterdam pulls up the ramp at 12:15 hours, heading south.  For the first time, tonight as we cruise toward Hecate Sound, the sun treats us to a sunset.  We walk the deck round and round...watching for whales.  We are rewarded.  Humpbacks abound!

Outside the Red Dog Saloon....

Creek Street in 2012

Goodbye Akaska!  Hello Pacific Ocean!

If it's Sitka, it Must be Sea Otters!

As most cruises go, you travel all night and awake in a new place in the morning.  If it's Sitka, it must be Thursday, August 2nd.  It is.  If it's Sitka, it is probably raining.  It is.  And not the gentle mist of home.  If it's Sitka, we are on another quest: Sea otters!

 I've never photographed or seen Sea otters in the wild.  I have high hopes, this will be my day.  But then...it's the "wild" life rule.  They are wild animals, and have no appointments with us on their schedules.  Not much for schedules either.                                                                                                                

Sitka is a tendering port, so it's off to the Holland America taxis and a short hop to shore.  Our excursion boat awaits and we are away in no time.  The seas outside Sitka are rough with a swell today, so we bounce though that and around the corner to a calmer bay.  We stop for a view of Harbor seals.  They are very small and very far away.  We cruise deeper into the bay though mist and a steady rain.  Did I mention it's cold?  Summer in Sitka.  Hum.  Steve and Don have their cameras in big plastic camera rain coats.  This turns out to be a brilliant idea.  I thought it might be too complex to actually figure out the settings though the camera clothes.  We spend our time up on the top level of the catamaran, under cover, but out in the open.

Then a tiny head cruises by the stern!  Quickly it turns, looks at us, and dives.  Sea otter number one!  Maybe our only one...how do we know?  But.....

Rain jackets all around!

Just smiling in the rain, smiling in the rain...

But no!  Soon we were floating along with a raft of Sea otters beside us.  At least close enough to see with binoculars, and to photograph with a 300mm lens.  Granted, it's a challenge, as the rain continues to fall, sometimes sideways....and the sky is grey and the water dark.  No studio portrait lighting here.  But such cute subjects!

The gang's all here!

Wrapping my arms around...me!

Oh...yawn...nap time!

Heads and Toes

I want to hold your head...!  

Now I lay me down to sleep...

So...I get out the marker to make another check on the bucket list!

Looking to the left a Humpback whale surfaces with a big blow!  Looking to the right, a Minke slides silently out of the water and back down, stunning the naturalist aboard.  I exclaim: Minke!  She looks at me and asks how I know?  Umm.  I reply: this is my job at home.  She says: Oh!

We get a good look at a Bald eagle high in one of those tall tall trees.  He is watching the small waterfall below, as are two native fishermen with hand nets...and the man in the boat is holding up a big salmon for all to see.

Turning for the run back to Sitka, still in the rain and heavy mist, I take a last look at a raft of bobbing brown dark heads, all together in a big otter jumble.  I smile.

Did you know....Sea otters are tained in water ballet?

It seems otters can "dance" even in the rain!

Hoping for Humpbacks

It's Wednesday morning, August 1st, in Juneau, Alaska and we are hoping for a humpback experience.  I have to remember, just because I am going on a "Whale Watch Quest" it is just that: a quest.  Since I do this all season at home, I know that wildlife is "wild life" and has no appointment scheduled to show up just for me.

Our boat is big.  I assume the experience will not exactly be "personal"....but we are off on a quest.
Speeding up the channel that leads to the Port of Juneau, the weather breaks and we are free of rain.  The clouds even appear hopeful as far as little windows of actual sky poking through.

It takes about 20 minutes before I spot another whale watching boat ahead.  I know that a really good sign is other whale watching boats that are stopped, as they are probably watching something.  And they are.  Two humpback whales are gliding around and occassionally doing deep dives ending with a beautiful fluke up in the air!  We don't stay long.  Hum.  Translation:  there is something better up ahead, or in this case, around the corner.

Three stealth humpbacks are skimming along the shore!  Suddenly they disappear.  And they don't reappear.  Until...there's a sudden explosion on the surface and one lunges up in the center of several whales...all with gaping huge mouths reaching for the sky!  Oh my goodness!  Get out that marker and check off "Humpback whales bubble net feeding" on the bucket list!  This is it!  And it goes on for an hour.

Two to Tango

Mr. or Ms. Big Mouth

Mr. or Ms. Bigger Mouth

Just a little bite

One from the rear view

We watch and watch.  What an amazing sight.  One of the largest animals on the planet, making a living off some of the smallest animals on the planet.  That thought always gives me pause.

A bit of Kairos Time today.  Chronos Time: time by the watch, schedules, you're late, hurry up kind of time.  Kairos Time: time spent in such a pleasurable endeavor that one doesn't notice time is passing, time out of time.

But eventually, chronos time catches up with us.  We must leave.  The bow turns to starboard, but not before one last look and a wave goodbye.  We couldn't have hoped for more!

Tomorrow...will we find Sea otters in Sitka???

Alaska Here We Come!

Q.  Alaska and back in just one week?!  How can that be?
A.  Holland America driving, Holland America cooking, Holland America cleaning....like that!

A short cruise, with Steve's cousins Don and Lynn, took us from Seattle to Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan, Victoria and back to Seattle.  Who would think we would wind up on the same ship that my second cousin, Kelly and her husband Steve, and son, Chase are on???  So, yes, a "cousin cruise" it is!

Tuesday finds our ship slowly progressing up Tracy Arm into glacier territory.  The blue bergs dotting the channel are fascinating in that each seems to be a carved shape of something.  Any ideas?

Floating ice caves?


                  Or could this be a sinking ship?  Surely NOT!

It's a long way up Tracy Arm and at one point we make a hard right angle turn.  It's slow going.

Chunks of ice drift off to the side of our track, going no where.  It's hard to see how far down the ice goes.

We crawl up Tracy Arm...it's a long, long way 

Trees and Mist, Mist and Trees

Cascading waterfalls all along the shore

Water speeds down the cliff

Blue ice, miles of it, the mountains and then....the sea

Our ship noses into area where Tracy Arm splits into a "Y" and Sawyer Glacier is to the left, South Sawyer Glacier to the right.  We edge down the channel to the right.  Slowly the Oosterdam heads for the place where blue glacial ice meets the sea.  We go in so far I cannot imagine how the turn around will happen?  Our Pilot and Captain use the thrusters to push ice chunks away from the ship and we soon are sideways in a channel that's just 2,400 ft. wide.  I wonder again....just what IS the length of the MS Oosterdam? (950 ft.!)  But then the turn is complete, we are facing "out."  But we aren't going anywhere?  The Captain has decided we will have dinner, stern to the South Sawyer Glacier, floating among blue ice sculptures, majestic mountain hillsides which disappear below the surface of green glacial water...and...of course, the rugged terminal edge of a glacial ice pack.  I've never dined at a glacier before!

Tonight we creep toward Juneau.  We are hoping for Humpback whales tomorrow.......

Oh Blackberry! What a Big Fin You Have!

OH, Blackberry, what a big fin you have!  This morning we find J Pod skimming the waters near Andrews Bay, headed north at no particular speed.  They are in sub family groups.  The morning light is perfect!  The blows rise high in the air as fine mist, surrounding the whales.  We look far down the shore of the island and every now and then, "Poof!" a large blow fills the air etched against the dark island rocks.  Here they come!  All of them!  And how could we not stop to admire and notice, J-27, Blackberry.  He is traveling today with his sister, J-31.  They are quite a pair, moving past the others, in and out of the shoreline.  We float and watch...we watch and float.  Somewhere in this group is the new mother and calf.  But where?

Our trip takes us along shorelines filled with Adult bald eagles perched silently scanning the surface of the water for breakfast.  Then rocks overflowing with Harbor seal moms and pups.  A few pop up in the water here and there.

We are lucky this afternoon too!  We find J Pod, still heading north up in Canada.  Amazingly enough, we are with the same family group we were watching hours ago in U.S. waters.  Princess Angeline, her calf and her two daughters and their calves swim gracefully together.  Precision swim formation for sure!

Soon the research boat sporting Tucker, the black lab appears.  They have found what they are looking for in the water!  A score!

In the distance we spot two whales, headed back in the opposite direction.  We decide to just take a look and see who this is.  Surprise!  Blackberry and sister, Tsuchi again!  They swim past us, and then join up with the mother and calf group.  His massive fin appears right in the middle of a big whale jumble!  Off they go toward the Fraser River...we wish them many fish upon their arrival!

From Incredibly Small to Impressively Big!

Today brought sunshine, no fog, calm seas and...whales!  We find Granny and J Pod to the south of Lopez Island, cruising the shore line.  Fins cut through the flat water, followed by long dives.  Perhaps the salmon is swimming deeper today?  Today there are Gull chicks on the wildlife refuges,  five or six Steller sea lions, hauled out on the rocks and many mom and pup Harbor seal duos.  I hope for a look at a pup hitching a ride on mom's back.  I am rewarded!  The new life here abounds.  I keep a sharp look for the Bald eagle chicks that are finding their way out of the nests now...but...today they are well hidden.  An adult Bald eagle sweeps down to the water twice, rising with nothing in it's talons.  On the third dip down to the water it rises with something grey and fluffy?  I look and look with binoculars, but my only clue is really the feathers that come flying out of the prey as the eagle digs into it's meal.

Here's a pup trying to catch a ride on mom's back!

Gull chicks are really fluffing out!  And noisy!  From biggest of the big, to smallest of the small...an amazing day on the water!