Glaciers and Whales : Citizen Science Adventure

[anniegb]

Has anyone taken this excursion in Juneau? If so how did it compare to a Whale excursion?

 

I saw plenty of whales in South Africa without having to go out in a boat and I am looking for something different!

 

Thanks

[Yukon]

I see nothing there ( http://www.stepintoalaska.com/tour_shore_excursion_details.cfm?tourid=researchexploration ) that isn't offered by other operators such as Orca for much less money.

[anniegb]

Thanks Yukon

[wolfie11]

I heard about this from talking to the vendor. It seems that it is the standard Mendenhall glacier/whale watch tour with the addition of doing "science" as part of the tour. At Mendenhall I believe they show you the benchmark and explain the role of historic photography in tracking glacial retreat and vegetation, and on the whale watch you drag plankton nets to look at what the whales are eating and take photographs of whale tails to compare to the catalog and see what whales are there that year (humpback whale tail markings are like fingerprints).

 

There's more info on their website http://www.stepintoalaska.com/citizen_science.cfm

[chipmaster]

This interested me a bit, but when you read carefully you need to consider what they are offering. On a few hour tour all you will be doing is a scripted data collection and comparing to some computer data from sometime ago. If this is the experience you want then worth it. In the end I think this is a bit waste of time, and you pay more, but that is just my opinion of what I want from the tour.

 

IMHO as another poster said ORCA does this smaller and more intimate tour ( we used them ). Great guide, small boat, captain with sharp eyes and more intimate. Here are two pictures comparing our crowd ( inside the boat ) and the cruiseline mass tour boat.

 

Has anyone taken this excursion in Juneau? If so how did it compare to a Whale excursion?

 

I saw plenty of whales in South Africa without having to go out in a boat and I am looking for something different!

 

Thanks