The Alaskan Jewel! Welcome Aboard….You don’t Exist!

[jenseib]

A look out the other way.

whale43 by Jenseib, on Flickr

Zooming in.

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I just found this fascinating as you can see.

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[jenseib]

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And then there was a sighting. But this was not one of those sightings we were going to pass by…this was one of those 10% chance sightings…An Orca! Claire and I RAN up the steps to get a look.

whale46 by Jenseib, on Flickr

Now it was hard to get pictures because a lot of people were up top and trying to do exactly what I was trying to do, but we managed.

whale47 by Jenseib, on Flickr

It was a pod! We would see them come up and then lose them for a bit and then they would pop up somewhere else. The Captain was good about swinging the boat around to see them and to let both sides of the boat see them.

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There is one WAY over there.

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[jenseib]

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Sammy was incredibly excited so you knew this was a pretty cool thing when a girl who comes on these tours daily is excited.

 

whale10 by Jenseib, on Flickr

 

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Up next…..more exciting whale sightings!

[SenatorsFan]

Your pictures are all great, but these last ones leading up to the orca sighting are stunning! Thanks. :)

Heather

[jenseib]

Your pictures are all great, but these last ones leading up to the orca sighting are stunning! Thanks. :)

Heather

 

Thanks so much. This was such an amazing day!

[jenseib]

We continued spinning around in the area watching the orcas appear and disappear.

 

whale12 by Jenseib, on Flickr

 

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I just wanted one to jump up like Shamu but we had no such luck.

 

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[jenseib]

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It was so exciting but the Captain finally said we had to move on if we wanted to see humpbacks.

 

Claire and I went back downstairs and sat with Skip. It had been pretty windy up top, which made it a bit colder too. He said he could see them through the windows just fine and was in fact spotting them before a lot of us up top were and pointing them out and then the Captain would head where he was pointing. For all I know he was lying, but he we will give him the benefit of the doubt and believe him. LOL!

 

We traveled on out further to find the humpbacks.

 

whale1 by Jenseib, on Flickr

 

As we came to the area where they were supposed to be, Claire and I ran back up top again.

 

I believe this was the sister ship to ours.

 

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There were a couple of boats in the area so you knew there had to be some sightings going on.

 

whale50 by Jenseib, on Flickr

[jenseib]

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Sammy came up top with us and she said to watch where the birds are as they often will hover over where the whales are.

 

We kept scanning around, of course with one eye watching the birds…and then splash…there they are!!!!

 

 

whale52 by Jenseib, on Flickr

 

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Sammy proclaimed they were bubble net feeding.

 

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She said they hadn’t seen them do this since June and thought they were done for the year. She was super excited about this.

 

whale55 by Jenseib, on Flickr

 

What is bubble net feeding you ask? Well……Bubble Net Feeding is a unique feeding technique employed by Humpback Whales, in which a group of whales swim in a shrinking circle blowing bubbles below a school of fish. This shrinking column of bubbles surrounds the school of fish forcing them upward. The whales spontaneously swim upward through the bubble net, mouths wide open, catching thousands of fish in one gulp.

 

And here they come!

 

whale56 by Jenseib, on Flickr

[jenseib]

Those are mouths!

 

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This is where I wish we could’ve gotten just a bit closer as I have a pretty good zoom lens on my SLR but it was still a stretch to get some of the shots.

 

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Sammy said there were 8 whales.

 

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It was such an amazing sight.

 

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[jenseib]

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They would dip back down every so often and we would have to wait and see where they would surface next.

 

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[jenseib]

And when you would see all the tales go up that meant they were getting ready for another bubble net.

 

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I believe Sammy said there was 1 female and she would lead when they would go down and once she gave the signal they all went down.

 

whale71 by Jenseib, on Flickr

 

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They would be down for around 5 minutes and then break the water with mouths wide open. It was so neat.

 

Up next…more bubble net feeding!

[jenseib]

We really spent a lot of time here watching them. I can see how you could spend a whole day here and never get tired of watching them.

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As you can see this littler boat went much closer.

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[jenseib]

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I had really hoped I would get a nice whale tale picture and I was pretty happy that I got several.

Here they come!!!!!

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Look at that big guys mouth wide open.

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[jenseib]

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I stood next to Sammy for quite a while and she was just so fun to talk to. She said this was an amazing tour and not something you get to see normally.

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We watched them for a bit more and then the Captain said we had to head back since we had a ship to catch yet today and because we were out further than where they normally go it was going to take a bit longer to get back.

We headed back downstairs to warm up and talked to Skip. This was just so fabulous, but we knew that this excursion was more for us girls than Skip. He didn’t have that big silly grin on his face today like he did when we were out crab fishing. Today I was wearing that grin.

Sammy talked some more on the way back. She was so pumped about everything. She said normally they don’t see 8 whales together, let along bubble feeding too. And the fact that we saw Orcas as well just made this tour all the more exciting.

She went on with more info about whales and they also had some stuff for sale and another gal came up and talked about that. They also had some snacks for free. I think it was salmon on a cracker and you could buy the cans of salmon if you liked it. It was pretty good. Claire refused to try it. I think we got some more cocoa as well.

Finally we made it back to shore and I was watching my watch. It was getting late and I knew we were cutting it close getting back to the ship, but thank goodness this was a ship excursion.

When we got back we tipped Sammy and headed back to the bus. Now tips are totally optional, but most of the kids working on these excursions, that is…. the ones helping out, are college kids trying to earn money for the next year. I never felt pressured to tip anyone though it was always announced that they were working hard and we could tip them if we felt they did a good job. So far, everyone really went above and beyond and we were happy to give them a few bucks to help them along.

On our way back to Juneau.

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[jenseib]

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Our bus driver was just as chatty on the way back and gave us some history on the city.

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I believe he said that Juneau’s capital building is the smallest state capital building used in the US.

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Sadly as we got into town I knew we wouldn’t have any time to look around or shop. I had really wanted to go to Tracy’s Crab Shack for a leg of king crab, but it wasn’t meant to be. I should’ve gotten crab yesterday in Ketchikan…darn it!

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[jenseib]

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We were basically pulling up at the all aboard time….eek!!!! cutting it close.

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Until we saw this line.

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Yep it was wrapped all the way down to the buses. We decided to wait it out and go to the bathroom before jumping in line.

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[jenseib]

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The line was moving pretty fast and we jumped in it then as the end got near the bathrooms.

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As we waiting I was trying to upload photos to facebook from my phone. The funny thing is I had better cell reception on the whale watching boat than I did at the dock here.

Up next….Some lunch and some more beautiful scenery!

[rjc2015]

Still loving your report and posts. We were on one of the third-party whale boats, and while we saw a bunch of humpbacks, I wish we were able to see orcas too.

 

Still hoping to see myself in the background of one of your photos. :cool:

[jenseib]

Still loving your report and posts. We were on one of the third-party whale boats, and while we saw a bunch of humpbacks, I wish we were able to see orcas too.

 

Still hoping to see myself in the background of one of your photos. :cool:

 

 

Thanks for sticking with me. I just don't have the time to throw myself into this daily like some do.

 

We had a really good tour that day. I enjoyed the whole day and it will be a lasting memory for us forever!

[jenseib]

We finally got back on the ship and Skip wanted to race right up to deck 7 to see if the guy who was mad about all the late comers was watching again today. Sure enough he was and we chatted with him and told him we were late comers today too…but we were on an excursion so we had no control. We chatted with him a bit and today because we were a bit later getting people back on the ship there wasn’t the mad dashes like yesterday.

That’s really the bad thing about today though….we just was not in Juneau long enough. We were scheduled to arrive at 7 AM and all aboard was 1 PM…though we got on closer to 1:30.

As we stood watching them pack up the ship we saw the Pearl coming in.

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She was waiting for us to move. The Pearl does the opposite of what we do on this day. We do Juneau and then Tracy Arm, they do Tracy Arm and then Juneau.

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We were now moving and we were hungry for some lunch. Some of us were probably close to dying again, but we survived. I suggested O’Sheehans. Claire agreed that was a good choice and Skip didn’t know what it was, but I told him he would enjoy it as it had pub food.

It was pretty busy there and loud. Luckily they still had seats open and we were seated right away and soon making our orders.

We started with the spinach artichoke dip…and Claire went with 2 orders of mozzarella sticks (at the suggestion of our server).

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And I got some sort of frozen concoction.

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We were full of excitement for the day so far and just chatted away.

[jenseib]

Like I said it was very loud in there and an announcement was being made. It was near impossible to hear and no one seemed to care or lower their voices…including my husband. I could barely make out what they said but I know it was a bit of welcome back to the ship and hope you enjoyed your day. They then went on about how long before we would be entering……what I can’t hear. I don’t think they said Tracy Arm….I “think” they said Endicott Arm. Shoot I can’t hear…what are they saying? Now I only knew about Endicott Arm from reading prior to the cruise. It is often used as a backup for Tracy Arm when the ship can’t get in there. I think Tracy Arm tends to have more icebergs in it. Ok, I totally missed the announcement and now I wasn’t sure if we were going to Tracy Arm or Endicott Arm. And if going to Endicott I didn’t know the reason why. Now for some they may not care and I really didn’t care which we went to but I wanted to know why. Of course I never heard another announcement about it the rest of the day. And at the point I had no clue where we were going.

Meals then arrived. Claire went with the chicken wings which she really enjoyed again.

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Skip got some sort of sandwich which I can no longer remember, but he said it was good.

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I got the pot pie which was fabulous!!!!

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The food was great and if we got dessert I didn’t take a picture of it. I am thinking we may have gotten the same brownies with ice-cream that Claire and I got the first day, but I could be wrong. We just may have been too full.

There was a Nickelodeon show that was going to start soon so I think we separated and Skip and Claire went to it and I was going to meet up with them in a bit. Why we separated I don’t remember. My next picture is through the atrium doors.

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And then outside watching the world go by.

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[jenseib]

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I then headed back to the room and saw our snack of the day. Score! I love chocolate covered strawberries.

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I have no clue why I had to head back to the room, but I think that is the reason we separated….I must’ve needed something there. I am thinking that I might have went looking for my point and shoot camera as I had forgotten to take it with me that morning and I was pretty sure I left it on our table but I still wanted to double check. Also my big SLR was having some issues. I think because it had gotten wet yesterday in Ketchikan. When I tried to look at pictures I had taken it was being funky. By the next day it was fine so I chalked it up to being wet and knock on wood I haven’t had any troubles since then.

I then headed to the Stardust Theatre to meet back up with them and the show was already underway.

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[jenseib]

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Basically the show was about 2 families competing against each other and they also would call other audience members to help in some of the competitions.

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Claire was shy about raising her hand and we were just far enough back that unless she was really waving her hand she wouldn’t be picked.

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During one of the last challenges she did finally raise her hand but she wasn’t chosen.

I think the blue family lost so they had to pie their own faces.

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[jenseib]

The red family won and I guess it’s a privilege to get slimed.

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If that is what you get for winning you can count me out.

Claire enjoyed the show; I thought it was ok and at least something fun and family friendly. Skip thought it was torture but endured it for Claire. I will say it really wasn’t ran all that well. Not all that organized in my opinion….but I guess I never need to worry about that again as they will be discontinuing the Nick activities next year.

After the show Claire was ready for the kids club again, so we dropped her off and just enjoyed the views again.

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We headed back towards the room to relax for a bit.

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One thing to keep in mind….the fish swim towards the front of the ship, so no matter what side you are on, you know by the way the fish are swimming if you are walking forward or aft.

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[jenseib]

I think I sat out on the balcony for a bit while Skip napped.

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I decided I wanted to find the front of the ship…the stern… as it had now been opened for passengers to go out and view.

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Skip remained in the room but told me what level he thought it was on. I thought it was another and we were both wrong.

jewl16 by Jenseib, on Flickr