Thar she blows!

Thar she went!

Wednesday saw us in Juneau, the state Capital, known for absurd amounts of rain; it was sunny and warm all day. Our adventures started later than on Tuesday, with a bus tour that showed us some of the sights of the city and then took us out to the Mendenhall Glacier to view the “big ice”.

As we’ve seen here in Alaska, you are never quite prepared for the enormity of the sights. The first view of the glacier leaves you thinking, “Wow, that’s big.”, and then when you get closer and yet realize that you are still quite far away from it, you think, “That’s really big.”

The time for our tour was limited, though, so we could not explore as much as we wanted. The next stop was a salmon hatchery where we learned about the life cycle, and habits of the big red monsters. After some salmon jerky and a little souvenir hunting, we were whisked back to the ship in time to grab some lunch before embarking on the trip that Charleen had been looking forward to for a long, long time – the whale watch.

The whale watch required a bus ride out past the fish hatchery and out past the glacier as well. The day was still beautiful as we boarded ship and prepared to set out on the high seas for whales. Seals were found first, then a pod of orcas, and another, and then some more seals and then a few more orcas, and finally, what Charleen had been anticipating, a humpback whale.

Two blows and off he went on a deep dive; our humpback was never to be seen again.

Well, we’d seen a whale, so the guarantee could not be invoked, but Charleen was very disappointed. Two puffs of steam and a black back sliding under the water were a far cry from what Charleen had hoped to see.

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