We started our Labor Day weekend on Friday with the Fjord Express tour to Juneau. It's about a 3 hour boat ride to Juneau with several stops along the way to view the wildlife and whale watching. Don’t forget, you can click on the pictures to get a full size view.
Leaving the Skagway boat harbor around 8 am Friday morning
A Bald Eagle watching us pass by
Stopped to see the seals
This is a group of about 8 Humpbacks. There’s just no way to get suitable pictures of this with our camera, but it was spectacular in person.
Another stop to watch this pair. That’s a whale watch tour boat we pulled up near.
We got to Juneau and had a few hours to wander around downtown. We had lunch at the Rainbow Foods Natural Food Market and picked up a couple items. Then we hit a local supermarket and got a nice supply of hormone free beef and we found Phoebe's favorite dog treats! She’s had to deal with substitute treats most of the summer because we haven’t been able to get her favorite snacks…we stocked up with 4 boxes so she's good till we get back to the lower 48 now.
Then we went out to the Mendenhall Glacier for a short stop.
The Glacier Visitor Center
A model of the Glacier showing the size, the red arrow is where we are.
Then it was back to the boat for the 3 hour trip back to Skagway
We stopped to visit these seals taking a nap on a buoy.
Then we got to witness the most amazing thing….a group of 12 humpback whales Bubble Net Feeding.
The humpback has the most diverse feeding repertoire of all baleen whales. Its most inventive technique is known as bubble net feeding: a group of whales swims in a shrinking circle blowing bubbles below a school of prey. The shrinking ring of bubbles encircles the school and confines it in an ever-smaller cylinder. The whales then suddenly swim upward through the 'net', mouths agape, swallowing thousands of fish in one gulp.
The first time they breached the surface it caught everyone by surprise, I didn’t even have my camera on.
Anyway, it was an incredible day!
Saturday we worked…..
Sunday we went ziplining. We weren’t sure we were going since it was raining, but when we got to the Mountain Guide office they said it wouldn’t matter at all…so off we went.
It was a short drive out of Skagway and up into the mountains. We hiked in and got our gear. Here’s Jeremy & Billy helping Jackie, Randy & John get their harnesses on.
After getting all the safety gear on, we hiked up to a series of rope bridges…these were to help us get comfortable with the height and the harnesses.
Jackie
John
Jackie
Randy
After the bridges, it’s a series of 6 ziplines. When we finished they let us hike back up and do the last 3 zips again! We spent about 2-1/2 hours out there.
Jackie
Randy
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Jeremy, one of our guides, showing some advanced zipping.
It was a wonderful day, the rain even stopped about halfway through the afternoon. Fortunately, it wasn’t even really noticeable. We topped off the day at the Skagway Brewing Company.
Sorry this update is so long, but we had a GREAT WEEKEND!
4 comments:
Incredible videos. Sounds like a wonderful, marvelous adventure. But all those coats really don't do it for me.
Yeah, it's colder than I would prefer here too. I don't feel like I even had a summer this year.
Diane, the pictures are great. You could easily make some really neat postcards. Thank you for posting the pictures. Will you be here the first week of December. Clark was asking about you. Clark is planning to give John McElhaney a retirement dinner during that time and we all would love to see you and John (your John).
Ernie and I leave Sept 22 for Germany for three weeks. We are excited. Dorothy
I don't think we'll be there for the party. :(
Have a Wonderful trip to Germany! :)
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