Our luck has finally run out as far as the weather is concerned. After being merely overcast for days, it’s finally raining, and the forecast is rain all day. We are on a whale watching and hiking excursion today, so we bundle up, put on our rain coats, and go ashore in Juneau. Thank goodness it’s a balmy 60 degrees outside or this would be miserable.
The boat we are on for whale watching has a roof. It’s totally enclosed, so we can stay dry unless we go outside. There are 23 or so people with us, and we fill the boat pretty well. It’s a big boat, but not all that big. The captain takes us right out to a spot where we immediately see a few humpback whales, probably 20 minutes after leaving the dock, and well within sight of shore.
They are surfacing, blowing, and diving. After they do that a few times, they do a bigger dive. When you see their tail come out of the water, you can count on not seeing that whale again for 5 minutes or so.
The tail comes up for a big dive.
It’s hard to say how many whales we can see here, but it’s probably 2 or 3, maybe 4. Whale people can recognize them by their tails but for us they all look mostly the same. They pop up all around, and then disappear, and then pop up again in another place.
Next, we go out to an island that has what must be 100 sea lions on it, belching, fighting, and just laying around. It’s a noisy, steamy, smelly mess, but it’s hard not to like them.
Watching sea lions on island near Juneau
We have to head back to the dock now. We look for more whales on the way, and we spot one, but we see it’s tail come up for a big dive soon after we arrive. We can’t can’t wait for it to come back up. The second half of this excursion is a short hike to see the Mendenhall Glacier, so we’ve got to get going.
It’s raining pretty hard on our hike but we are wearing ponchos so we stay relatively dry. Hiking in the chilly rain (in August) in Alaska to see a glacier is actually pretty fun. The end of the glacier sits in Mendenhall Lake and the lake water is so cold that when the glacier calves the larger chunks of ice don’t melt, for decades.
We are back on the ship by late in the afternoon. It’s formal night again at dinner, so we all get fancy and head out early. We have a 5:30 reservation, because we are hoping to visit the Captain’s Cocktail Hour Reception at 7:00 and then see a ventriloquist at 8:00.
After dinner, while walking to the Captain’s Reception, we notice people looking out the windows on the starboard side. Some are taking pictures. We have just pulled out of the Juneau inlet, so we are in open water now. What’s so exciting? What could be worth a picture out here?
Humpback whales. We see a few, then a few more. They are everywhere. Too many to count. You never know when or where one is going to pop up, but you can be sure one will. It’s the whale equivalent of a meteor shower.