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Our first humpback of the day |
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7-12-04
Day Trip to Juneau
| I got up really early today and luckily I got the last ticket on the Alaska Fjordlines day cruse to Juneau. I grabbed a quick breakfast and made it to the docks in Hanes a few minutes before the boat departed. Our trip today down the inside passage will take us through an area called The Lynn Canal and will arrive near Juneau at Auke Bay. We hadn't been out of the Hanes harbor for more than 10 minutes when we spotted out first Humpback whale feeding. We also quickly came to the main stellar sea lion rookery in the area and lingered for a few minutes. |
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Our first humpback of the day |
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Stellar sea Lions |
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The awesome and rugged landscape of the inside passage the floor of the ocean drops off just a steeply as the hill sides slope down to the water. |
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Now that looks relaxed to me! |
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Our second Humpback of the day. |
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The monitoring station used to remotely observe the Sea Lion rookery. Big brother is watching even in the wilds of Alaska. |
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A bald eagle comes in for a strike on some prey in the water. |
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Look at that pose! ready to strike |
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And pulled out at the last minute. |
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A pair of humpbacks, most people on the boat think it is a mother and calf that is a few years old. |
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More Bald Eagles in the tree tops |
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| The landscape is just absolutely stunning and the scope of these mountains is hard to capture. The haze from distant forest fires is also robbing us of distant panoramas. This smoke has traveled hundreds of miles |
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A fishing boat heads to work. |
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| A friend of our captains working his nets. Out captain used to be a fishing boat Owner/Captain for many years prior to starting his tour boat operation. He also told us that he has unfortunately run over two nets in the years he has been running his tour boat. One of them a couple of years ago was one of this guys nets. It is easy to understand how easy this would be to do as when the fish are running and they are allowed to drop nets the fishing boats crowed in to the sound running nets all over the place and they can be easy to miss. |
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One of the big Alaska marine highway ferries |
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The Juneau waterfront |
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A cruse ship comes in to dock |
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A totem pole in downtown Juneau |
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| The Juneau police! One of the things that has kept the Juneau PD busy was when the new grocery store opened. the Black bears quickly figured how they could just walk right in the automatic opening doors. Supposedly as the story goes some poor unsuspecting person rang the bell at the deli counter and up popped a Black bear who was helping him self to all the cold cuts in the case. |
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Not candy - Rocks! |
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The Mendenhall glacier |
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A water fall near the Mendenhall glacier. |
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Dalls Porpoise playing in our wake as we head back to Hanes |
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More stellar sea lions on a mid channel buoy. |
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Snoooozin |
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| The Eldred Rock Light House. The oldest light house in Alaska. Learn more about it's history HERE |
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| On the return trip I got a chance to talk to some of the other passengers on the boat. One couple I met was from England and had just completed a week long trip throughout Canada's Yukon Territory. They even drove up to Inuvik in the Northwest Territory. we spent allot of the trip back to Hanes talking about travel and their home in England. They gave me some tips on traveling in Europe and where to go to find unspoiled parts of Europe. I also told them about my trip up to Prudhoe Bay, they were very interested in my experience as they want to someday make the trip as well. |
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The MV. Fiordland, specially built for the inside passage. |
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To go to the next day click HERE |
