July 2, 2012 - Garden City RV Park, Skagway, Alaska

Yesterday we had arranged to go on the Fjord Express boat tour, on the Fjordland, to Juneau for today. We left the campground this morning about 7:30 and went to the harbor to meet the boat, which was scheduled to leave at 8:00. It was there and loading. It was a fairly new catamaran which held about 60 passengers. We had both taken some Dramamine earlier because when we gone on a boat tour up here in 2000, we had all been sick. This ride today was really smooth. I guess it may have been because we were in a “fjord” or inlet rather than on the open sea. Our boat owner and captain, Glen, and his teen-age daughter, Anna, were very hospitable, entertaining and gave lots of information about the area and the sea animals. We saw several bald eagles, whales (individual and pods), porpoises, sea otters, sea lions, harbor seals and orcas (even he was surprised at the orcas). Glen was very expert at spotting the sea-life; he would then slow down, stop or even circle back to let us get a good look and photos. There were probably 25 people who departed with us from Skagway this morning, then we stopped at Haines to pick up additional 12. Haines is 14 miles by water from Skagway, by road it is 360 miles away. It was then about another 2 hours to Juneau. It actually took us longer than that because we spent so much time stopped watching whales. It was the fishing opener (opening day) for commercial fishing today. It was like running an obstacle course for Glen to pilot the boat between all the nets that extended behind the boats as went into Juneau.

Eagle in flight

Sea Lions

Humpback whale as it surfaces during lunge feeding.

Commercial Fishermen retreiving their net.

Orca Whale

When we arrived at Juneau, we were met at the dock by Glen’s brother, Gary, with a Gray Lines bus to take us downtown. He also kept us entertained with his running commentary about things as we passed them. Juneau is the capital of Alaska, but is situated on this section of land that is reached only by water or air. It is very landlocked by the sea and the mountains. The downtown seemed to be very tightly squeezed into just a very few blocks. After leaving us on our own in the downtown for a couple of hours, Gary picked us up and took us to see the Mendenhall Glacier which is overseen by the National Parks Dept. We had about 1 ½ hours there and then he picked us up to take us to meet Glen with the boat. The water was a little rougher on the way back than it had been this morning, but still it wasn’t too bad – nothing like we had previously experienced on the open sea.

Mendenhall Glacier in background

There had been three cruise ships in the Skagway harbor this morning when we left, this evening when we got back at 8:30, one was already gone and the other two were preparing to leave. While in Juneau, there were four cruise ships docked there. Three were pulled up to the dock, the fourth, a Celebrity cruise ship was anchored out in the bay and they were shuttling people in on small boats so they didn’t have to pay the docking fee. We were told there will be more ships in here at Skagway by morning so it should be busy in town tomorrow.