We planned to take two excursions today, whale watching and a helicopter to the Mendenhall Glacier.

The whale watching was more successful. We walked off the ship and onto a bus, with just enough time to take a photo of one of the interesting fishy sculptures on the pier.

The whale watching boat left from the harbor at Auke Bay, about half an hour from the pier. As we passed the Alaska State Capitol, the driver mentioned that it had been voted “50th Most Beautiful State Capitol” and I think the voters were quite generous.

The operator of the tour guarantees you’ll see a whale or they’ll refund you $100 in cash – it didn’t take long before we saw our first whale.

Over the course of the three-hour cruise, we saw about a dozen whales – some alone, some in groups of as many as four. Most of them were humpbacks, but one had a white fluke, so it might have been a different species.

Whales weren’t the only wildlife we saw on the cruise; we also saw a bald eagle and even some ducks.

We saw a few more whales on our way back to the dock.

And then it was back to the ship to discover that they’d cancelled all of the helicopter tours due to weather, so we spent the afternoon wandering around Juneau. There were a lot of jewelry shops there – we visited many and spent money in none. :-)

We sailed nearly 300 nautical miles overnight so that we could see the Hubbard Glacier up close and personal this afternoon.

The weather was less than cooperative – we dressed for it, though, and braved the outside to see what we could see.

There were many ice floes in the water – nothing big enough to threaten the ship, though!

When we got near the glacier, it was quite foggy, but the captain eventually brought the ship close enough so we could tell there really was a glacier out there.

He brought the ship even closer – our suite was on the side facing the glacier for a while, so we went out on our veranda and listened to the sounds of the glacier calving. We weren’t able to see any of the newly-hatched icebergs, but I’m sure they were out there.

There was an optional excursion on a small boat which brought people closer to the glacier – it was sold out by the time we tried to get seats. I know some people cancelled their seats when they found out what the weather was going to be like, but the excursion ran anyway; I wonder if they had better viewing than we did.

The glacier was amazing even though we couldn’t see it in its best light; it’s one of the few glaciers that’s still advancing (getting bigger), despite global warming.

We’re en route to Juneau; we’re supposed to go out on a whale watching tour and take a helicopter to the Mendenhall Glacier, weather permitting. Here’s hoping!