Looking for the Whales

 Alaska Cruise Trip Day 5 – Juneau

After our interesting morning at the Dawes Glacier, we headed to Juneau to watch whales.  

In Juneau, we boarded the St. Elisabeth (what an excellent name for a boat!) and boated out to the North Pass of the Favorite Channel. 

A few whales were blowing geysers and "tooting their horns" while a dolphin pod frolicked near them.  There were no spectacular breaches, but it was still exciting to see whale tails.  Parts of whale bodies would slide in and out of the water like sci-fi sand creatures.  

The tour guide said the whales winter in Hawaii to have their young and then swim to Alaska for the summer.  It was still early in the season when we were there, so there was not as much marine life to be found.

When I think of whale watching, I think of the A-ha song, We're Looking for the Whales.  I can hear that song in my head when I look at today's featured pic.

Meandering Runoff

   Alaska Cruise Trip Day 5 – Heading out of the Endicott Arm.

Along the way, we saw many places where spring runoff was carving paths down the mountains.

Dawes Glacier

  Alaska Cruise Trip Day 5 – The Dawes Glacier.

Thirty miles from the beginning of the Endicott Arm Fjord, we arrived at the Dawes Glacier.  

Yes, the scenery was beautiful, but I was expecting something else.  TV shows always show zoomed-in views of glaciers, highlighting their majestic size.  But what my eyes showed me when we arrived was a Minnesota shopping mall parking lot at the end of March after a very snowy winter.  Except the "snow" at the glacier wasn't dirty gray with shopping carts sticking out of it.

About the time I was thinking these thoughts, the ship narrator reminded us that we were still half a mile away from the glacier at this, our closest point in the journey.  Our perspective was distorted.  In actuality, that wall of blue glacier is over 600 feet tall and half a mile wide!

As the ship was slowly turning around to leave, we heard cracking noises from the glacier.  One giant piece calved off, and my husband saw it just as it hit the water.  

Blue Beauty

 Alaska Cruise Trip Day 5 – Nearing the Dawes Glacier in the Endicott Arm Fjord.

The sun was out, and the ice was more plentiful the closer we got to the glacier.  This was the view behind us.

Here is a close-up of the chunk of ice floating in the middle of today's scenic view.  It is such a pretty blue color, especially with the sun shining through it.

Side-swiped

     Alaska Cruise Trip Day 5 – Nearing the Dawes Glacier in the Endicott Arm Fjord.

If you look closely at the rocky surface of the mountains, you will see deep scrapes, like they were side-swiped.  Well, they actually were!  Those are the marks the glacier left behind when it passed through this area many moons ago.