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Cruise the Inside Passage aboard the Statendam - (Juneau, AK - 8am-10:30pm)

Our ship arrived in Juneau around 8:00am and we weren’t scheduled to leave until 10:30. However, as I write this at 10:00pm, we are already pulling out of the harbor. We are all closely monitored as we get off and on the ship so I guess they knew everyone was back on board.

It is pretty tonight after a cold, windy, rain-filled day. We explored a little in the morning but instead of buying something from one of the 29 jewelry stores in the three blocks surrounding the pier, we bought a 6-pack of Alaskan beer.

We were guaranteed to see whales on our whale-watching excursion so we were all joking on the bus to the boat that they probably had some inflatable whales out in the water. But just minutes into our tour, we were tracking a pod of orca (killer) whales. They gave us quite a show as the 30-40 people on the boat all stood in the cold, eyes glued to the spot they had last surfaced. There were 4-5

Montana Majestic Mountain T Tour

Runs great...

....Drive it home.

Runs great...

....Drive it home.

Day 7 - Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Getting to Anchorage

Saturday, Aug 14th

On The Road Again

Yellowstone then Home

whales in the pod and were above water for mere seconds each time. Ben had the best camera on the boat and was shooting a sequence-shooting sports setting that took one picture after another until he took his finger off the button. He got some great photos and it was hard to only choose a few for this page.

By law, we could only trail the pod for 30 minutes so we moved on. We spotted the sea lion primarily by the crowd of seagulls dive-bombing him to steal the fish he had caught. Then out of the sky came a bald eagle that snatched at least half of the fish from his mouth.

When we (and when I sat “we”, I mean the all-female crew from Allen Marine who manned the boat) spotted the humpback whale, it was a perfect way to end our excursion. She would rise in the water to breathe several times before diving down to feed for 5-10 minutes. And when she dove, she would show those famous flukes. It was thrilling because it was almost like watching it in slow motion; all of us held our breath begging her to flip that tail. It was a great afternoon, none of us needed a refund, and I think we probably got the best pictures on the boat. If you make it to Alaska, do this! Really, really exciting!