Juneau, Alaska

This was the day I most looked forward to on the cruise.  We scheduled a whale watching excursion. 

All loaded in the boat.  Our tour guide was a cute recent college graduate in marine biology.

First, we stopped to bring up a trap and see what was in it.  I think she called it a sunflower starfish.  Ours was a research excursion and part of that was to check the trap and report to the marine center what was in it. 

There was also a smaller red starfish

I touched it.  It was soft and squishy.

We then sighted a whale.  We watched her for a while.  Boats are not supposed to go closer than 100 yards from a whale unless the whale comes to you.  It is hard to get pictures.  We took many pictures, hoping to catch the whale above the water.

We got lots of pictures of water!

Ken and I were sitting in the back of the boat.  When the boat stopped or slowed down, we could go outside.  Most of the people went to the front, so most of the time we had the back to ourselves.  It was glorious.  It was a cold, but sunny day.

They can tell by their dorsal fin and tail which whale we are watching.  The whales all have names. We watched Sasha for quite a while.

A whale's gill.

The first thing you see is the whale blowing.

Finally caught above the water.

We then went to a different location and watched a mother and baby whale romping and jumping.

Many boats were out whale watching.  We would all gather around whales and watch from a distance.

These pictures taken by Ken are our best.

Dorsal fin

These seals were hilarious.  They were fighting over who got to sit on the buoy.  We could hear them arguing, barking at each other.

Come on, it's my turn.

Ken got up in the middle of the night again and went on top of the ship, hoping to see the aurora borealis.

Again, the moon was gorgeous

But the northern lights were very weak.

That was a disappointment.  But it was so fun to see whales in Juneau.  It was a fun excursion.