ALASKA TRIP - MAY 2018 - A VISIT WITH GREGG'S SECOND COUSIN - SUNDAY, MAY 27TH, 2018

Second cousins meet today - Sunday, May 27th, 2018

It is 4.25 p.m. and Gregg and I are sitting in the main room of the hotel, with the elk's head staring down at us.  The fire is keeping us nice and toasty, and once again I am drawn to the wrought iron screen with the wonderful design of salmon, which I fancy are swimming upstream.  The flames in the grate are spurring them on.  No one has let the fire go out yet.  It has always been very welcome when we sit down, especially after coming in from outside.

5.09 p.m. and we are having an early cocktail in the bar while a basketball game is going on.  Several customers are in here this time, showing their support by cheering loudly.  Even my sports' loving husband isn't paying attention to the game.  

Way too noisy for me. We are sitting at our usual table, the one by the window, and we have been spoilt by the previous days of quietness after a busy day of sight-seeing.  We move down to the coffee shop downstairs and order an individual slice of pizza and a salad for dinner.  It is nice and quiet down there. 

From the coffee shop we go outside, have our evening walk and see the bronze bear that stands outside of one of the large windows.  

It is one of my favorite sculptures on the property.

There are a few flowers around but it is still too early for them.  I have read that the place is awash with colorful blooms later in the season, and the hotel is well known for them.

After a nice walk we sit outside next to the fire pit. It warded off the chill in the air very nicely. (This is actually the firepit in the front of the hotel, but the one in the back is identical.)

Now we are in our room after deciding to have an early night.  Before I fell asleep, I decide to jot a few more things down.

Earlier today we spent a few hours with Gregg's second cousin and her family on the outskirts of Anchorage.  Her grandmother and Gregg's grandmother are sisters.  They met on Facebook as she is part of their cousin's group.  

It was lovely meeting them, and also a friend of theirs. They cooked us barbecue, and we were treated to fresh wild salmon and burgers, with all kinds of delicious side-dishes. We enjoyed talking to the family and the next door neighbor's dog came over to say hello.  A few neighbors walking by waved.  

We want to thank Gregg's second cousin and her family again for giving us such a good time. We weren't able to give a lot of warning beforehand.  Our schedule had been hectic and though they knew we were in the area and might be dropping by, we weren't sure on timing.  Gregg called to say hello and we were invited over, they made us very welcome.  It was a lovely ending to our holiday. 

(I finally got a photo of the white whale sculpture as we enter the hotel.)

But, it's not over yet.  There is actually one more day tomorrow.  We are getting up early and going back to Seward.  You guessed it, to see the sea otters, one last hurrah.  And I do hope they are still there.  Even if not it will be lovely to see Seward one last time.

We will be ready to head to the airport the following day.  It has been an amazing vacation, but once you know it is coming to an end, the old homing pigeon instincts kick in and you can't wait to get going.  We will have been away for a month.  Time to go home.

But first, the sea otters...and they will be in my next post.

ALASKA CRUISE - MAY 14TH, 2018 - WHALE WATCHING AT ICY STRAIGHT POINT

Alaska Trip - May 2018 - Cruise
Monday, May 14th, 2018 
Whale Watching at Icy Straight Point.

Do they look cold?  It was a bit nippy that day.

I am writing this at 7.20 a.m. Last night we were warned not to go out on the balcony. I felt the motion even more as I tried to sleep, but the ship was really rocking last night.  It didn't make me feel uneasy.  It really is an odd sensation feeling yourself rolling in bed.  Odd but not unpleasant and I found it quite comforting. 

Gregg stepped out on the balcony and said it was a real nice day.  By that time the water was calm.  As I said, a little nippy but I am enjoying the briskness of it, and as long as I am bundled up I am fine.

We will get into port later today.  The captain left late yesterday from Sitka, to miss most of the storm we were heading to.  

An amazing day, we went on a whale watching boat at Icy Straight Point.  We saw Humpback Whales!

We walked quite a ways from the ship.... 

to get to a large building where several tours were offered. 

The photo below shows an old cannery. I read that the town of Hoonah is located on Chichagof Island, about 30 miles west of Juneau, along Icy Straight in the Inside Passage.  The Huna, a Tlingit tribe, have lived in the Icy Strait area for thousands of years.  In 1912 the Hoonah Packing Company built a large salmon cannery north of town.  The cannery operated on and off under different ownership until the early 1950s, and it sat shuttered for decades until the local Native corporation, Huna Totem Corp., purchased and rehabilitated the facility to create the private cruise port now known as Icy Straight Point.

There are several kinds of tours offered but we knew that we wanted to go whale watching.  We had about an hour to wait for our boat.  This picture is of it approaching the dock after a previous tour.  We board in half an hour.  

There was a crew of three that we saw, and the captain whose voice we heard over the loudspeaker.  

A man gave us an interesting talk about the humpbacks and a young lady spoke to us in her native tongue, and then in English.  She told us about life in this small community of 800 people. 

Whenever you saw the gulls circling or sitting on the water...

it was a sign that we would be seeing a whale, so the boat kept following the birds. 

Our first sight of the whales was thrilling.

We gave nephew our camera and he went up on the observation deck on the top of the boat.  We have him to thank for these great photos.

When their heads shot up in a circle, it was hard to stop your mouth from dropping open and squealing with glee.  Audible gasps were heard from all of us at some point or another.  One time they did this right next to the boat.  Everyone yelled, so exciting.

What I read at this website. 

"Alaska Humpback Whales are "baleen" whales.  Instead of teeth they have between 270-400 baleen plates, which hang from their top jaw.  They feed by taking large gulps of air (a gulp can be 1500 gallons of water).  Humpbacks use a hunting technique called "bubble netting".  They swim in a spiral beneath a school of fish or krill  (Krill is a small shrimp-like crustacean) blowing lots of bubbles.  This creates a "net" of bubbles that traps a giant mass of krill.  They then swim up through the center with their mouths wide open enjoying their favorite meal.  The baleen plates act as filters for the fish and krill.  

The nutrient-rich waters at Point Adolphus makes southeast Alaska an especially great place to view them feeding.  

We saw these whales showing their "bubble netting" techniques many times.  We also saw several whales gliding through the water.  

For such a huge animal they were very graceful as they slid under the surface. 

Our niece also gave us some great photos from her camera, and the following are those.

There were also stellar seals and sea lions, with their heads bobbing up and down in the water. 

We saw a pair of eagles high in a tree during our boat trip, and I also saw a very large chick moving around. I am assuming the parents were feeding it, but it was hard to see, even with binoculars the boat company put on most seats for our use.  I am not sure when I got this photo.  I took several.
(Added note: I misidentified this photo as it was taken by either Gregg's sister or her husband.  I had misplaced this one in the whale folder, but I came across it later in another one correctly identified as being theirs.)

It was time to make our way back to the ship, and a lady waiting at the end of the building for stragglers, offered us a ride in a trolley-like vehicle that held about a dozen people.  She dropped us off right next to the ship.

I have added a few maps where Hoonah and Alaska are located, and also a few interesting facts.

The map above gives you a good idea how big Alaska is compared to the other states, but it has the lowest populace density of all of them.  The name Alaska comes from the Aleut word Alaxsaq.  This means 'the mainland' or 'the object towards which the action of the sea is directed".  The land is also called Alyeska, which is another Aleut word that means 'the great land'.

In the map above the marker shows where Hoonah is located, and below a map showing the same but on a much larger scale.

Quite a day and one spending time with my family watching and enjoying those amazing whales was a huge highlight of our holiday together.