Fjordland Express to Juneau

July 6, 2015

Today we took the "Fjordland Express to Juneau." We boarded our boat at 8:30 and didn't return to Skagway until about 6:30 in the evening.

 Our boat to Juneau! I have been looking forward to this cruise since we started planning this trip in early 2014!!

Leaving Skagway harbor, I loved the cloud "rays" in this picture!

 An Eagle sits in a tree looking for his next meal. We learned to look for what looked like "golf balls" against the green of the trees. That usually meant it was the white head of an eagle.

We saw lots and lots of waterfalls during our trip to and from
Juneau

Sea Lions lay on the rocks trying to catch some rays. Most of these appear to be adolescents, but there were one or two 'older guys'

Barking and playing in the water, they approached the boat, looking for handouts? When it appeared we weren't going to feed them, they went about their business. Never feed the wildlife!!

Salmon fishing from a trawler

First order of business after arriving in Juneau is lunch at Tracy's Crab Shack, where you order from one booth, it's cooked in another booth. Ours was delivered to "Phil from Coast Guard" and drinks came from another booth. We ate under the tent with plastic sides to protect against the wind...and the mooching birds.

Below is the menu and, since we are Deadliest Catch fans, we must include the picture of the guys!

 We made it!!!

Then we took the tram up to the top of Mt Roberts for a birds eye view of Juneau

Views of Juneau and some of the cruise ships in the harbor

A totem pole in the making

And a finished product

Back down at the bottom of the mountain, these guys were greeting cruise passengers as they came off of the ship

At the Mendenhall Glacier outside of Juneau. The glacier is losing about 12' of ice a year. The rock above and to the right is marked by the glacier and it's movements, it sits just below where the visitor's center is now, and where Phil was standing when he took these pictures. The glacier is now about 1/4 mile away. The falls on the right is from glacier melt from Mendenhall. There are people standing at the base of the falls, to give some perspective of how big the falls are.

This is where we meet back up with our boat for the trip back to Skagway

Phil spots a Coast Guard Cutter

On watch over the harbor as we leave...and for his next meal

About all you see of a humpback whale, except for maybe the tail

Lighthouse duty was always lonely duty, but oh....the views!!

Elred Light, a huge light on it's own island, a fixer upper for sale by the Coast Guard, comes complete with it's own ghost...or so says the captain...

This sea otter was playing in the water on the back side of the lighthouse, along with some harbor seals