2009 Alaska

Our Alaska trip, July 5-12, was a last-minute decision because of the excellent prices available through HollandAmerica. We set sail from Seattle on the ms Westerdam on the 5th for a cruise of the Inside Passage of Alaska.

Our first stop was at Glacier Bay. I use the term "stop" loosely because we're not allowed to get off the ship. The weather was a picture-perfect sunny day with magnificent views of various glaciers. The most impressive was the Margerie Glacier.

Next was Juneau. We spent time wandering around Juneau in the morning, then took a photo safari in the afternoon. There are no words to describe the awesome experience we had! There were fourteen of us who sailed out to an area where the humpback whales were bubble net feeding. We've never seen so many whales in our lives! The naturalist was able to count seventeen whales, and they kept coming up to the surface to feed. Barb got something like 300 pictures that afternoon, many of which were later deleted, but there were pictures of blows, backs, mouths, and flukes. It was truly an amazing experience for all of us! We didn't want to leave and head for the Mendenhall Glacier, but we had no choice. That was also beautiful, but after the whale (of an) experience, it was somewhat of a letdown!

Sitka is a very interesting port that shows evidence of its Russian influence. Barb took a sea otter cruise while Chuck did another photo safari. The two shore excursions were totally different. Barb saw lots of wildlife, and more bubble net feeding, though not as many whales as in Juneau. The tour guide told the group that a commercial fisherman had told her it was the first time in over 30 years that he'd seen whales bubble net feeding in Sitka. Chuck's photo safari took him to various scenic areas of Sitka, but did not include wildlife.

Ketchikan is known for its rain. While we had a lot of overcast weather there, we didn't have rain. We took a boat trip to the Misty Fjords National Park, which was beautiful! I can only imagine how spectacular it would be if the weather were sunny.

Our last stop was Victoria. While we'd been to Butchart Gardens before, we wanted to do that again as we'd enjoyed them so much in 2004. This time we were there in the evening, and we were treated to fireworks to end the day (and our trip). The fireworks were not what we'd expected - they were ground fireworks that created scenes