Day 4 - Juneau

At Juneau the cruise pier was right in town so we wandered in and explored in the morning. Once you get past the line of 20 tawdry jewelry shops that are there to entice cruisers, the town is quite pretty with good shops and restaurants. We had a double excursion from Juneau in the afternoon:

• First a guided nature hike with Carl, where we learned more about the Tongass Rainforest, saw the Mendenhall Glacier from across its terminal lake, and then saw a Black Bear up close on the walk back to the bus.

• Then in late afternoon a whale watch boat trip where Captain Zander took us to a group of feeding Humpback Whales and then a group of Sea Lions sunbathing on a buoy!

Altogether a magnificent day and our favorite port of call on this trip.

Here is the Black Bear we saw up close. We were on a boardwalk about 20 yards from this magnificent creature. There were 20 of us or so watching and the bear was completely ignoring us. The bear was likely only a few weeks out of hibernation and chowing down veggies since it was still two weeks until the salmon would appear in the streams.

And here are the magnificent Humpback Whales blowing and showing their fins and tails as they feed on krill. Try to ignore the idiot on the jetski - the whales certainly did.

Day 3 - Ketchikan

Ketchikan is a fairly small city - just 8,000 inhabitants - on Alaska's Inside Passage. Rather than explore the city, we took a guided nature hike to see the Tongass Rainforest. Lots of interesting trees and other flora to see - plus we lucked out and saw a Bald Eagle up close.

Did you spot the eagle in the 6th photo above? Here is a short video from when he got bored looking at us:

Here is a map of the Inside Passage region of Alaska to help place Ketchikan, and our next two ports of call: Juneau and Juneau:

Map by Mario1952 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47221732

Days 1 & 2- Vancouver and a Sea Day

We stayed overnight in Vancouver at a hotel right by the cruise pier. It seemed magical to go to sleep with the pier empty and wake up in the morning to see our ship the Seven Seas Explorer moored at the pier waiting for us to board. Yes, the cruise ship looks a little small, and thats because it is, and we like it that way! We boarded at lunch time, explored the ship and watched the float planes landing and taking off just a short distance away. Vancouver is a beautiful city and we intend to come back and spend a week.

Day 2 was a full day at sea, and we love sea days, they are so relaxing. The only photo I took that day was from dinner at the Chartreuse restaurant. I had pesto crusted lamb chops with chickpea fritters. Laura had sole Grenobloise. Both were fabulous.