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.