Fantasy Caravan Day 50 - Boat to Juneau

On Saturday, Fantasy had scheduled a boat trip to Juneau --

We headed to the harbor to board Fjorland.

An eagle on rocks along the shore as we traveled. There are LOTS of eagles in this area of Alaska.

On the boat - some enjoying outside...

... some inside (picture taken looking toward the front)

... another view of our group inside -- looking toward the back. For the first time during the caravan, our group were the only passengers on the boat.

Captain and former owner of the business (his son bought him out and now employs him!).

Interesting clouds

Jessica was the only additional crew member on board

What is that bright thing in the sky???

I had better take advantage of it and catch some rays!  (May have been more effective if more of my skin was exposed to capture some vitamin D!)

Sea lions along the shore

Glacier

Video of whale blows - probably cow and calf:

Captain relaxed while cruising

Coming in toward the outside "suburbs" of Juneau

Entering Auke Bay

Nice paint job on this tour boat going out

Fjordland docked

We had about a 14-mile bus trip into Juneau - once we got there, we had just over an hour before we were supposed to catch another bus for a quick tour of Juneau. We got a quick lunch, and by the time we were done, it was time to start heading for the second bus.

There were many murals and other examples of art in Juneau.

Heading toward our bus pickup point...

These are relatively new construction built to house retail stores specifically for cruise ship passengers. Once the last cruise ship departs, they close up by the next day. Other "year round" stores are a bit further from the cruise ship docks.

On our bus tour, we stopped at an overlook on Douglas Island from which we could see Juneau Harbor and some of the cruise ships that were in port on Saturday (there were 5 in port; Juneau allows a maximum of 8 in a day).

We then went to the "Tahku" -- a life sized statue of a humpback whale breaching.

While one of our fellow passengers was taking our picture, the fountains started going off!

The bus tour was by M&M Tours -- a bright orangey colored bus, but no M&Ms provided!

Our bus driver pointed out many things around town, and we stopped at a few locations -- including a distant look at Mendenhall Glacier.

Then the bus delivered us back to the harbor where we reboarded Fjordland...

... heading out of the harbor...

... the captain took us by two yachts that were tied up there... "Power Play" is the one with its back end towards us -- it is a "toy hauler" for the other one, Mogambo, facing us.

Nice boat, huh? Jan Koum, one of the co-founders and former CEO of WhatsApp owns the two yachts.

On the way back to Haines, the captain wanted to try again to give us the ability to see whales.

Two whale tails:

How many whales? This video also features sounds from underwater listening device:

Close up whale tail:

Final whale tail:

We continued on our trip back to Haines...

The captain saw a couple a sea lions hauled out on this buoy.

A couple of light houses on our way back...

Sentinel Island Lighthouse -- we thought this was a church when we saw it earlier in the day.

Eldridge Rock Lighthouse -- the captain said that both lighthouses are now automated. He also indicated that this one was for sale, but the government has not indicated a price...

I guess if you like the location you could make an offer!

We enjoyed our day, though it was quite long (12 hours) for only a very short time to spend in Juneau.