Last Full Day at Sea June 8, 2026: Photos Around the Ship

​

A couple of the fancy lighting fixtures around the ship.

The Bridge where the ship is steered.  This was taken from my balcony with a zoom lens.

Checking out things from a deck other than from our balcony. This was our day in Ketchikan…I can tell because Melany is wearing the plaid shirt that she wore to the Lumberjack show. 😁

TV screen in my room that gives you a view from the front of the ship.  Shows us pulling into a port.

The art gallery on one of the decks.  We walked by this on our way to some of the dining rooms.  The art was changed frequently.  Melany especially enjoys walking through here.  All this art work is for sale.  There are auctions that take place during the cruise.

A view from the top deck.  Note emptiness of the deck chairs.  When we were in motion, it was pretty cold on the outside decks.

Two other screens on the TV in my room that let know where in the world we were at any given moment.  The top screen shows the path that we have taken on the trip and the arrow shows the current position of the ship.  The world map/globe shows by the circle where we were in the world. These particular screen shots show us on the return trip heading towards Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

I do not do well with taking selfies!  But here is an attempt to get me in my stateroom with my balcony behind me.

I'll end tonight with a photo Melany took of me taking a photo from my balcony.

To be continued! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!

Hoonah/Icy Point Strait Facts

​

Icy Point Strait is the name of the cruise port located at Hoonah, AK.  This is the area that the Tlingit natives were forced to flee to when the glaciers advanced quickly over the area that is now Glacier Bay.  I gave information about that fast moving Ice Age when I talked about Glacier Bay.

Hoonah is the largest Tlingit village in Alaska. It is located on Chichagof Island which is the fifth largest island in the U.S.  It is 30-40 miles west of Juneau and is famous for its rich indigenous culture, exceptional whale watching, and Icy Strait Point, an AlaskanNative-owned cruise destination featuring the world's largest ZipRider. (And, no we did not choose to experience this zip-line experience!) There is no connecting roadway to the mainland, so the town is reached by air service providers and state ferry system…or boat/cruise ships. About 70% of its 850 residents are of Alaska Native heritage.  Its economy is heavily reliant on commercial fishing, timber, and tourism.

Pictured above is a former cannery for salmon…now turned into gift shops, restaurants, a cannery museum, and theater.  The island has one of Alaska's highest concentrations of brown bears and nearby area is known as the richest humpback whale feeding grounds in Southeast Alaska.

Tourism may very well have saved Hoonah after the village saw its fishing and logging industries dwindle in the 1980s and 1090s.  Icy Strait Point employs about a quarter of the Hoonah's population, most of whom are share holders in the Huna Totem Corporation.

The first cruise ship arrived in 2004 at Icy Point Strait.  Presently, more than 75 ships dock annually at Icy Strait Point during the months of May-September. Tourism is helping the Tlingit people in this region keep their culture alone and thriving.  As, I mentioned last night, the young lady who was one of our guides on our whale watching excursion is a native Tlingit and her name is Alaska!  I belive that most of the excursions offered at Icy Strait Point are Native Alaskan run.  Nice to see the Natives of this area so front and center and being able to keep their heritage alive and well and using tourism to their advantage.  

To be continued! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!

Whale & Mammal Excursion, Cont.

​

We saw a mama Coastal Brown Bear and her cub.  The guides on our boat were excited as they hadn't seen much bear activity in a while. 

And, they were really excited to see Orcas/Killer whales.They hadn't seen any in a month.  Just seeing their dorsal fins sticking out of the water, it looked a bit like a shark approaching! And, they are known as "killer" for a good reason!

Interesting facts a out Orcas:

Orcas (also known as killer whales) are highly intelligent, apex marine predators. Despite their name, they are actually the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family. They are uniquely recognized by their striking black-and-white color pattern and massive dorsal fins. 

Their varied diet includes fish, squid, seals, sea lions, sharks, and even other whale species.

Often called the "wolves of the sea," they hunt in tight-knit family groups called pods. They use advanced, coordinated tactics, such as creating waves to wash seals off ice floes or purposefully beaching themselves momentarily to grab prey off the shore. 

Wild orcas can live for 50 to 90 years, with females typically living longer than males.

They live in complex, multi-generational family groups led by older females.

Pods pass down specialized hunting techniques, migration routes, and distinct vocal "accents" from generation to generation.

And, we saw sea lions.  It was a very good excursion…seeing a variety of Alaska's wile sea-life. Our main guide's name was Alaska and she is a native Tlingit.  It was so good to see the natives so involved in Alaska tourism.

To be continued! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!

Port Day #4: Icy Strait Point/Hoonah, AK June 7, 2026

​

Our excursion for this port of call was  whale and mammal watching on this small excursion boat pictured above.  This excursion was great and we saw so much.  Tonight I will tell about what we saw when we found a group of three humpback whales.  Something I really wanted to see: humpback whales bubble-net feeding and that wish was granted.  This experience is pictured in the next photo.  I will tell about this unique way they cooperate to get big mouthfuls at a time.  Pictured just below are three big whale mouths gulping up large amounts of fish as they surface with their mouths wide open.

Bubble-net feeding is an ingenious, highly synchronized cooperative hunting technique primarily used by humpback whales. Using exhaled air and synchronized vocalizations, the whales create a cylinder of bubbles that traps schools of small fish into a dense ball near the surface before lunging through them with open mouths.

While other Belen whales theoretically have the capacity to blow bubbles, humpbacks are uniquely built for this maneuver:

1) Specialized flippers (you will see one waving with one of these flippers below): researchers have discovered that humpbacks possess remarkably long, wing-like pectoral flippers that allow for incredibly sharp, biomechanically efficient turns.

2) Learned Behavior: bubble-netting is a learned, cultural behavior rather than a simple instinct. Specific humpback populations, such as those in Southeast Alaska and the Gulf of Maine, pass these tactical hunting skills down to one another.

How it works:

1) Whales dive deep beneath a school of prey and begin swimming upward in a spiral pattern, releasing air from blowholes.

2) The rising air forms a cylindrical “curtain" of bubbles. Because the shimmering bubbles and strange sounds confuse and panic the prey, the fish are tricked into thinking there is no escape and huddle together,

3) Often, a lead whale (the "trumpeter") will emit a loud, piercing feeding call that forces the prey upwards and synchronizes the team,

4) The whales gather in a tight ring outside the bubbles, coordinate their timing, and surge straight to the surface in unison to scoop up thousands of fish in a single gulp. 

I’ll tell more about this excursion and what else we saw tomorrow evening.

To be continued! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!

Fotos & Facts: Glacier Bay National Park

​

Doesn't this floating piece of ice look like a polar bear!?!

Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska covers 3.3 million acres.  

It is the home of over 1,000 glaciers, including famous tidewater giants like Margery and Grand Pacific Glaciers.  Both of those we saw on our cruise through the National Park.  When looking at photos of the glaciers it is hard to designate which ones are which! Tidal glaciers are massive walls of ice that meet the sea.  They frequently "calve" (chunks of ice break off) crashing into the water with thunderous roars.  We did not see or hear any calving when we were there. Some of the tidal glaciers no longer reach the sea and loose that blue/white color, as they pick up soot and other debris and look dirty. I think the Margery still is a tidal glaciers are, but the Grand Pacific may be the one we saw that no longer does and had a black look.  There are chunks of very white ice floating in the bay as well as dirt streaked/black and white chunks.

Glacier Bay boasts the most rapid glacial retreat ever recorded. In just over 250 years ago, the entire bay was covered with a single colossal sheet of ice.  As the ice melts, it leaves behind barren land, providing scientists a unique, textbook example of how plant and wild life change as ecosystems recover. At one time native Americans lived on land that is now Glacier that massive glacier moved advanced so rapidly that they had to quickly abandon the area and move.  They were resilient and returned as the ice retreated and today claim Glacier Bay as their spiritual homeland.  The Little Ice Age came and went quickly. 1750 the glacier reached to its maximum…Icy Strait (our next port of call). 45 years later it had melted back 5 miles into Glacier Bay which it had gouged out. By 1879, the glacier had retreated 40 more miles. And, for 2026, we had to travel 65 miles up the bay to view tidewater glaciers.  And, our cruise ship took us into that bay to view them. So the bay is deep enough for large ships to navigate in as well as whales.  So this isn't a shallow body of water…and, room for more than one cruise ship and smaller ships and boats to navigate in that body of water at the same time.  

In this area at this time some glaciers are retreating; others are advancing unlike glaciers in some parts of the contiguous United States where glaciers could soon be a thing of the past.  The glaciers in the Alaska area change according to amounts of snowfall, temperatures, etc. I had a sad feeling while viewing since I knew they were retreating…but we were told that the one we see today retreating might be advancing when next we visit!  So I’m hopeful that they will not totally disappear. 

There is so much history and geology to learn about in this region.  Glacier Bay was first designated a National Monument in 1925 by President Calvin Coolidge.  Then in 1980 President Jimmy Carter designated it as a National Park and Preserve.  In 1986 it was designated a world biosphere reserve.  And, UNESCO designated it as a world heritage site in 1992.  So last year marked 100 years of the preservation of Glacier Bay!

Most visitors arrive to Glacier Bay via cruise ships and tour boats and over 90% never step foot on land in the park.  That is how we visited.  The cruise ship traveled the 65 miles in and gave us a 360° view of the area so wherever you were on the ship…you would get to see what was on the other side, too.  Our balconies were our wonderful vantage points that day. 

Glacier Bay is at the northern end of the largest temperate rainforest in the world, the Tongass. Summer temps average 50°-60°; winter 20°-30°.  Some form of precipitation occurs on average 228 days per year.  Annual precipitation is 70-80 inches (including an annual snowfall of 14 feet). 

So much to learn about this magnificent area of God's world.  But I will stop with these very few facts.  It was a beautiful day at sea with some low hanging clouds at times…but blue sky breaking through at times.  I liked having the beautiful clouds in the photos. 

To be continued! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!

Sunday Study in Black & White: Glacier Bay National Park, AK

​

Day at Sea: Glacier Bay National Park June 6, 2026

​

This day we stayed on the ship for the entire sightseeing experience.  The National Park Ranger boarded our ship and did talks throughout the day. We viewed Glacier Bay from our balconies…perfect spot for taking special photos.  We could hear the Park Rangers over the TVs in our rooms…except when there was technical difficulties which did happen and we missed quite a bit of the talk. I am going to post some of the pictures and may post more at another time and tell more about the National Park itself.

This is Gloomy Knob…home to mountain goats. Can you see them? Next I will post a photo that shows a nanny and her kid that I cropped so you can see more clearly…but since it is a crop it isn’t the sharpest photo.

A piece of ice floating that broke off a glacier.  The dark place on this one is a sea otter hiding.

Sea otters waving at us as we sailed past!

In the above photo, it is not ice coming towards the water, but rock that has been broken up due to glacier activity over the years.  There is a name for it, but at the moment I can't remember what it is called.

To be continued! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!