whale watching on a rainy gray day
On the way to Juneau, Holland America Zaandam was scheduled to visit Tracy Arm. This is the third Alaska cruise I’ve taken that was scheduled to go into Tracy Arm. Besides being later in the season than the first two, Zaandam is also a smaller ship so I was really hoping to make it there this time, but it turned into three strikes. Without any announcements of why we just bypassed the inlet and went on to Juneau. Another passenger said they had gotten an email awhile earlier saying that both Tracy Arm and Glacier Bay were closed, which would explain both why we didn’t go there and why later in the itinerary it changed from Glacier Bay to Endicott Arm. The itinerary still had Tracy Arm on it though which seems a bit odd if they knew ahead of time we weren’t going there. Grand Princess went to Glacier Bay the day we were scheduled for it so they were definitely wrong about that one being closed, though rumor had it Zaandam did not secure a permit to enter Glacier Bay that day. My two prior cruises that were scheduled for Tracy Arm did not make it in due to ice blockage, but went down to the end of Endicott Arm instead. A prior cruise that was actually scheduled for Endicott Arm turned around long before reaching the glacier at the end, but that was a much bigger ship.
Zaandam in Juneau
The weather forecast for this trip was not the best, calling for rain at every port. In Juneau we had a sea kayaking excursion scheduled. The ship docked around 1;30 pm, but for some reason our scheduled excursion didn’t start until 4:00 pm. The rain forecast got worse as the day went on going from showers to steady rain. It wasn’t raining on the sail into Juneau, but as we got close it started to sprinkle and was raining once we got there, which turned into pouring by the time we were docked. The kayak excursion info said Mendenhall Glacier would be visible on our tour from 6 miles away where you could see the ice field as well as the glacier, but considering the weather we weren’t expecting we would actually see it. There is a kayaking excursion that goes right to the glacier on Mendenhall Lake, but that one cost about twice what the sea kayaking did.
sailing into Juneau
At about 3:30 we went out to find our excursion, where we were supposed to be at 3:45. It was a bit early so we wandered the dock a bit. Only one of the little booths that sell last-minute excursions had anyone in it. They had a whale-watching excursion, of which they had one going at 4:00 for $149. The Holland America check-in booth had just two excursions posted so we asked about ours and they said it had been cancelled for rough seas. The lake kayaking one did not get cancelled.
whale tour bus
We went back to the one open booth and asked about the whale watching. Neither of us had brought anything but some cash for tips, which was not nearly enough to buy an excursion so we had to go back to the ship and get a card. Speaking of cards, ports in the USA in the past have always asked for the ID that the ship always says to bring ashore, but on this cruise they all just scanned faces with some sort of facial recognition thing and nobody asked for ID when returning to the ship.
model of a whale fluke at the whale boat harbor
There were 17 people on the whale excursion, all of whom had an excursion cancelled on the Zaandam and none of whom had been notified by the ship. One said their tour provider had notified them, but since they hadn’t heard anything from the ship they didn’t realize that notification was actually the tour provider and thought it was a scam. We also met people in the line back to the ship when we went to get something to pay with and at dinner after we got back who said their excursions had been cancelled without notification too. Everything involving float planes or helicopters got cancelled that day as well as our sea kayaking and who knows what else and they didn’t tell anyone. We’ve had excursions cancelled on cruises before, but they’ve always either called the room or sent a paper notice or something so we would know. Often they will call and offer something else instead. We definitely would have gone out earlier had we known. More booths were probably open when the ship first arrived and even if we had done the whale excursion we would have taken an earlier time. We hadn’t gone out earlier because of not wanting to get soaking wet in the rain before going kayaking.
whale watching boat at the dock
The lady at the booth said the boat stopped by several glaciers as well as going out to where the whales were, but apparently it was too foggy to see them that day because that did not happen. It was starting to get dark by the time we headed back from where the whales were which also would have limited visibility. A little white bus marked Juneau Whale Tours took us out to a marina to meet the whale boat. There was a little shed with kayaks on shore and more kayaks on a rack in the perfectly calm water of the harbor. It was the same harbor the kayak excursion would have left from. Water near that harbor was quite calm as well. Maybe it had been rough earlier in the day when the tour provider decided to cancel, but it certainly wasn’t then.
looking for whales in the rain
The whale boat went quite a way out from the harbor. On the way they said to find whales you look for where all the other whale watching boats are, flocks of seabirds who know where the baitfish are, or whale spouts. He talked about research that has been done showing that when the boats stay about 100 yards away the whales have no change in their stress levels from if there are no boats at all. Some of them will come right up near the boats so those particular whales apparently don’t even care about the 100-yard buffer. The boats are not allowed to go any closer than that to the whales, but the whales have no such restrictions if they want to swim up next to a boat. It was raining, but the whales don’t care. They’re already wet.
distant whale spout
We saw several other boats all in the same area and soon started seeing spouts and fins and things. The area was full of herring, which had attracted quite a few whales. This was the end of their season in Alaska so they were busy filling their bellies before the long migration to Hawaii. We saw mostly backs, fins, and spouts, but every now and then one would flash a bit of fluke. None of them breached. They were too busy eating.
whale back
The whale watch boat was a nice one with indoor seats raised high enough to see over the tops of people’s heads if they were standing outside. It had a walkway completely encircling the boat so people could go outside and see whales from any direction. Some of the other boats we saw out there were open-sided, which would have been really cold, especially on the way there and back. The outfit we went with was a small family-owned company with just the one boat and bus and 3 employees besides the owners. The wife worked the booth and the husband was a boat builder who had designed and built the boat. They said it was the only one in Juneau with the walk-around all the way around the boat. All the other boats we saw people just looked out the windows or through the open space where there weren’t any windows.
whale fluke
There would be periods of nothing, then times where whales were popping up all over the place. We did see quite a lot of whales, though we didn’t get the sort of photos John got when he worked in Alaska as a fishing guide and whales would bubble feed right next to the boat when it was anchored up for fishing. None of the ones we saw on the tour were bubble net feeding, which is when a group of them herd the herring into a ball blowing a net of bubbles around them and then pop up from underneath the bait ball with wide open mouths scooping up hundreds of the small fish.
whales bubble net feeding near Angoon, Alaska
one of many whales near Juneau
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