Magnificent summer day in Sitka

Oh my gosh! Where do I start? Well, for sure with the weather. It was the best day they've had in weeks. Yesterday it poured rain all day! I'm telling you, they need to bottle us! :)

We loved our Sea Life Discovery Tour! There were only 12 of us on the boat and we ALL enjoyed the experience. It's like a mini sub and there is great viewing under the water of beautiful sea kelp and magnificent "dancing of all colors of kelp"! It's a relaxing, trance like view of amazing sea grasses and sea life. We saw a 7-8 foot dragon eel and lots of HUGE Sea Stars ( aka starfish). They are trying to change the name since they aren't really fish. Did you know a large sea star pushes its stomach outside and forces it inside a clam where it proceeds to eat the clam and then withdraws its stomach back inside it's body! Cool huh? They also regenerate if you pull a leg off accidentally, it will grow a new body ! The photos of the sea kelp are gorgeous. We saw Sea Lettuce (looks just like the lettuce we eat) and lots of kelp which has nitrogen pods attached to the stems to help them float! They anchor as much as 200' below the surface and grow that tall! Wow!

You can see photos of me holding a live Sea Star and a live Sea Cucumber!
But the best was yet to come!!!

After a great lunch (salmon sandwich) in Sitka, we went on our Sea Otter tour and that was amazing!!! We saw a family of Orcas hunting in a pack! They hung around for a long time. We also saw several humpbacked whales-- one of which surfaced within thirty yards of our boat!! We also saw several "rafts" of Sea Otters -- moms on their tummies with babies laying on them!!! So adorable!! We also saw quite a few sea lions. Oh, and did I forget to mention- a great view of a Bald Eagle majestically sitting on a Post next to our boat! Our Sea Otter crew was so excited that we saw Orcas. The Captain said it was only the second time he has seen Orcas here!!! Wow! How cool is that?! Can you tell I'm excited? We had an awesome day of majestic sights!!!!

Juneau and Tracy Fjord. Sawyer Glaciers

Sorry guys! Had a great blog to post with photos of the Orcas and a bald eagle, but the Internet is so slow it won't upload all the photos and I can't get back in to try and delete some. So, everyone will have to wait until I get some speedier Internet! We've had our first afternoon of not great weather. Clouds ( no rain) came down and the helicopter to take us to our dog sled ride was canceled! Bummer! We are going to try and go out with Duffy on the Whale Watch boat but don't know if we can get on. Desk opens in an hour. Morning was awesome. Got off ship onto catamaran ( all enclosed with great viewing windows) at 7:00am to go to Tracy Fjord to see two magnificent glaciers!!! They were amazing. We got fairly close and we did see some large calving. We also saw about 100 Harbor Seals resting on the ice. They go into the Fjord to escape the Orcas. It seems the Orca can't tell the difference between a seal and an iceberg so they don't go in there to hunt. The seals like it so they can rest up and not worry about being someone's dinner. But they can't stay long because there isn't enough food for them by the glacier. It was cold and sunny early so the weather for viewing was awesome. Hope we get to do a dog sled ride tomorrow. It's our last chance! Juneau is nice but VERY touristy. We did some successful shopping for a few friends. There was a Princess ship in here earlier and there is a smaller expedition ship still here with us. We don't sail until 10:00 pm. I will keep trying with the blog but now I fear it may be Vancouver before i'll get Sitka posted!

Sent from my iPad

Behold Alaska- a Magnificent State

Well, I must say it was a little rough getting into Anchorage due to a brake mechanical failure on our plane in Dallas that took 2 1/2 hours to repair! Our flight was already 6 hours and 50 minutes into Anchorage. So we ended up getting to our hotel around 10:30 pm ( sun just setting there) which was around 2:30am Boca time! Well, I've decided that very minor inconvenience just smoothed the way for our SPECTACULAR weather!! Someone should bottle us and take us on all cruises or trips where they need good weather!! Everywhere we've been this year they tell us how terrible the weather was the week before we got there band that they're having the best weather all year now!!

We enjoyed Anchorage in our short time there. It is the largest city in Alaska (300,000) but it has a very small town feel to it ---Sort of like Wichita, Kansas . Everyone is very nice. We rented a car and drove around town. Bill managed to find all three properties he used to manage 25 years ago. They are all in good shape.

We sailed on Regent's Navigator last night. Our rooms are great. They do a nice meet and greet thing right after the life jacket drill. They make an announcement to come out of your cabin into the hallway to meet and greet your neighbors. Butlers and stewardesses are there filling your glass with wine or champagne and passing canapes to all of us. It was a fun way to meet our neighbors!! We have some lovely people on our deck! Including a gentleman from Hayes, Kansas who knew my dad's dear friend, Syd Platt who recently passed away. Such a small world.

Today we have been sailing to see the Humboldt Glacier. At first glance from far away it doesn't seem so impressive BUT as you get closer you can tell it is 400' high with 800' below the water. The Captain told us this was the best viewing day all season so far. We have bright sunshine and no wind.

Sorry, we just took a short break for 20 minutes to see about 10 humpbacked whales breaching. So cool!!!! Very hard to photograph though. You just have to get lucky! Hard to get your camera focused quickly enough to actually get them!! That was sort of the end to a perfect viewing day. I missed the first few jumping because I was in the shower. Let me tell you, it is some kind of cold to be wet in a bath robe and be outside. That might have had something to do with my lack of quickness getting photos!!! BRRRR!

The GOD of weather continues to bless us this year with great weather for our trips. We'll hope HE stays with us until the end of this venture!

Tomorrow we have two tours from Sitka
- Sea Otter and Wildlife Quest in the morning followed by Sea Life Discovery Tour. We don't want to miss anything and since the weather is so awesome- we are excited!!! Duffy is doing great and very much enjoying herself. This a beautiful, calming, relaxing visual feast for the eyes! More tomorrow. I'm posting photos of our cabin and the Humboldt Glacier and the seals we spotted!!! Loving Alaska! The blue ice is the glacier. It has that color because of the minerals inside the ice.

One other interesting fact. On our drive from Anchorage to Seaward to board the ship we passed several "Ghost Forests"! These are trees that were swamped by the tsunami after the 9.2 earthquake here in 1964. There were 20 lives lost - all in Valdes where there were a group of school children on the pier when the wave came in. The "Ghost Forests" exist because the trees were saturated with so much salt water that they don't decay. The trees stand like solitary ghosts. We are only seeing about the top third of the trees because the bottom two thirds sank into the ground during the tsunami. Very interesting. Lucky that so few were killed. The wave went back more than 30 miles into some of the canyons.

A Quick PS from Switzerland

While in Switzerland, we had a lovely husband and wife (Philip and Eva de Bruin) team who drove us around and provided informative information about the places we were visiting.  They were delightful.  While driving through a small village with very narrow streets and no place to stop, we spotted a great photo opportunity of one of the houses we were passing.  Unfortunately, it wasn't safe to stop.

BUT, Philip was kind enough to drive back after we were gone and take the following photos for us!  I just received them by email!  Thanks to a lovely couple who showed us a part of their wonderful country!