We have been to Juneau on all 12 of our previous Alaskan cruises, so going back there would be pretty much the same for us. Most of those visits just involved getting off the ship and walking around downtown. Maybe we would take the cable car tram to the top of the mountain. (Sadly, that cable car is now closed due to an accident earlier in the season.) Maybe we would just stay on the ship. This morning was no exception. While Kathleen stayed on the ship, I got off and walked around. I wanted to send some postcards and needed stamps. I found a cute little shop that was also a contract post office with a really nice clerk. We chatted for a while, mailed my postcards, walked around, and took some photos (see them below). Then it was back on board for lunch before our one big excursion of the entire cruise.

But way back in 2007, when we were here with Mike, Carol, Bob and Jude, we went whale watching with a wonderful company called Harv and Marv. At that time, it was just the two guys with two boats, and it was a highly personalized whale watching experience.

We have told everyone this story, but I will quickly repeat it. On that whale-watching trip, we left the marina in their small boat (only six people) and headed out to see whales. About five miles out, just off an island with houses on the shore, we stopped. We saw a woman come out of one of the houses holding something small in her hands. She got into a kayak on the beach and paddled toward us. When she reached the boat, she handed Marv a small plastic container. We then learned that the woman was his wife and that she was bringing us freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. It has become a legend with us. That’s how you build a business. As a retired marketing person, that’s the best marketing you can do. We have told that story again and again, and when people hear it, they want to book with Harv and Marv.

So with all of us coming back to Alaska, we had to book another tour with Harv and Marv. Of course, they now have a bunch of boats, both big and small, and Harv or Marv no longer take you out; they have employees for that. And sadly, there are no more cookies. We were picked up just off the pier by one of their bus drivers (they now have multiple buses) and whisked north to the Auke Bay Marina, where we boarded our boat with our guide for the day, Jace. A very fine young man, and he knew his stuff, but it just wasn’t the same as sailing with the original guys.

If you have never been whale watching, as Mike pointed out while we were out in the boat, it is a lot like fishing. Most of it is just sitting around waiting for something to happen. Except, unlike fishing, when you whale watch, you have to keep looking everywhere for the tell-tale flume as they surface to exhale. Thank goodness they are air-breathing mammals, or humanity might not have a clue they were down there.

So that’s what we did. We drove around and looked. And then there’s the excitement when you find them (or the disappointment when you’re faked out by the wake of another boat). Then you race to get closer (boats are only allowed to be no closer than 100 yards from the whales), but by the time you get there, they’ve gone under again. The next time they come up, they could be a good quarter mile away. Sometimes you get lucky, and they come up closer to your boat, so you get to take pictures.

Here’s the crazy part. Obviously, whales are HUGE creatures, but unless you get incredibly lucky enough to see one breach almost completely out of the water, all you ever see is their backs and their tails. I shot more than 600 photos while we were out looking, and in the photos below, you will probably see only six to eight of the whales—mostly tails. I take that many because I set my Nikon to the highest repeat settings, so when I press the shutter, I get about 20 photos a second (or it seems like it’s that many), and I get a ton of the exact same photos of all the whales. In our years of taking Alaska cruises, I have never seen a breach, so if you like whale photos, below are some tails. It is exhilarating to see one, but when you think about it, it’s fairly anticlimactic.

We saw a couple of other things while we were out. First (and most surprisingly), we saw the sun come out. It was glorious and almost as rare in Alaska as seeing a whale breach. We also saw some sea lions sunning themselves on a buoy. I believe visiting that buoy is one of the highlights of every Harv and Marv excursion. It’s way out in the bay and usually has six or eight sea lions on it. I have photos from 2007 that match the ones I took this week, except these are in the sunshine.

After the sea lions, we headed back to the marina because we had to catch our ship, and Jace had to take out one last tour (he did four that day—Harv and Marv are doing very well). We had dinner, then it was off to bed.

I should mention one other thing about evenings. There are shows—we just don’t go to them. As regular readers of this blog know, we just went on a theater tour to Broadway last month and saw some amazing productions. After that, cruise ship shows just don’t do it for us. I usually will stay up for a comic, but that’s about it. We truly have become old fuddy-duddies. Which is OK. Mike always does a full report on every cruise, and he goes to all those shows, so when he publishes his report, he will have all that and much more (menus, additional ship photos, etc.). I will let you know when his report is up.

Of course, I have photos for you, and they are below. Don't forget: if you click the first shot, you can scroll through using your arrow keys or by swiping. That way, you can see the captions as well. And PLEASE... don't look at my photography on a phone. Please...