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| Juneau, Alaska (from Mt. Roberts) Copyright Andy Richards 2010 - All Rights Reserved |
TYPICAL OF some shorter cruises, this one began and ended with some "at sea" days. In the middle, there are often cruise stops that are close enough together that the ship can leave port by late afternoon/early evening and arrive at the next one early the next morning. That is how our Inside Passage cruise worked. We left Vancouver in the late afternoon and cruised for a couple nights before our arrival at Ketchikan. That made at least one "at sea" day immediately after departing Vancouver. Then we made stops in Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway on consecutive days. Those were the land-based "stops" we made on the cruise.
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| Mendenhall Glacier - Juneau, Alaska Copyright Andy Richards 2010 - All Rights Reserved |
FOLLOWING OUR eventful day in Ketchikan, we arrived at Juneau early the next morning. Once again, we had pre-arranged off-ship excursions.Plural, because we split up. We had found a "photography" excursion for me and the others went on a "whale-watching" excursion.
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| Auke Bay - Juneau, Alaska Copyright Andy Richards 2010 - All Rights Reserved |
MY PHOTOGRAPHY excursion included a stop at the famous Mendenhall Glacier right outside of Juneau, a short hike through a nature area, and then whale watching. Ironically, I later learned, the rest of the group had a much better experience on their "whale watching" trip. Like us, they made a stop at the Mendenhall Glacier before proceeding on up to the primary whale excursion location in Juneau: Auke Bay. Our whale excursion was very close to a bust by any standards (it is like fishing, of course - there are no guarantees). I have one (not very good) distant shot of the "tale up" breach. A few unremarkable shots (you can see them here) and not really anything else. Our other group saw a few nice breaches, but nobody caught them on camera.😏
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| Early morning sun on The Gastineau Channel - Juneau, Alaska Copyright Andy Richards 2010 - All Rights Reserved |
JUNEAU IS on the "mainland" west coast of continental Alaska. Along the passage, there is very little human habitation, and where it is, there is generally only a very narrow "rivieria" for building. Alaska's capitol city is situated on the Gastineau Channel; a narrow channel which separates Juneau and the mainland from Douglas Island, to the west of Juneau on the other side of the Gastineau Channel. You can see though, from my shot from our cruise ship bow, that the approach is pretty dramatic at times. Across the channel, Douglas Island is largely uninhabited, with some recreational trails and a small ski area.
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| "Downtown" Juneau, Alaska Copyright Andy Richards 2010 - All Rights Reserved |
LIKE MANY of Alaska's towns, Juneau can only be reached by boat or by small plane (including by seaplane). There are roads in the immediate area, but they don't really lead to anywhere other than the city and its outskirts. The primary road on the Juneau side goes from just 6 miles south of town (apparently primarily to serve the cruise terminal) to about 12 miles north of town, to Auke Bay. You pass Mendenhall on the east on your way up to Auke Bay. So what about all those cars? We learned that to have a car in Juneau, you must either purchase one at one of the couple auto dealerships in Juneau, or bring it over by ferry. There was a surprising amount of automobile traffic, given this tiny road network.
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| Auke Bay Harbor - Juneau, Alaska Copyright Andy Richards 2010 - All Rights Reserved |
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| Diamond Princess - Juneau, Alaska Copyright Andy Richards 2010 - All Rights Reserved |
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