Alaska - Juneau

Today is Adam’s birthday. After I had a session in the gym early this morning we all met at breakfast to celebrate his birthday. He read his cards and opened his presents while we all enjoyed another delicious breakfast together. 

We arrived in Juneau as we were eating breakfast where we are docked for the day. The weather was so awful today that most of the onshore activities had to be cancelled. It has rained continuously, it is very misty with poor visibility, and it is very cold at 11C. I am trying to be positive about this, and while I feel blessed to be together with my family on holiday I cannot help but feel that the weather is spoiling this holiday. This holiday was to be an extra special trip to celebrate my significant birthday (in two day’s time) and I chose this trip thinking it would be great to see all the wildlife but things are not going as we hoped they would.

After we cancelled our planned kayaking excursion due to the weather we opted instead to disembark and walk around the small town. Juneau is the capital of Alaska although it is not the largest city, having a small population of around 30,000. It has many tourist shops which cater for the cruise ships that visit this port. We walked around in the rain to stretch our legs and get exercise rather than by a desire to see anything of note. We did spend some time in the town museum which was rather interesting, before walking back to the boat for lunch.

Later in the afternoon we went on an expedition boat into Stephens Passage to view whales. We were again undecided whether we should go as in these weather conditions we were not sure what we would see, but we did end up seeing quite a few humpback whales, and spent about 35 minutes with the engine switched off in the bay watching the whales. It rained throughout this time so taking photos was challenging as I had to keep wiping the lens, and it was very cold out on the deck of the boat.

We only got back to the cruise ship at about 8.30pm so we hurriedly changed for dinner and then had the most amazing Japanese meal to celebrate Adam's birthday. The waiter in the restaurant recognised us from breakfast as 'the family of eight who all order almond cappuccinos' - we had a laugh about that. Adam really enjoyed his birthday today and that was a good result.

The wifi has been terrible today, I struggled to load this blip and cannot load any extras. This is an image of one of the whale watching boats in the misty conditions in the bay.