an alaskan CRUISE!

i just returned home from ALASKA!  we drove to vancouver, british columbia and boarded the zuiderdam for a week on the inside passage cruise.  my husband & I met my mom, siblings & all their spouses for a week of heaven...  it was fantastic!  we'd been to the caribbean & i have to say i enjoyed this so much more....  hope these pictures will help you see how breathtaking this area really is.

we docked in juneau -

mendenhall glacier...

one of the shore excursions we chose in juneau was whale watching...  i kind of expected a "shamu experience" with these humpback whales - although they never leapt out of the water and did a flip for us, one thing we saw (and of course i didn't have my camera ready at those exact moments) was the bubble net feeding they do.  google that sometime.  it is absolutely phenomenal.

let me explain this one!  so this is my fabulous family..............  but we're all in UGLY SWEATERS!  my mom planned the famous "ugly sweater exchange" before our cruise & we had to shop for the ugliest sweaters we could find.  (there were prizes involved so we did our best :)

the day we docked in juneau we all had to sport our nasty sweaters and guess who won?  sorry you can't see the boys in back - we didn't spend much time posing ourselves obviously - but my blonde sister (with the sunglasses) wore the ugliest sweater that day.  it was a lovely pink easter bunny vest with a stitched basket that served as a pocket.  the big prize went to brian!  you had to be there, but it was pretty embarassing going out in public this way.

so my favorite day was "glacier bay day".  the ship cruised up the icy strait and spent the entire day in this area checking out glaciers.  you'll notice the water is turquoise - very different than the normal ocean water.  we spent most of our time watching the marjorie glacier hoping for huge chunks of ice to fall off! (calving)  you'll see some of the pics i got of that.  unbelievable!


this photo was taken across the deck of the ship on the 9th level so we were up pretty high.  it was my favorite spot on the ship because you could see both sides of the channels we traveled.

this little ferry gives you an idea of how large the marjorie glacier really is!

to HAINES for a photography shore excursion!

this is beautiful haines, alaska.  it was a 45 minute ferry ride from skagway - a photography tour my mom and i took with a professional photographer and local resident of the area....  4 hours of shooting some of the most beautiful scenery i've ever seen!

the company that showed our little group around was called rainbow glacier adventures.  it's a local guy who lives in haines and he did a fantastic job!  if you get the chance to cruise up to skagway, take the photography tour shore excursion with them....
info@tourhaines.com
www.tourhaines.com

this is a fishing weir across the chilkoot river in haines alaska.  somebody stands here and lets salmon out of a gate one at a time....  and counts them.  they make important decisions based on their findings and the number of salmon there are.  amazing!

while i didn't encounter the BIG stuff i was hoping to shoot (bears or a dang moose - still haven't seen one even though i've been looking for years) we were fortunate enough to catch some really great eagle activity.  more than 50% of the country's eagle population can be found in alaska.  we also learned that in haines, there is a portion of the chilkoot river that never freezes....  in november they see almost 4000 eagles in the area!  photographers fly from all over to capture these amazingly majestic birds during the  bald eagle festival.  we also learned that all five varieties of salmon swim in this river.

you'll see little splashes while these little common mergansers (ducks) dashed away from the eagles giant claws.  we watched for 20-30 minutes and try as she might, she never did get one of those baby ducks!

WHEW!  they all swam away safely....

chilkoot lake - another shore excursion was salmon fishing!  this eagle swooped down over their heads to try and grab fish off the lines...

an absolutely breathtaking view where the chilkoot river runs into the pacific ocean!