Icy Straight Point, supposedly the best whale watching area in this part of Alaska.
Although we woke up very early, we did not leave the ship until 10 a.m. No rush here, not really much to do other than a 1,300 meter zip line.
We walked the 1.5 miles to the town of Hoonah, which turned out to be extremely pleasant. The weather was good. The sky was blue with some cloud cover, there was a slight breeze and the temperature was around 61 degrees Fahrenheit. We saw some bald eagles on the trees above us and flying around. The scenery of the straits with the partially snow covered mountains in the background was spectacular. The town itself was cute, just what we would have expected from a small Alaskan town.
We also did the short nature train through a magnificent forest and then along the beach back to the dock. We saw a humpback whale in the distance.
We returned to the ship for a light lunch and a rest before our late afternoon Whale and Wine excursion.
At 5 p.m. we returned to the dock via the ship's tender. We boarded the large motorized whale watching catamaran American Eagle. We traveled for around 30 minutes before we started to see whales. At fist they were in the distance. We could see them clearly. They were swimming through the surf. We could see their huge humps, while they blew water in the air. There were also sea lions swimming with and around the whales. There were eafles and other birds in the skies above us.
Then we saw one particular whale performing aggressively in the surf. We got very close to him and watched for over 30 minutes while he breached, flapped his tail and his flippers. It was an incredible sight. Wow! Wow! Wow!
On the way back to the dock, we saw a large bear foraging for food on the beach. What a great excursion!
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