Alaskan Cruise II

We visited three of Alaska's cities during the cruise; Ketchikan, Juneau and Sitka. A good thing about guest services on the ship was that they helped you book shore excursions. So we went for one at Juneau that included whale watching, Mendenhall Glacier and a salmon bake.

The naturalist that followed us for the whale watching trip turned out to be be a philosophy major! Reckon we can all become naturalists like that. Though i have to say he was pretty knowledgeable. We were really lucky on this trip he said and even he got excited. We managed to find a pod of 8 - 10 whales doing bubblenet feeding. Also saw harbour seals, sea lions and a bald eagle nest.


This was what the Naturalist called bubble net fishing. What happens is the whales circle and blow bubbles, forcing fish to ball up. Once there are enough herring in there, the whales emit 200 decibel blasts of whalesong to stun the fish. We got to hear the noises cos the boat had an underwater microphone. Toned down a bit of course, considering that a jet plane taking off generates 130 decibels.

blogger playing games again...sian ah...pics above as u must have seen