Today is the only day on this seven day run where the Lido offers an express lunch from 11:30 to 12:30pm because our arrival to Juneau is around 1pm. Since we had a nice and early breakfast, we would skip lunch onboard and wait until we reach Juneau to dine out.
It was really cold, wet, and windy so we bundled up and went to deck six forward once again to watch our sailing into Juneau. We assumed there was going to be a stop for the Tracy Arm tour to Twin Sawyer Glaciers, but we never stopped. Guess that tour was not offered today, or it was cancelled. If we had been five minutes later, we would have missed seeing a pod of six humpback whales blowing their spouts and feeding on the surface. We spotted a couple more along the shoreline, then nothing. Simply pure luck. We stayed outside on the starboard side and under some cover. It was raining and flooding under our feet again, but we were dressed for it. Never got wet.
The Volendam sailed into the Gastineau Channel and reached Juneau early about 12:15pm. Already in port were the Sapphire Princess and the RCI Quantum of the Seas. The Princess ship holds up 3214 guests while the Quantum appears bigger and holds even more. Downtown will be busy today, and the tour operators will be happy with all of the tours booked.
Here are some quick facts about Juneau. September's average low is 45 degrees and the high is 57 degrees. Daylight hours are 12 hours and 25 minutes. There are 19 days of rain and zero for snowfall. Today it felt cold enough to snow, but all we had was steady rain and little wind.
We left the ship at 12:30pm which was good timing because the rain let up for ½ hour. With so many folks in the downtown area, we decided to take a hike to Overstreet Park and the humpback whale figure near the Juneau-Douglas Bridge, about a mile or more away. On the way we spotted an eagle on a light standard with a crow that would not leave him alone. We did get a few pictures of them. Took us about 30 minutes to reach the park and the walkway over the shoreline. At the end is the steel-body true-to-size humpback whale breaching. It is surrounded with a fountain that signifies the splash the whale makes when crashing back down on its back after feeding. Many signs are posted explaining the interesting story behind this sculpture. It was created to commemorate Alaska becoming a state in 1959, and was dedicated in 2009 when the state turned 50 years old. The whale weighs over 6 tons and had to be shipped here in pieces then re-assembled.
Our next destination was the Hangar on the Wharf for lunch of course. Today we mixed it up and ordered cheese nachos with hamburger. They were even better than what we had in Vancouver. Regular sliced black olives made both of us happy as did the fresh guacamole, salsa, and sour cream. Two Alaskan Ambers went well with the appetizer. A shared dessert of mud pie was a must. The place was packed and the crowd did not thin out until after 3pm. Many of the items on the menu were fish related as you might expect. What's big up here is crab among other things. Alaska's commercial seafood industry employs 60,000 people producing 5 – 6 billion pounds of seafood a year. It is 60% of the US harvest.
Back in town Tracy's King Crab Shack had a line a mile long. They specialize in King crab but also offer Dungeness crab. An interesting fact about the Dungeness is the maximum life span is 10 years if they escape trapping. The males have to be 4 years old to harvest, while the females are never taken. They are thrown back to breed. One large female can carry 2.5 million eggs. That is incredible.
Everyone and their brother was packing a red plastic bag from the T-Shirt Company, the busiest shop in town. We made a sweep through the store to check out their sales. Much of it was ½ off or better. Tourists and crew members were busy shopping there, their last chance for them to bring something home to their families. Our only purchase was a bag of delicious peanut brittle to enjoy in our room. We passed on the fudge, although it did look tempting, too many calories for comfort.
Back on the ship by 4:30pm, we headed to our room to warm up and work on pictures. That kept one of us busy until our 7:30pm dinnertime in the main dining room. For starters we had small salads and arancini. Mains were the Club Orange special of braised short ribs which arrived on the special blue plates. It was quite tasty even if the meat was placed on a bed of pureed veggies, not potatoes. Usually we don't indulge, but tonight we ordered one scoop of butter pecan ice cream and one extremely chocolatey torte.
The ship left early at 9:20pm, and headed towards our next port of Skagway tomorrow. And there was a change of plans…..we will need to tender into Skagway because we believe two larger ships will be using the docks. At least we are still going there and not to Haines, like last week.
Bill & Mary Ann
