Bubbles!!!!!

Hi everybody!  The season has officially kicked into high gear leaving little time for any large adventures.  But luckily for me, every day at work is its own adventure!

This week brought something that we don't see very often and no one ever knows how long it will last.  The humpback whales have officially started bubble-netting!!!  Not every whale bubblenets and they don't do it all summer.  This unique behavior can last for a few days, a few weeks, or even a few months as it did a few summers ago.  So far, this group of four whales has been bubblenetting nearly continuously since Monday!

Now, a few notes about what a bubblenet actually is.  Humpback whales eat schooling bait fish, such as herring.  The whales have come to figure out that if they find these fish in the correct configuration, they can blow bubbles around the outside of the bait ball and the fish (since no one ever said they were the brightest creatures in the ocean) think they are trapped in a net.  The fish therefore swim upwards to make a futile escape attempt but instead are engulfed by the whales' huge wide-open mouths as the humpbacks swim upward through the bubble ring.  Voila! Bubblenetting!

Please excuse my shrieks at the very beginning of the video, but I was trying to get all of my guests to look in the correct direction haha.  The reason I knew where the whales would come up was a combination of watching the gulls flying in the air and also seeing the huge circle of bubbles popping to the surface.  If you listen closely, you should also be able to hear the whales as they exhale!

Also, I got to see a resident pod of Orcas.  We believe it was the A5 pod!  Here's a quick video of them.  Please excuse the chatting in the background; I was technically working and therefore have to talk to people. :D

Needless to say, yesterday was a FANTASTIC day on the water!  Now for more "work" today!  Wish you were here!

A Good Idea Is....

.... Crowd-sourcing pictures since I can't always take my camera out when I'm working! 

Every once in awhile, something spectacular happens on a whale watch that makes me mentally kick myself for not bringing my camera.  A few weeks ago that something was an adolescent female Orca who was hamming it up and even breaching!  Luckily, the folks I had taken out that day were decent photographers and had pretty nice cameras and were incredibly sweet in that they asked to send me some of their photos.  Of course I said yes!

The following pictures were all take by that family, sadly I can claim credit for none of these.  Next time!

Each fluke pattern is a unique fingerprint - this is Sasha, she has an "AK" pattern on her left fluke.

The water beading off the whales back is phenomenal!

Another momma and baby!

Look at the tiny blow!

Momma and yearling (or two year old)

Males have the really big pointy dorsal fins

Perseverance Trail #2

When Richard Harris and Joe Juneau first came to the area that would become Juneau AK, they were taken to what was to be named Gold Creek by a Tlingit named Chief Kowee.  Kowee showed them where he and his people had found gold (a metal they had no value in and made bullets out of because of it's low melting point) and, unbeknownst to him, set of a gold rush in SE Alaska.  More about the historical value of this trail can be found here. 

Amanda and I have hiked this particular trail once before but only had time to go a very short way.  This time we planned to spend at least several hours hiking since we had the entire, and stunningly gorgeous, Sunday off.  The weather couldn't have been more stunning; 68, mostly sunny, and a light breeze (thank goodness!).  Obviously this wasn't a unique idea as the convenient location near downtown, generally mild difficulty, and absolutely stunning beauty makes this is a very popular trail. 

View down the Silverbow Basin towards Douglas Island

Me and the roomie, Amanda

View back down Silverbow Basin

Gold Creek viewed from above

Old mine shaft

These photos are all sorts of out of order but the blog is being weird today and I am honestly too tired to fight with a website today.  I'm sure everyone has been there at some point. :)

All in all, it was a wonderful day with a wonderful roommate/friend and it's a trail I'm sure I will hike over and over again with great joy.  Have a wonderful evening everyone!

Mt Roberts

One of the biggest tourist attractions right in downtown is the Mount Roberts Tram.  It goes from the cruise ship dock up 1800' to a restaurant, gift shop, and hiking trails.  The ride up is expensive, but if you walk up, they'll let you ride down for $10!  

Therefore, we walked up.  Two Fridays aback, I hiked Mt Roberts with Captain Liz and her friend Peggy.  The trail is about a mile long and gains approximately 1600'.  The day had started out cloudy but opened up quite beautifully.

It was a gorgeous hike despite the ridiculously crazy amounts of pollen in the air.  The spruce trees have been incredibly efficient pollinators this season and my normally dark green car has been lime green for about 2 weeks now.  It's nuts! 

We got up in just under an hour; should have taken less time but we stopped for pictures a lot.  When we finally got up to the top, we had a late lunch (which thankfully counted as spending out $10 for our ride back down the mountain).

One of these days I plan to go hike up around the trails at the top of the tram and maybe make it up to the summit at 3200'.  Here's to hoping that all the snow melts off the sop soon!

Peggy, Liz, and me

View of downtown and my apartment (wayyy in the distance!) from halfway up

Fairy Cups

We made it!!!