Douglas Island

Abandoned lookout building at low tide with Alaska's 2 types of birds: Eagles & Sea planes

Another trip over to Douglas Island yesterday. We went to the south end by "dog beach". Yes, dog beach since everyone goes there to let their dogs run. At least I was able to get my dog fix while I was here. This area also was the location of an old gold mine that operated until 1917 when it collapsed and flooded. The kids thought the area looked like a movie set from an Indiana Jones set but they wouldn't go in it as it was "creepy".

Since Juneau is a popular port of call for the cruise ships they are always coming and going. The kids wait to see which ships are new each morning when we drop Mike off for work. There always seem to be 4 in dock and with 8,000 passengers on each ship the town can get pretty congested.

Douglas Island

A walk in the forest

Another rainy day here in Juneau....did I mention that is rains here a lot? And if it's not raining it's cloudy and grey? Well, rain clouds and all the boys drove over the bridge to Douglas Island. It's a 42 mile, narrow island that lies across the channel from Juneau. We hiked through a very pretty temperate rain forest type climate. The boys were concerned about mosquitoes when they got out of the car and say one so I had to break out their bug netting. I did try and convinced them that there weren't any bugs down by the water (there weren't!) but the bug netting didn't come off. Lot's of nice pictures of kids covered in netting. We could hear Eagles in the trees behind the beach but only saw one flying around. It's pretty funny....the eagles are everywhere...you can always find a few off the road hanging out in the tidal river areas.

Boys on "Barnacle Island"

View of Mendenhall Glacier from across the channel

Collector of shells On his path into the sea

What do you do with all those old skis?

Tracy Arm Fjord

Sawyer Glacier:

Ice Flows around the Glaciers:

Sunday we took a day trip by boat (about 40'?) about 3 hours one way through the inside passage to a very long and narrow fjord. It rained off and on but we had jackets and did well. Michael spent almost the ENTIRE trip up at the front of the bow watching what was coming. Ben sat up in the wheel house with the captain most of the trip. We big icebergs floating out of the fjord which were just amazing. The blue color of the iceberg is when the iceberg is new, after time it turns white with sun exposure.

There are 2 glaciers at the end of the Fjord and both of them have been "calfiing" where big chunks of the ice fall. It was a little unnerving for this little boat to work it's way into the ice flow but he did manage to get us pretty close. there were tons of harbor seals hanging out on the ice, it's is their summer birthing place.

We spent several hours in the area of the glaciers watching them calf (which was like hearing a cannon). There were a ton of Eagles in the area. There were a bunch hanging out on a big iceberg and then another group that was fishing as the diving ducks were stirring up the fish.

We did see one humpback whale on the way home. It didn't stay long. Our guide says that if there are Orca whale pods in the area then the humpbacks go elsewhere. They saw a huge pod of the Orcas yesterday.

Sunday morning

Waiting to head over to our boat trip to Tracy Arm Fjord and Glacier. We'll be on the boat all day today so hopefully we see lots for the boys to watch.
Yesterday we spent some time walking around Juneau. There was a Native American Festival going on as well as 2 different cruise ships in dock. The boys and were spent by about 1:00 we went back to the room and we all napped for about 2 hours. Refreshed, we headed over to the Menden Hall Glacier which is only about 15 minutes out of town. Unfortunately I realized I had left the camera back at the hotel so the boys and I will probably go back sometime this week. It was pretty neat area. The boys were dive bombed by the nesting Arctic Turns and we could see several mountain goats traveling way up the side of this huge mountain face. We walked down to the waterfall base that is the closest you can Get to the Glacier. It was loud, cold and wet but pretty amazing. There was a photographer there who was taking pictures for a book so he took some of our family and will hopefully email them to us.
We ate dinner around 8:00pm at a local pizza place by the hotel and the kids were down and out by 9:15.
It's still light here when we got to bed. It was still relatively light when we got settled in at the hotel at 11:00 the other night. They say that it is light again at 3:30 am but we haven't really noticed since we seem to be sleeping through it.