Capturing the Moment

  El Capitan Cave is the largest known cave in Alaska, and is also the first cave in Southeast Alaska where fossil bones were discovered. A wooden stairway has been constructed up the long hillside to the cave (see photo below), and tours are provided for visitors by Tongass National Forest . A gate has been installed in the cave to prevent visitors from falling into pits or being trapped behind a portion of the cave that floods during storms. It is located on Prince of Wales Island.   We stopped here this week after a nail-biting transit of the narrow, shallow Dry Pass. Not many people will take the big boat through this narrow channel leading up to El Cap, but Capt. Dano navigated the pass with expert precision. We could almost reach out and grab leaves off the trees, and to add to the early morning excitement we were getting our first glimpses of playful sea otters swimming along the shorelines. I even had passengers tell me they were seeing sea stars out of...

  After a few weeks of beautiful weather and exciting wildlife encounters its hard to pick out one highlight to write about in my quick time at port. But looking through my recent pictures a clear choice became obvious, glaciers. On each of our trips we spend a day at a tidewater glacier. These are glaciers that flow down the mountain and enter the sea at their face.    Sometimes just getting to the glacier can be the real adventure. Long, narrow, steep fjords showing the glaciers advancement in the past can be clogged with floating ice. Some of these icebergs can be larger than our ship, while others are in their last few days before melting to oblivion. Others show off the intensely pressurized ice inside the glacier in an almost otherworldly blue color.   But if we can make it to the glacier face, the true vastness of the glacier can be known. These glaciers snake their way high up into the snow fields where they are born as a single tiny snowflake. And...

The Northern Lights     Even though I am in the northernmost state of the United States, and even though I was expecting to see amazing things this summer in Alaska, for some reason I wasn’t convinced that I would be seeing the Aurora Borealis, more commonly known as the “Northern Lights.” But here we are, week one of the Alaska season and we have seen them twice! Well, some people saw it twice…    Day two of our weeklong adventure cruise between Ketchikan and Juneau the passengers were awoken in the wee morning hours by the on-duty mate to a call for Northern Lights.  Unfortunately I was either not awakened…or too tired from working too hard. Needless to say I was pretty bummed that I missed them, but very excited that most of the guest were able to witness it. Some guest grabbed some great pictures as well. I crossed my fingers that we would not only have another clear night, but that the light show would happen again.   Day three was it. It w...

View from the Bridge  The adventure is underway. Our first stop on our Northbound to Alaska is a quick town stop in the San Juan Islands. Friday Harbor is a quaint village nestled on San Juan Island. Even though it is the commercial center of the islands the description of "bustling" would be a bit of an overstatement. Boats of all kinds are tied up in the harbor and big ferries come in every few hours. A statue of a seal named "Popeye" overlooks the harbor at the end of the docks and the actual seal Popeye still haunts the harbor on a daily basis. She awaits food handed to her from the nearby seafood stall. Popeye lost her eye many years ago but hasn't let that stop her from having ten different pups! Popeye Friday Harbor   We had the morning to walk around so I was able to snap a few pictures of the beautiful town. I also picked up some local beer from the Island Hoppin Brewery to do a special beer tasting on our Northbound since we only h...

Pike Place Market Fresh Seafood at Pike Place Market   A rare afternoon off sparked a quick sightseeing trip through the quirky downtown waterfront district of Seattle. I figured Pike Place Market would be a good place to start. A Starbucks sat across the road but I was told that it wasn't the first, but if I wanted to see the first it was only two blocks away. I stepped inside the market to see stalls ranging from African masks and trinkets to all kinds of flowers and of course the famous fish tossing stalls as well. What I assume were salty fishermen lined the stalls in the grundens (at least they looked like salty fishermen.) Gum Wall, Post Alley Seattle Aquarium   There were a couple of good overlooks from the market down to the waterfront so my next mission was to find a way there through all the construction. Going down through the Post Alley I came across a bizarre site which turned out to be the famous Gum Wall. People have color coated the walls with...