Monday we went on the whale watching dinner cruise that the lodge sets up. Frankly, i expected a good dinner on a ship, and a few whale spouts for excitement, but it was what was available and when in Rome and like the zen monk I was following the usual practices etc.

We went down to the dock on a short path from the lodge (the town, Gustavus, is 9 miles away and has its own dock, and airport, but the Glacier Bay Lodge uses the Bartlett Cove dock). There was the MV Fairweather II. On board we found a table set for 4. That was odd because M.A. and I are only 2 people, and there were no other tables set at all. Another couple joined us in a minute. The staff wondered if we minded eating together- and we did not. The couple was a wetlands specialist from Portland and her companion, a computer programer. We had met on the ferry from Juneau and were sympacatio.

Dinner was excellent. We had to choose between two red wines: Old Truck, and Smoking Loon. Loon got the nod from me due to getting some overaired Truck at the motel restaurant in Redway. You know, the one that is not the Branding Iron. (Senior moment).
See my dining entry for the photo of the maple glazed salmon. As we ate the ship sailed for the whales. The water in Glacier bay is quite calm, despite 25 foot tides, and the trip was without incident. Soon it was a choice between dessert and whales. We went for the whales.



They were distant, they were spouting, and occasionally showing tail fins as they dove. But they were at the extreme lenght of the 18 power zoom on the Olympus and actually getting more that something to refresh the memory was not going to be possible. After 1/2 hour (the max time we are allowed to hang-out around any one group of wildllife) we sailed for what we might metaphorically call greener pastures.



Our second location was a big hit. What seems to have been going on is that a school of fish was being "harvested" at the same time by a group of seal lions and 6 whales. The sea lions would chase the fish at the surface causing a splashing line of water and sea lion glimpses to shoot out for 100 feet or so, then the whales would come up under the whole thing spouting and splashing. One spouter made a noise like a horn and the responding echo would come from the cliffs just inland from the nearly shore. This went on for at least 1/2 hour and the cameras of passengers and crew were snapping wildly the whole time. If only I had bought stock in the company that makes pixels.





Needless to say most of my shots were deleters. But a few were not. Here's the legendary two tail whale shot that wildlife photographers aspire to. I almost missed it, as you can see, and I did miss the triple.