July 31st-Icy Straight Point-Hoonah

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Today we docked at Icy Straight Point. Icy Straight Point, which is the waterway we arrived on, was supposedly a port created by the cruise industry. Contrary to this, this port which is actually a one mile walk to the tiny town of Hoonah, is true Alaska. We only planned one excursion this day which is probably good since it was a very rainy, cold day! We stayed on the ship until about 10 and then walked around the dock area a little to watch the crazy folks coming down the zipline in the freezing rain. Then we met our guide to venture back out in the straight to look for whales. Our whalewatch adventure was shared with a couple from Ohio. The five of us were huddled at the table inside the small 35 foot solid aluminum fishing vessel. It was a beautiful boat and the inside was heated. Our guide Floyd was about 65 years old and had lived in Hoonah most of his life. He was kind of quiet but told us we would set out for Adopolus point to find the whales. We sat back and enjoyed the rainy mountains as we sped toward the point. After about 25 minutes Floyd said "look straight out there, we have a flopper". We looked in the distance, directly in front of the boat, and saw a humpback doing a full breach! Needless to say, despite it being cold and rainy we had an amazing day not only watching humpbacks breaching, but following a pod of about 10 humpbacks for about an hour! We also witnessed really cool interactions between stellar sea lions and humpback whales. The sea lions often follow the humpbacks, like this day and play with them while they surface. I think I was able to get one shot with the sea lion in there right next to the big pod. Really neat to watch!! Enjoy the pictures...

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