Sunday, our final day was a big day – an all-day shoot on a small cruise boat up through the Tracy Arm Fjord, a body of water off the Gastineau Channel down from downtown Juneau. Here we were hoping to shoot glaciers and seals and bears roaming the water’s edge and all things in-between. The final day was also the best weather. About an hour into the cruise, the clouds parted and the sun came through! First time I’d seen the sun since the Monday sunset on Oahu. In addition to the sun, we’d also be treated to some great sites. No bears, but we happened upon a major glacial event! I wish I had better pictures to share, but I didn’t know how to operate the lens Noel had outfitted me with that day, and Noel informed me back at the hotel that I had a card full of bad, blurry pictures. I got home and took a second look and they weren’t so bad. I love seals, sea lions, sea otters…you name it. Another one of those things carried over from my youth in and around the Northern California coast and later the sea lions on the scene at Pier 39 after the Loma Prieta earthquake. So I was especially excited to hear that we’d be seeing harbor seals along our cruise route. As we were approaching the Tracy Arm Glacier, I asked one of the boat operators if the seals would be along the coast or in the water. He said they’d be on or swimming around the floating ice burgs, and you could count on seeing “six hundred of them” just around the corner. OK! Bring them on. Here are the first three that I saw. And then I would see maybe 9 or so more, making a grand total of 12 harbor seals spotted for the day. I have no idea where the other 588 were hiding!
Small boats like the one we were on are able to navigate around the ice burgs and get pretty close to sites – waterfalls, wildlife, glaciers, etc. So we “pull up” near the Tracy Arm Glacier and we’re all out on the outer decks, cameras in hand, shooting the glacier. Then the boat captain says over the intercom, “Get ready for a glacial event on the left.” So we all rush over, and within seconds we see huge chunks of ice moving toward the water, then breaking off from the glacier and splashing down. One huge chunk fell with a large splash, went underwater, then popped back up and bounced a bit. It was really amazing to see. And no, I didn't get any good pictures! I was hanging out at the back of the boat and didn't have the right angle. It was rumored that someone in the group got it on video, but it wasn’t shown at our end of trek gathering, so I can’t confirm it. But if I can find footage of it, I’ll YouTube it for you folks in a heartbeat! 
As the day went on, we lost most of our bright sun from the morning. But, that is actually good for pictures of ice burgs. The blue color comes out more. Here is an interesting (to me) close-up I took late in the day…and yes, no Photoshopping here. That’s really the color we saw with our naked eyes.
After spending most of the day cruising the Tracy Arm, we turned again to Juneau. Back in the larger channel, we had a small window of time to look for humpback whales. Just like the other day, the captain got in touch with a few other captains in the area and asked for sitings. We ran around for a few minutes, found a bunch, but really didn’t have time to get close. No breachings though.
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