#they kept playing around our boat ❤️

[beckyharvey29]

[belovedrival]

The first two days of our Alaska cruise were sea days. I mostly took pictures of the ship, and of the enormous wake behind us from the terrace pool area as we sped north.

Day 3 brought us to our first port, Hoonah (Icy Strait). It’s a majority Tlingit village. (If I got that wrong, someone please correct me.) It was seriously cloudy, rainy, foggy and grey that day, but all the locals said it was normal. So points for an authentic Alaskan experience - even if I did have to wear a long sleeve shirt and a sweatshirt underneath my jacket. Oh, and the jacket was bought on the cruise ship because even though I overpacked (this happens all the time), I was very stupid and left my usual jacket at home.

Don’t do that, if you go to Alaska. Remember to take your jacket. 🙂

Anyway, we got into Hoonah around mid afternoon. It was our shortest stay in a port. However, it was the place where we had our first excursion: whale-watching!

To be honest, I would’ve enjoyed seeing the humpback whales much more if 1) it hadn’t been raining quite so hard; 2) if the temperature was higher than 50; and 3) if several loved ones who love whales could’ve been there. I kept thinking of one person in particular. ❤️🐳

That being said, it was AWESOME. I’d do it again in a heartbeat! Rain or not. 😊 Unfortunately I learned immediately that I’m not a professional photographer so getting a good picture of the whales breaching (when they leap out of the water) wasn’t going to happen. There were a couple professionals on our boat, so every time a whale was sighted most people let them get next to the railing for better shots.

The captain explained that if we saw a whale (or more), we had to call out the location so everybody would know. Straight ahead was “Noon”, straight behind us was “Six o’clock”, etc.

Many times when you see a humpback breach, it’s a baby whale. They like doing it; it’s playing to them. Adult humpbacks breach as well, and of course when they do, the splash is bigger. We saw several whales breach - I missed the first one simply by looking in the wrong direction and by the time I’d turned around, it’d already gone back in the water. Fortunately five minutes later out of the corner of my eye, I saw one starting to breach. I could barely shout fast enough: “THERE’S ONE! EIGHT O’CLOCK!!!” It was cool 🙂

We did explore Hoonah a little after the whale-watching. We took a five minute ride on a converted tram and went through a series of shops, walked along a boardwalk near the beach (but didn’t go there), and peeked into a tiny graveyard. I did wonder about the people buried there, especially the ones who’d died decades ago. Could they have imagined that hundreds (if not thousands) of people would look at their graves?

Looking out at the beach and beyond, at the water and dark forests, I did think it was beautiful. And that part of me wouldn’t mind living in a place like that. I love trees, forests, and water. Plenty of all three there! I could be happy living there especially if I was well supplied with coffee. ☕️ But I also know that the window of time when Hoonah sees lots of visitors is pretty narrow - three or four months, tops? - and the rest of the year would be incredibly isolating, not to mention the harsh weather. Or the incredible amount of darkness in the autumn and winter. Alaska is known as the land of the Midnight Sun, which it is. In summer. Before the solstice. Afterwards…

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get back to Hoonah, or anywhere in Alaska. But it is definitely worth seeing. ❤️

I’ll try to post more of our trip before the month’s end. We did get a couple great weather days.😊

Missing it already, even the rain. I’ll probably go to sleep tonight listening to whales singing. ❤️

Good night, friends.