Eagles and Seals and Whales, oh my!

A few weeks ago I finally got the opportunity to go on tour with Ocean Raft Alaska, something I've been wanting to do all season. Most of the tour companies here will exchange free tours with each other on the understanding that you always leave a generous tip for your guides, but although I've taken out tons of locals and seasonal workers on the zipline I haven't had the opportunity to check out any of the other excursions in town. To be perfectly honest, sitting on a street-car or riding a train with a bunch of tourists was not on the top of my list of things to do on my rare days off, so the jet-boat was really the only thing in town I was interested in checking out.

We met at the dock first thing in the morning and got all dressed up in bright orange survival suits before we headed out onto the Lynn Canal in the zodiac boat to go crashing through the waves. We alternated between speeding along the shoreline; jumping over waves and doing donuts in inlets, and stopping in coves and along the shoreline to search for wildlife and check out some beautiful waterfalls. We spotted quite a few bald eagles up in the trees, saw a lot of harbor seals lazing about on the rocks like a bunch of fat sausages, and best of all almost got blown out of the water by a humpback whale!

We first spotted the whale when we were making our way back towards Skagway. It was about 40 yards away and had just finished breaching, so Captain Ashley decided to kill the engines and wait around for a few minutes to see if it would resurface. After about 6 minutes we figured it had moved on, so he took us to a small inlet to talk a bit about the Tongas National Rainforest and give the tourists an opportunity to have their "rainforest moment." Just as we were inching into a small corner of the shoreline about 30 feet deep and maybe 20 feet wide, the whale breached again no more than 6 feet away in between our boat and the rock wall. It scared the crap out of Ashley and pretty much everyone else in the boat...and it continued to spout and swim just 10 feet from our little 30ft raft for a few more minutes before disappearing again to find a better hiding spot. I couldn't have asked for a more exciting trip.