Wild Alaska from the Comforts Afloat
Alaska... Alaska is a vast and wild place! Along the beautiful coast of Alaska, the mountains rise out of the water to tremendous heights only to be outdone by the snow capped mountains behind them! I would love to explore more in the future! On this trip it was about my bride though. We visited once several years ago, but she was just off a surgery so our adventure was a little reduced. So, for our 10th anniversary, I planned an Alaskan cruise aboard a beautiful ship owned by Holland America. I had told our boys if they graduated college that I would send them on a little vacation too. Both did well in high school so their college was mostly paid for. So, I thought it would be nice for them to come along. The outlaws, I mean my in-laws, also joined the party :)! One of Jesica’s best qualities is her love of her family. I knew this would mean a lot to her. The one big twist was that Jesica only knew about the two of us! I'm terrible at keeping a secret so this was going to be difficult. I had about 10 months to contain my excitement and I couldn't hardly even talk about the trip due to being afraid of messing it up. Time kept passing by and the element of surprise was still in place. Finally, it was time to climb aboard and sail the coast of Alaska!
The day was finally here and it was time to unveil the surprise. We left our house at 3:00am to catch an early flight out of Atlanta. We had to stop by our son and daughter-in laws apartment to "grab a package that was left outside his place" because "they were out of town"! Our other son and his bride drove up from Florida to stay the night with his brother so we could pick them up and ride to the airport together. We got to their apartment at around 4am and I pulled up to their place and let Jesica out to get "the package". She walked up to the door nervously because it's very early and dark so she felt a bit odd snooping around . When she got to the door the kids opened the door and Jesica had the look of someone having a gun pulled on them! She was so confused! The kids then told her that they were going to Alaska and the hugs and laughter began!
We were to leave out of Vancouver and go up through the inside passage which is just mind blowing like everything else along the trip. The scale of everything is just crazy! To be able to compose an image with an ocean and snow capped mountains is just a photographer's dream! I was able to get several images through the inside passage that I really liked! I was surprised just how many photos were just from off the boat! I would roam the top deck and just pick off images along the way. The challenge of course is to get them sharp while on a moving boat.
Our first stop was Juneau. We really didn't have much planned here other than hanging out and walking around the town. We played tourist and we ended up getting a shirt or two. I was hoping to get a Bald Eagle here. Certain times of year in Juneau there are tons of Eagles! I was unsuccessful here but I did end up getting an Eagle on the trip! Going in and out of Juneau on the boat I was able to grab a few photos of some fog and mountains!
The next stop was Skagway! What a beautiful place this was! Jesica's parents treated the kids to a train ride to White Pass. We had done the train ride, so I did a little photo excursion here and actually took a bus trip to the White Pass. The views from there are insane. Once we got to the top we were looking over the bay where our boat was. At the top of the pass the landscape was different! I ended up with several images from here that I liked!
The next day was the one I was really looking forward to! We were headed to the beautiful Glacier Bay national park! I had this place so built up in my imagination and it still blew my mind! We saw otters, Grizzly Bears, whales, mountain goats and seals to go along with epic mountains and massive glaciers coming off of them. The boat had a ranger from the park join us to guide us through the bay. I actually got an image of his boat pulling up to ours. He was broadcasted over the sound system so most of the day I sat out on our balcony and listened to all these very cool facts about what we were looking at. The headliners of the show were the Johns Hopkins Glacier and the Margerie Glacier. The one thing that blew my mind (again) was the first glacier, Johns Hopkins, was seven miles away! The face of the glacier was 150 feet tall! That's where the scale gets all distorted. It looked like a mile or two maybe. Needless to say I got several images from here that I loved!
After Glacier Bay everything else was gravy! We were headed to Ketchikan and again didn't have a lot planned. We were just going to wing it a little. While in town, I saw a bus so I went up to him and checked his prices to ride the family around. He was more than fair! So we all jumped in and we were treated to a nice surprise! Aaron from Fireweed Tours really made the day great! Aaron’s family went way back in Ketchikan, so he knew a lot of the local knowledge and showed us a neat little waterfall and even put us on a Bald Eagle. The coolest part was the Salmon that was headed upstream right in the center of Ketchikan! I can't even put into words how many Salmon were in this little river! It was so neat!
It was time to head home but there was still more to come! We were heading back through the inside passage and we were going to see a little more heading back due to more daylight. Unfortunately I didn't bring my battery charger and I just had one more battery with very little charge. I was bummed but I still enjoyed the views! It was kinda nice to just sit back and enjoy the end of our trip! That's what I kept telling myself so I wouldn't throw my camera overboard anyway! :)
The next morning we were to get off the boat for the long journey home. With all the images and amazing views that we saw, the best part was sitting around and goofing off and eating breakfast and lunch in the same sitting, playing a few games in the gameroom, and a couple brunch bottomless mimosas!
After we got home and I started to look at the photos, I was pleasantly surprised how many I liked. I can be picky and very critical of my photos! It got me thinking about doing a landscape photography workshop on an Alaskan cruise! We could plan an excursion to photograph bald eagles, take a small boat tour into Tracy Arm Inlet and Sawyer Glacier, a whale watching trip, and photograph the trip into Glacier Bay and the Inside Passage! Composing off the boat was so fun! You would see scenes coming up as the boat approached these crazy places! During the days at sea, we could edit some of your photos to show you new ideas and how to get the most out of the images! If this is something you would be interested in, please contact me through my website here. I would love to know if the interest is there, so don’t be afraid to contact me to learn a little more! I will be putting together a plan to work up a price. I hope you enjoyed this little blog about my family's journey to Alaska, and I hope you enjoy the photos! I will be adding the rest of my photos at the end of this blog page for you to browse and will be adding a number of them to my store under the Alaska category! :) Have a good one!
