Author: Elsa

While whale watching we saw one of the most amazing example of collaborative feeding by sea mammals called bubble net feeding. A group of whales up to 30 in size work together to capture herring. It occurs when the concentration of herring in an area is high. It is believed that one whale dives down and starts forming a circular net made of bubbles while another whale produces a feeding call that the school of herring will swim away from. The 2 whales are positioned in such a way that the school of small fish swim right into the area being surrounded by bubbles. Once the herrings are in place the whales do a mass lunging to the surface where they filter out thousands of gallons of sea water through their brush like teeth called “baleen” keeping a mouthful of food. The bubble net feeding behavior was first described in the 1980’s and it is still not completely understood. We were very fortunate to see such an event.

We had very limited time on Victoria Island. We were able to get off the ship at 6pm to explore the local city. We went to a night market and took a horse drawn carriage ride. The horse’s name was Chris and he was controlled by using only voice commands.

During the carriage tour we passed by the house of the local artist Emily Carr. She was born in the late 1800’s into an affluent family but she chose to shun almost all the norms of society. She had a pet monkey she dressed in children’s clothes and she owned a house opened to any woman in need. The house became so crowded she no longer had room to paint so she put all her furniture on a pulley system that could pull the pieces up to the ceiling leaving room to paint below. We will have to go back to Victoria sometime to see more.

On the cruise ship they had a theater where nightly performances occurred. One night Monti and Eliza were up in the balconies waiting for the show to start. They were playing the theme from Flashdance when Monti started dancing. Her dance was wild and a little jerky but definitely with the beat. When the song was over the crowd in the lower seats all started clapping. Up in the balcony we were trying to figure out what happened to make them clap. Shortly we realized they were clapping for Monti’s dancing performance. Once she realized the applause was for her she did what all good performers would do and took a bow.

During the cruise we always sat at the same tables for dinner. On the first formal dinner night this man read an issue of TV Guide during the entire dinner. I believe he read “The Dancing with the Stars” article at least 2 times. I mean TV Guide is not that meaty of a magazine to last an entire 2 hours. However no one at his table seemed to mind. This habit of reading while dining continued throughout the entire cruise.

We made the most of our five hours on shore in Ketchikan by doing a zipline/ropes tour above the local temperate rain forest. It was a lot of fun soaring above the trees.

On the third deck of the ship was a walking track that went around the entire ship. Three times around made up a mile. You could walk around while looking out for whales but it was very windy on the outside of the ship when we were at top cruising speed. In fact the last day between the head winds and our ship's speed the captain said there were 60 mph winds.

We had a few moments where the girls felt a little seasick. The worst was on our wildlife quest off Sitka.

On our last day at sea on the cruise ship the water had high swells that caused the ship to feel quite rocky. It is funny how life goes on with everyone just swaying. There are several noticeable differences. Containers filled with vomit bags start popping up in the halls near the elevators and the pools on the ship become wave pools.

Joe's mom would tell the girls to smile as hard as they can. Here they are smiling till it hurts.