Fourth of July 2009 in Juneau

Ready for another long photo blog, well too bad if you're not cause this is one of those.

Fun Fourth of July this year. We skipped the Juneau fireworks which started at 12:00 am July 4, so I could go fishing the next day. My day started at 2:45 am. I was invited by a local fellow Dawson employee to go fishing, so I jumped at the chance.

Auke Bay Harbor at 3:30am, just after boat launch.

Lighthouse located at the North end of Admiralty Island.

My very first fish ever cought in the ocean, a rock fish. Rich, my boating friend, caught a flounder. Not much meat on either of these fishes, but they both made for nice fillets later on.

Bald eagles are everywhere up here. I'm starting to take them for granted.

And then another one of my life long goals got checked off the list, ... see a live whale in wild. We came across a pod of 8-10 humpback whales feasting on a school of fish. You could tell they were having fun as well. Saw one jump completely out of the water. Whales are everybit as big as you think they are. JUST HUGE!! Here is a video and a few pictures of them. For the record, boaters are asked to keep quite a distance from whales, for a number of reasons. So today I was very glad to have a camera that could zoom really far.

Fourth of July fireworks, Alaskian style!

We got back into the harbor at 9am. I took a short power nap and then it was off to the Juneau Fourth of July Parade. This is a particularly special year for Alaska, and Juneau (Alaska's state capitol,) because this day also marked 50 years of statehood. Fun to be here to celebrate with the Alaskan's this historic day.

Alaska Marine Lines, (actually a local Whatcom County, WA headquatered company,) is huge here is Alaska. Nearly everything that is shipped to Alaska goes through them. We ship construction items on their barges every week of the year.

Vicky and the boys celebrating 50 years for Alaska! Wave those flags boys!!

After the parade and another nap we decided to take advantage on being in Alaska on a beautiful sunny day and went on a hike. A nine mile hike to see the Herbert Glacier. (It's a bit of a funny story, but we didn't plan to take such a long hike. I under estimated the distance and Vicky and I both are really feeling it today! But to our credit we walked it in 3.5 hours.)

What a great and beautiful day! Happy Fourth America!