Here's what can be seen from the deck of a cruise ship in Alaska

Just what can one expect to see from the deck of a cruise ship in Alaska?

Prior toour recent Inside Passage cruise I came across this question a lot...mostlybecause I was trying to prepare for what could be seen from the ship whilecruising and to make sure we had appropriate equipment (binoculars, zoomlenses, etc...) to see it. In the various threads I came across there seemed tobe 2 main answers: "you can't see anything from the ship" and"lots to see...just look". Well, now that we're back Idecided to create a thread that I hope paints a realistic picture of what maybe seen from the deck of a cruise ship in Alaska's inside passage.

Somebackground:

Our cruisewas aboard the Coral Princess from Whittier to Vancouver and included a day inYakutat Bay and a day in Glacier Bay. Our cabin was a forward facingmini-suite on the central bump out on Baja (deck 11) and we hung out on thePromenade and Lido decks from time to time as well.

My wife andI are generally more interested in seeing wildlife in the wild...even at adistance...than tame life in the zoo...though we do enjoy both. We tookour Alaskan cruise to see nature. I spent many hours on our balconystaring as the world passed by. It was a bit fresh (according to Captain Tuvo!) for my wife so shespent many of those same hours just inside the balcony door staring at theworld sliding by. We tuned ourcabin TV to the bridge cam so we could hear the naturalist and the captain ifthey announced wildlife spottings. Thetake away? We were actively looking forwildlife much of the trip :)

Mostly wesearched with our own eyes and zoomed in with optical aides once we saw something interesting. My wife hada set of 8x42 binoculars with an 8 degree FOV. I tended to use my Nikon D7200 with a 70-300mm lens as my “binoculars”so I could just smash the button if something interesting happened! At 300mm my zoom lens had a fairly equivalentFOV to my wife’s binoculars so I rarely felt the need to reach for them. Unlessspecified otherwise, all images are at 300mm so should match pretty well withwhat you’d see from a decent set of 8x binoculars.

Lastly, keep in mind that we're looking for wild animals with their own interests and agendas. What we saw may not match up with what others saw just a few minutes ahead or behind us...even from the same ship!

So what didwe see?

Our firstmorning, I was out on the balcony by 4:30AM while she was still sleeping. I wasn’t out there long before I saw threewhale spouts right in a line. I didn’tget a picture right away because I ran in to wake my wife so she could watchwith me. When I did take a picture, thisis what we saw:

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Interesting that Google Drive pictures show up when creating the post and when first posting it but when the page is refreshed they vanish :( Here's the raw link to the photo...you need to click, but it should work.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7yHBDszWFdIeEJWVDJJSTJVbWs/view?usp=sharing

Sorry :(

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Our first whale! We saw spouts fairly frequently during our trip. The captain would warn us prior to locations whales were known to feed. If you're in your room you need the bridge cam on the TV to hear most announcements. On public decks (Promenade, Lido) you'd hear all announcements.

Spouts are pretty easy to see/recognize. One thing to keep in mind, feeding humpbacks tend to surface and do 3-4 shallow dives over 2-3 minutes before doing a deeper dive that could last 10-15 minutes or longer. The spouts hang in the air for only a few seconds. If you randomly look at any given time you will NOT see a whale no matter how many are there! You need to look for several minutes at least and hopefully with friends who can scan other parts of the surface you're not looking at. Once found, you'll get a few chances to see the whale before it does a deep dive.

It was often entertaining to be on the balcony and listen to the passengers chat down the line when someone saw something...quite often it helped!

Stay tuned...more to come :)

Whenever we were in our room we had the bridge cam on the TV. That way we could listen to the naturalist plus many sightings by the naturalist or the bridge crew would be announced on that channel and the public decks.

My wife and I were watching birds bobbing and flying around when one such announcement came. The captain announced a whale at the ships 1:00...starboard but our cabin was port :( Many many thanks to the people on Cruise Critic who pointed out the Coral Princess has "hidden" balconies aft on several decks...Baja included! We figured our best bet was to high-tail it to the aft deck so we could watch the whale longer if the ship outpaced it.

That worked wonderfully! After a brisk walk we exited to a nearly empty aft deck with a humpback whale waving right at us from 3:00 right alongside the ship!

<edit>

Interesting that Google Drive pictures show up when creating the post and when first posting it but when the page is refreshed they vanish :(Here's the raw link to the photo...you need to click, but it should work.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7yHBDszWFdIVDhhYkZkd3N5cXc/view?usp=sharing

Sorry :(

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We figure it was a juvenile playing since it waved at us for a good long time. She must have been on her back to get both fins up like this for this picture!

The aft balcony was an excellent decision since we were able to watch her wave at us for several minutes as the ship pulled away.

After watching the whale wave us ado we wandered around Lido deck a bit before heading back to our room. I don't recall how long we were in our room but it didn't seem like long. The captain came over the TV announcing a brown bear at the ships 3:00. I remember looking at my wife as we both realized starboard AGAIN...We figured the bear was more likely to duck back into the forest so we bound up 2 flights of stairs to Lido and crossed over to starboard...and there it was!

<edit>

Interesting that Google Drive pictures show up when creating the post and when first posting it but when the page is refreshed they vanish :(Here's the raw link to the photo...you need to click, but it should work.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7yHBDszWFdIb21PRElBaktxUjA/view?usp=sharing

Sorry :(

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The deck was mostly empty so we could easily walk where we wanted. We walked towards the aft of the ship to keep even with the bear as she flipped stones looking for food apparently completely oblivious that we were there! After a few minutes we realized we weren't walking to keep up with her anymore...Captain Tuvo had stopped the ship!

This was hands down the coolest part of the trip! We watched the bear walk along the beach and flip stones for a good 10 minutes before we had to continue on our way. <y wife and I watched until the bear was out of sight...but still walking along the shoreline.

Even though we went on 2 shore excursions that had possibilities to sight bears (black bears), this wound up being the only bear we saw the entire trip...and it was from the Lido deck of a cruise ship! I don't claim that will EVER happen again, but it does show that opportunities arise if you're ready for them :)

Cool pic of the bear!

Thanks for the heads up. We will definitely spend the bulk of our time topside looking out for wildlife.

Lest I'm leaving the impression that everything is easy to see, here's something that was a bit more challenging! The captain alerted us that we were passing by an island known to have mountain goats. And it did!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7yHBDszWFdINkJDSTQ5QlR5eUk/view?usp=sharing

Naked eye they were neigh impossible to see through the mist. Even knowing where they were, they were sometimes hard to see through the drifting mist. We were on Promenade deck at this time. There was a gentleman standing next to us who was having great difficulty seeing the goats even through his binoculars. He asked us several times for help with landmarks to guide him to where they were. We eventually got him there, but they were much harder to see than the bear!

The captain had alerted us that on the way out of Glacier bay we'd pass back through an area known to have many sea otters. We had looked on the way in earlier in the day but only saw a few far in the distance. Sea otters are more active later in the day so we had higher hopes for on the way out.

And there were many more sea otters out and about! The sea was speckled with them! At one point I had as many as 6 in the same field of view. Some popped up much closer to the ship also. I caught this guy munching on a snack!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7yHBDszWFdIX2NReUw4dXB6TUE/view?usp=sharing

We saw many other species while in Glacier bay but I won't bore you with everything we saw! Sea lions were an easy find on and near South Pebble Island. There were a few seals lounging about on calved glacial ice. Some bald eagles perched on floating ice as well. The sea lions, seals, eagles and many other birds were fairly easy to see from the ship. South Pebble Island is also home to puffins. They were very much harder to see. I'm not yet sure I got an identifiable picture of a puffin though we were able to positively identify them through binoculars.

This sighting might place us closer to the fanatical end of the spectrum :) We took the cable car up Roberts mountain and hiked up there for a hour or two. We mostly saw small birds of various types. At one point we stared across at Mount Juneau trying to decide if some off landscape was natural or a man-made trail.

Why that's important is that on the way back down in the cable car the operator mentioned that Mount Juneau had a herd of 60 or so mountain goats. My wife and I were sad we didn't see them because we had scanned the mountainside for a few minutes while up above the tree line and didn't see anything. Oh well, can't see them all...

Back on the ship I took my customary position on our deck...which was port side and had a view of Mount Juneau. While we were casting off, I was scanning the mountainside looking for mountain goats...and found them!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7yHBDszWFdISXMzVkNmc1daZVU/view?usp=sharing

There's a big group of 9 or so right in the middle of that picture...some of them juveniles. But there's also mountain goats scatter throughout the entire picture! They're much easier to see when the image is cropped!

I looked it up on google maps...from where our ship was at the time to where the center group of goats is was just shy of 2 miles! The weather was neigh perfect that day or they would have been lost in the mist. But they were there and I could watch them walk about as the ship slowly maneuvered itself out of port.

We saw many other things that I can try and dig pictures out for if anyone is interested. One evening we saw a flock of gulls and about a dozen or so bald eagles hunting. I haven't found my pictures yet but I think I got a couple of shots of the eagles diving...and comping up empty :( taken from the Promenade. Seals where everywhere (look for little black triangles on the water...that's their noses poking up!) Birds a plenty...mostly gulls but others sprinkled in. The birds were fun to watch. Some would fly along then suddenly plunge into the water. Others floated on the open water until the ship got close then would dive for cover. We saw dolphins in the distance though I don't think I managed a picture of them.

Anyway, hopefully some of these pictures give someone a better idea of what to expect. If you know what you're looking for, its easier to see :) The first few times we saw otters I was convinced they were small groups of seals poking their noses out tile I realized one "nose" was the otters head and the other was his feet!

I found my pictures of the eagles hunting. Here's one of two diving at the same time...they both came up empty :( Taken from the Promenade several hours after leaving Ketchikan south for Vancouver.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7yHBDszWFdIaDlmX3djQ0dqNGM/view?usp=sharing

Thanks for sharing all of this.

Keith

Thanks for the interesting info you have shared.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Forums mobile app

Thanks for sharing, great pictures. We leave for our Alaska cruise on Sat.

Allan

Thanks for sharing. did you mention when you sailed?

Thanks for sharing. did you mention when you sailed?

June 17, 2017

Awesome pictures! We leave in 52 days(but who's counting):D

June 17, 2017

Thanks for the reply - a full month before us (July 17). We booked 2 bear tours. (You comment on bears got my attention.)

Not sure what you have done there, did you use to insert the link?

Perhaps have a play in "test" forum

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=225

EDIT maybe forget that

How odd - having read your post I went back to

my post and the pics I posted yesterday were still there (laptop has been off over night).

Pressed refresh (as you mentioned it) and they vanished links and all.

Back to the drawing board or photobucket!! LOL

Sorry it messed your presentation.

Wow! Great photos and a great description! It sounds like you had a wonderful captain, too. Thanks for sharing with us.

Thanks for sharing. So many great things to see.

I've been following this thread and thought I would add my 2 cents!

On our 14-day NCL Sun cruise to Alaska in May, our last two ports were in British Columbia. On the sea day between Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, we spotted lots of porpoises jumping and playing in the water. It was fun to watch, but pretty hard to get any kind of decent photo.

Then I looked directly down into the water from our balcony and saw one racing alongside the ship! I was amazed at how well...and how long he was able to stay with the ship!

Here is the video I took...

I've been following this thread and thought I would add my 2 cents!

 

On our 14-day NCL Sun cruise to Alaska in May, our last two ports were in British Columbia. On the sea day between Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, we spotted lots of porpoises jumping and playing in the water. It was fun to watch, but pretty hard to get any kind of decent photo.

 

Then I looked directly down into the water from our balcony and saw one racing alongside the ship! I was amazed at how well...and how long he was able to stay with the ship!

 

Here is the video I took...

 

That's a great video! We are going on an Alaska cruise in August from Seward to Vancouver and I'm planning to spend every moment on the ship looking down at the water and along the land for wildlife! I can't wait!