Juneau

We see one whale in the distance all by himself but our captain knows there's a better place further up where we hit pay dirt.  At least 9 or 10 do the bottle neck feeding where they all come up at once and then swim around for a few minutes spouting out their blowholes. After watching this a few times they finally come up right near our boat and start swimming right past us and underneath us. It was the Most Amazing thing to ever see, hear and smell ever in my life. Yes I said smell, but not a good smell. They said it was "whale breath" and it was nasty. Unfortunately it was raining during all this so we were doing our best trying not to get our equipment and lenses wet and just trying to get great pics which of course never does  it justice compared to the real experience of it all. This has to be the highlight of my trip!

Since we have to leave port at the end of the excursion we don't get to walk in to the town but it looks like the most we will miss is jewelry stores and souvenir shops.