Cruising The Alaskan Sea

For my mom’s 60th birthday, my brother and I decided to take her on a cruise to Alaska. (Yes, cruises are horrible for the environment, a mid-sized cruise ship can use as much as 150 tonnes of fuel each day, which emits as much particulate as one million cars.) I will never forget this fact, and am not blind to it. Please keep this in mind when booking a cruise.

We started our journey sailing from Vancouver to Juneau - this took an entire day and a half, with part of the trip being incredibly rocky. I had never experienced something like this, and was nervous and scared. After many hours of the boat swaying from side to side, I got over my fear and eventually, the waters calmed down. In Juneau, we went for a long hike and saw the Mendenhall Glacier. It was raining, but it made it all the more beautiful as we hiked through the lush green trees and moss covering everything.

As we proceeded on our journey, we then arrived in Skagway, where we took a train up to the peak of a mountain, and then back down again. This was probably my favorite activity we did, as it was such a huge contrast starting in the sunny town, then up to the freezing cold snowy top of our destination.

On day 4, we spent the day around a massive glacier, where we saw schools of otters, bears, and seals.

And on our final day of being on land, we spent the day in Ketchikan snorkeling in wet suits, observing hundreds of thousands of baby salmon, a few sea cucumbers, and millions of tiny jellyfish swimming all around us.

My favorite part of this trip, {besides getting to spend an entire incredible week with my family} was looking out of my window every night, seeing a full sky of stars lighting up the ocean as we would glide to our next destination. I hope you enjoy these photos.