Survival and Emergency Preparedness

A note about whales. Both the humpback (balleen) whale and the Orca/killer whales are found in Alaskan waters. We saw lots of both of them. the Humpbacks have a balleen filter in their mouths to filter plankton and other small food sources. Humpbacks are typically 32-55 feet long and weigh 28-33 tons.

The pic below of a humpback is Whale Park along the waterfront in Juneau. In the background on the left side is 3-4 cruise ships in port that day. Whales are difficult to catch jumping out of the water so here's what they look like.


A crappy cell phone pic of a humback we saw.



The Orca or Killer whales are the largest of the oceanic dolphin family. They have teeth and will eat just about anything including humpback whales. Known as apex predators. They are typically 20-32 feet long and up to 10 tons.

I do have some whales in the water pics but I'll have to go through them.

We did see some orcas jump out of the water. It was impressive but it was near impossible to capture a pic of that. On one day several pods of Orcas (at least 20) began playing near the ship. They bumped and rolled and went under the ship. At other times just about everywhere you looked you could see them spouting. They were all over the place.

Orca near the boat



One interesting thing about whales is they don't go up channels, bays where there are glaciers. That's because the noise of the ice breaking off screws up their echo location system as does the presence of icebergs. Consequently, those areas are a haven for seals and sea otters whose main predator are killer whales. You see a lot of seal/sea lions and otters in those fjords.

The accommodations on the ship...

This was an "adventure" cruise so unlike a big cruise ship cabins were pretty spartan. Basically two twin beds in a tiny cabin with a tiny bathroom. The beds weren't very comfortable. You could get a little bigger cabins or cabins with double beds in them for more money. Our cabin was on deck 3.

There was a gathering area/lounge on deck 2 forward and the dining area was on deck 1 aft.

Wake up call was pretty much 6:30 every morning with coffee and donuts/muffins in the lounge. Breakfast was at 7;30-8 except it was at 7 a couple times due to activities.

They put out snacks, coffee etc at 3 pm every day. Cocktail hour was 6 ish and dinner at 7.

There were often wildlife lectures/presentations at sometimes during the day and in the evening. No TV or internet on the ship which was a good thing to be disconnected.

This cruise cost a lot of money so there was an interesting collection of guests on board. Quite a few from California and Washington state since it's a fairly short plane ride from Seatle (2-2.5 hours). There was a couple from Australia who were on a world tour. We even met a family (Grandma/grandpa & grown kids & wives from Michigan and the city next to us. Couples from Denver, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illionois, Iowa. There were several single women traveling alone. Some were older widows. Some were women traveling without their husbands. Husbands who couldn't or wouldn't go with them. I would say the average age of the passengers was mid 70s though there were 2-3 younger couples who weren't retired.

There was a couple who were celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary like us.

Here is the picture gallery taken by the cruise company. They are better than any pics I took.

https://order.picthrive.com/d32e6cb0-6b ... dcff14073/

Almost had a consulting gig in Juneau. Learned a lot about the climate. Technically a rain forest I believe.

What preps did you take/have with you?

Yup, rainforrest.

The usual EDC stuff plus a backpack that contains a small survival kit with all my hiking gear including FAK, compass, water bladder, light, knife, multi tool, rain gear. I did also bring my baofeng radios to listen to ship radio traffic primarily. Kind of fun listening to the whale watching ships. Also binocs and hiking sticks. No gun this time. Not allowed on the boat.

A couple things occurred that I didn't prepare for. The morning on the day we were to get on the boat, I blew my nose real hard and got a bloody nose. I mean it bled like a stuck pig for over an hour. Couldn't stop it. Massive amount of blood. Bled off and on for 4 days. Walked around for 5 days with tissue stuffed up my nose.

That was on Friday, the following Wednesday I came down with a bad cold. Pretty miserable. Fortunately my wife brought a decongestant/cold pills. That is going into all my survival kits. I had pain meds in my kits, never thought about cold meds.