Frederick Sound and Stephens Passage, Alaska

If you're on an Alaska cruise and your captain or cruise director is kind enough to tell you when you'll be sailing through Frederick Sound and Stephens Passage, get out on deck beforehand and stay out the whole time.  You may see nothing but beautiful scenery.  Or...if the weather is decent and luck is with you, you may see lots of whales!  It's a common feeding ground for them, so it's not unusual to see some, but this last August we saw more than I'd ever seen before in one place.

Most weren't super close, but there were so many.  They don't live in pods, but they do sometimes travel together while feeding, and we saw three of these big groups of 8, 10, 12 individuals.  Incredible.  Plus various others alone or in pairs.  We saw spouts, humps, tails.  We saw breaches!  And for the first time, I saw fin slapping.  The breaches and fin-slapping were far away, small even in my binoculars, but it was fantastic.

Some pics:

A nice fluke

Blow this up and try to count how many you see.

A humpback's humped back

Breaching

For tips on having your own budget adventures in Alaska, read my travel guides:

Cruising Alaska on a Budget; A Cruise and Port Guide
Hiking Alaska from Cruise Ports; Hikes, Walks, and Strolls