June 9, 2019 – Haines

June 9, 2019 – Haines
I had room service breakfast this morning so that I could leave the ship at 8am. I booked a Wildlife tour through Costco and the ticket said that the meeting time was dependent on arrival time. I went out the pier and looked for a Rainbow Glacier Adventures person. After only finding HAL tours, I asked for help at the information booth. Turns out my tour wasn’t leaving until 12:45pm. I headed back to the ship to get a latte.
At 12:30, I headed out again and easily found Steve, our guide. There were 6 of us on the tour. Steve set our expectations low by telling us that mid day wasn’t a good time to see bears, elk, or whales. He drove us through town first and pointed out the highlights of Haines. There is a hammer museum with a 10 foot hammer out front. At our first stop someone spotted a bear. Steve told us that he was probably a 3 year old. We watched him for about a half hour. There were 2 or 3 bald eagles nearby. One decided to grab a fish that had just been caught by a fisherman. It looked like the eagle got caught on the hook so the fisherman cut the line and the eagle flew away.
We drove all around the Chilkoot and Chilkat rivers. We didn’t see any wildlife other than bald eagles. The views made up for the lack of wildlife.
I got back to the ship at 5pm. Sailaway was at 10pm.