Humpbacks and Halibut: My Perfect Day in Juneau

I'll be honest—I almost skipped the whale watching excursion. After six days aboard the Viking Sea, I was ready to just grab a coffee and wander around Juneau's downtown on my own. My wife, Linda, had other ideas. She'd been researching ports for weeks before we left Seattle, and Juneau was apparently non-negotiable. "We're going to see whales," she'd announced over dinner in the dining room on day three. "Real humpbacks. Not some tourist trap thing." I'd rolled my eyes, paid the excursion fee, and figured I'd at least get some peaceful boat time out of it. I couldn't have been more wrong about the whole thing. Our tour operator, a local outfit called Southeast Alaska Discovery, picked us up at the cruise terminal around 7:30 AM in a covered catamaran that held about thirty passengers. The morning was crisp and gray—typical Southeast Alaska weather—and I was mentally preparing myself for a few hours of cold spray and disappointment. The captain, a weathered guy named Dale who looked like he'd been running boats in Juneau since the glaciers were still advancing, did a quick safety briefing and then we were off, heading out into Stephens Passage. Linda stood at the bow with her new…