I can't even put in to words how great this adventure was for my husband and I, but I'll do my best;
We travelled to Hoonah on a Carnival Cruise, and this was one of the few stops we made where we could book an excursion through local companies, and I'm so glad we did just that. It's the same price as the "kayaking" "experience" you can get through Carnival, but it's much more adventurous and you get a full tour from a local who was born and raised in Hoonah. We saw the group of kayakers from the ship, and not only did they take a direct route one way from the landing and back, but there was a group of about 8 kayaks (that's 16 people!!). Booking through Fairweather, it was just Cody our tour guide, and us. There were two others (let's call them lifeguards) and their absolute sweetie of a dog named Mocha in a boat that were out with us in case anything happened, but they stayed far enough away as to not disrupt the natural beauty around us, and Cody always had them in his ear checking in. PLUS! Michelle was taking pictures throughout our whole trip! When we got home, I received over 100 pictures of us tootling around.
There were literally hundreds of salmon jumping all around us our entire trip as they were getting prepared to head upstream to spawn, bald eagles galore, we saw THREE jellyfish (!!! I didn't even know Alaska had jellyfish !!!), and my favorite part - they had a personal crab trap that they took us to, showed us how they worked, and I got to hold one of the crabs that was inside!!!
It was the best part of our trip, and I will recommend this 100%. It was an incredible experience we'll never forget.
Don't forget a raincoat!