Alaska Day 2

This was a very long day. Despite not getting to sleep until about 10 PM local time, we were awake at 3 AM. Ah, the joys of jetlag.

But what a great day. It started before breakfast with several humpback whales sighted near the ship. Then a group of about 6 humpback whales using bubble nets to feed was sighted. The ship changed course and followed them for quite a while. While watching the whales we also saw a brown bear with two cubs walking along a salmon spawning stream and bald eagles also at that stream.

After breakfast we loaded into the zodiacs to go ashore for hiking and kayaking. Here is the ship as seen from the zodiac.The landing spot was near a salmon stream and there were two brown bears fishing at the mouth of the stream. We saw them from the kayak and then W saw them again when he took a hike.

The kayaking was nice, but we really missed our own boat and equipment. We got back to the ship in time for a late lunch; then the ship went back into Chatham Strait for more whale watching. There was an even bigger group of whales bubble net feeding (about a dozen) and young ones breeching and generally trying to get their mothers’ attention. We heard trumpet blowing for the first time. The more common blows are eerie enough – a very primordial sound. The trumpet blows are even more so.

Click here for a slide show of feeding whales. Use your browser's "back" arrow to return to the blog.

In addition, the weather was wonderful – warm and sunny. By late afternoon I actually left the whale watching and went back to the cabin because I’d had too much sun, which is not a problem you usually have in southeast Alaska.