This morning found the National Geographic Sea Bird cruising southward down Chatham Strait, along the west side of Admiralty Island. This area is part of one of the longest fjord systems in the world, covering over 150 miles in length. This whole area had been covered in ice many times, the last ice age ending around 10,000 years ago, opening up this waterway, and uncovering the surrounding islands.
Early in the morning, there were some killer whales spotted, but they quickly disappeared from sight. After an extensive search of the area we decided to continue on our way, hoping that our course might again lead us to these magnificent animals. As luck would have it, just before breakfast they were seen again, traveling in the same direction as the Sea Bird. The captain did a wonderful job of slowly positioning us for a close look at the top predator in the oceans. This was a group of about six animals, two of which were younger calves, a delight to see!
They eventually veered off into shallower waters, so as breakfast started we continued on across Chatham Strait to look for other whales, and explore an area on the southeast corner of Chichagof Island called Sitkoh Bay. One of the features of this bay is that it has an old cannery that has been partially restored, plus it can be a good place to look for wildlife, especially bears. We had no luck with bears but a Sitka black-tailed deer and river otter were spotted. Soon it was time to leave, and the Sea Bird steamed into Peril Strait, and headed for Hanus Bay, the place for our afternoon activities.
Soon after another great lunch, we were off for an afternoon ashore at Lake Eva trail. A variety of hikes were offered, fast aerobic, long, as well as several moderates. All the hikes were on the recently modernized trail that follows a salmon spawning stream leading to Lake Eva. There was a small catch however, it was a very high tide and a smaller side stream, that we needed to cross, was flooded above our boots! So the solution was to deploy an expedition landing craft to shuttle us back-and-forth across the stream; all was well!
Once the hikes returned the kayakers set out to explore the salmon stream and surrounding area. A fun time was had by all!
Finally, after dinner we were privileged to have a guest speaker, Dr. Andy Szabo, come on board and give us a talk about humpback whales, their feeding behavior, migrations, and intelligence. Another wonderful day in Southeast Alaska!
