Kelp Bay, Baranof Island and Chatham Strait
Morning comes softly to Southeast Alaska. At high latitudes, the sun does not rise and set in a vertical trajectory as it does closer to the equator. It moves across the horizon more obliquely, so sunrise and sunset are attenuated, prolonged. The first light of day outlines low clouds over Admiralty Island to the east. The light crosses Chatham Strait to touch the top of Baranof Island, and slides down a slope cloaked in an ancient forest of spruce and hemlock. Finally, sunlight reaches and warms us as we stand on the foredeck of the National Geographic Sea Bird, absorbing the natural beauty of Coastal Alaska. Words are spoken softly, as if we are afraid that harsh sounds might break the spell. A rainbow begins to form. It grows until it extends from horizon to horizon and frames the snow-capped peaks of Baranof Island. Then, magically, our rainbow doubles. A second arc forms outside of the first, its colors reversed. Could this be an omen of good things to come? It can be so, and it was.
Our ship entered Kelp Bay. Kayakers disembarked and left to paddle in splendid solitude, before rejoining their shipmates by a large meadow at the head of the Bay. There, they encountered a female brown bear and her cub, evidence that this is, indeed, wild Alaska.
Mother bear was feeding on pink salmon returning from the ocean to enter a small stream where they will spawn - at least, those that do not become bear food. A new generation of bears; a new generation of salmon. Our walks through the meadow followed trails first made by bears, and they left signs of their passage - tracks in the mud, piles of bear scat, holes where they have dug up roots, and sedges nipped off earlier in spring. Signs are everywhere when you look for them. They remind us of the need to walk carefully and be alert, for the bears are the residents and we are the interlopers. "Yo, bear!" This is their meadow and their stream. We thank them for allowing us to visit (and to sample their wild berries), and then we move on.
We re-entered Chatham Strait to search for humpback whales. It took some patience, but we found them. First, a few solitary individuals blew tall clouds of moist air as they exhaled, and then they showed their flukes as they silently dove beneath the water to feed. Next, a more rambunctious whale appeared, throwing its great tail from side to side, slapping the water with an audible slap. Off in the distance, silhouetted against the gray of an Alaskan squall, a humpback whale threw its entire body out of the water before returning with a massive splash, visible to us well over a mile away. We watched this act repeat several times, and pondered over its meaning.
All this was but a prelude. We spotted a group of whales swimming closer to the shore of Baranof Island. We approached. Four whales were moving in coordination, swimming close together in the same direction and rising to breathe together. One whale dove, showing its flukes as it slipped below the surface. The other whales followed in close succession. We counted the flukes, and then we waited, unable to see what was happening in the water beneath us. Suddenly, the four whales rose to the surface as once, in a tight circle, their jaws wide-open and their giant mouths agape. We found a group of humpback whales engaged in cooperative bubble-net feeding.
After they descend, the whales act together to search out a school of herring. They circle the fish and one whale (only one of the group) surrounds the fish with a net of bubbles. The herring respond by gathering into a tighter group. Bad idea, herring; that was the objective of the whales. The giant whales rise as one through the center of the bubble-net and burst through the surface, each whale engulfing tons of water and the fish that it contains. Over and over, the process is repeated as the whales lay down the thick layer of blubber that must see them through migration and the coming winter in Hawaii. Humpback whales elsewhere use bubbles as a feeding tool, but the cooperative behavior is unique to the waters of Southeast Alaska. We are fortunate to have witnessed it.
