As we awoke today in the misty fogs of Idaho Inlet we found ourselves surrounded by many playful sea otters. We ventured around with them for a while before breakfast, just taking in the morning scenery and watching for more wildlife to come our way.

Our first morning excursion was at a place called George Island. George Island has a very unique history, as it was a staging area for the LST landing craft during World War II. There is still an old artillery gun that sits up at one of the higher points on the island, which they salvaged from a French ship. Many of us hiked our way through some extreme boot sucking mud and made our way up to get a look at the gun and listen to more history about the island.

Out on the water, the fog had lifted and it ended up being a beautiful, sunny and warm morning! The kayakers had an amazing paddle, with the many different caves to see, the crystal clear water and even the sight and swells of the Pacific Ocean! The rest of the morning we lingered on shore and found interesting things to do with kelp such as jump roping and playing music! Some brave souls even found it warm enough to go for a very fast dip in the ocean!

Our day only improved from here! The sun stayed shining and we made our way to the Inian Islands where we split up in two rounds of Zodiac tours. This is a place where we find Stellar sea lions hauled out on the rocks. There were so many of them and they were feeling very curious and playful. They chased after us jumping around and swimming underneath our Zodiacs. We saw them climbing up rocks and playing around on land and it certainly put a smile on our faces!

As we got back to the ship this evening everyone was in a great mood! But the day wasn’t over yet. As the sun went down, we enjoyed even more laughs as our hotel manager, Judie Blewitt, introduced us to the fine dining etiquette of eating Alaskan crab. Everyone was amused and smiling all the way into the dining room to enjoy the crab feast!