A pink sky welcomed us to a new day as we entered the narrow and scenic Jackson Passage at the south end of Roderick Island. Approaching that area that we had chosen for our morning activities, we realized that logging was going on at the passage we intended to go through. A double-engine/rotor helicopter was lifting the logs out of a very small area where trees had been chosen and cut, and taking them to a log float, where they were dropped into the water. We watched, enthralled, for a good while, realizing how fast each load had to be tied, transported and dropped, to affront the cost of the helicopter hour.
Of course we turned around, and sailed on northwest, to a point further north on Tolmie Channel, where we were absolutely alone, in a lovely fjord where, after lunch, we set out to enjoy the afternoon kayaking and visiting different parts of the fjord with our expedition landing craft. Our first brown bear, also called a grizzly, was sighted today, going fast and seen only for a short moment.
The forest around us was as green as ever, composed of Douglas fir, a few spruce and many, many red cedars! At the mouth of a big stream, we encountered six harbor seals, with their funny heads out of the water to peer at us, something they probably don’t see very often. One of them grunted to us, which seemed to scare three ducks in their immediate vicinity. Two bald eagles attracted our undivided attention for a while, as they flew in circles over the tall trees, then landing on the upper branches of a red cedar, where they probably had a nest.
Alberto and Tamsen dove in the vicinity of our exploration area, and found interesting underwater life, including crinoids, those rare cousins of the sea urchins and sea stars, holding onto the bottom at 80 feet!
As soon as everybody was back, we set sail again into the Inside Passage of Canada north to Goat Harbor on the Canadian mainland.
