National Geographic Sea Lion slid gently into her parking spot this morning in Hanus Bay on the north side of Baranof Island next to a dozen harbor seals hauled out on a kelp-covered rock. The tidal flats unabashedly exposed themselves with the dropping tide and we got ready for a morning of kayaking and exploratory walks. Crew and staff worked through breakfast to setup the landing sites for our activities. The typical Southeast Alaska cloud cover did not quell the excitement for our last full day of activities in the coastal temperate rain forest.
Kayakers were first out with bushwhackers entering the forest for a three-hour hike toward Lake Eva. The rest of the group split into short, medium and long walks exploring this exemplary forest. All of the topics we learned through the week present themselves along the trail to Lake Eva, reinforcing how special Southeast Alaska is as an unspoiled wilderness. We followed a hopping Steller’s jay from Sitka spruce to western hemlock branches nearby squirrel middens and shy maidens just coming into bloom. Sapsuckers pecked at the large trees growing near the river's edge which had its first group of sockeye salmon starting to run upstream to eventually spawn and become a part of the forest themselves. A river otter skirted between submerged logs, playing with the fish’s tails. Pacific wrens and hermit thrushes sang in the alders edging a pond formed in depressions left behind by glaciers, evidenced by the large erratics and varied glacial till littering the area now covered in moss and nurse logs. We drank in the last scents of skunk cabbage and departed the beach to prepare for the much anticipated polar plunge! Onlookers from the bow of National Geographic Sea Lion screamed as 13 of our guests took the plunge and swam the icy waters that our undersea specialists were now diving in to bring us back beautiful images of sea cucumbers feeding, rockfish taking refuge behind brown algae and crabs decorating themselves with bits of their substrate.
Making our way into Peril Straits, dedicated guests on the bow spotted several blows from humpback whales off Morris Reef. Hoots and hollers from the bow alerted the entire ship that the group of whales unperturbed by our presence and fed directly off the bow of the ship. They presented their flukes skyward to grand applause and shrieks from our elated guests. At this close range, we saw down the whales' two nostrils and felt the vapor from their exhale on our face. Reluctantly, we continued on our way in order to make our date with Sergius Narrows, an extremely narrow channel with dangerous currents only navigable at slack tides.
With the sun just peeking through the marine layer, we celebrated the end of our voyage with a slideshow of all our guests' pictures. Our captain and expedition leader gave eloquent speeches and we listened to a duet on trumpet and violin that lent an emotional base for the departure from new friends and a new place to call home. We hope to share our memories with friends and family back home and learn to make similar experiences when exploring the wilds just beyond the sidewalk of our own towns and cities, where our hearts truly roam free.
