Finally, at long last, the weather is changing! After weeks of record-breaking rain, Southeast Alaska's weather has taken a turn towards the sun. This morning we awoke to thick fog, the kind of dense white in which you can't differentiate between water and sky and cloud. Shreds of blue sucker holes drifted by above, giving us hope for the remainder of the day. A few humpback whales made a brief appearance as we belted our foghorn into the echoing quiet of the morning.
After breakfast we hopped into our inflatable landing crafts and experienced a wild paradise of floating ice. We crossed the shallow bar (terminal moraine) of the inlet leading to the LeConte Glacier and zipped around chunks of ice calved from the glacier. Some ice pieces were enormous, dwarfing our boats and providing a sense of scale for the enormity of Alaska. Others were crystalline and glassy clear, and many were a rich turquoise-blue. A bait ball (large group of small schooling fish) attracted a variety of gulls and seabirds to squabble over the goods. Gulls dipped down from above, squawking at one another, while murrelets dove into the fish and flew through them, tearing the bait ball to shreds. A small family of harbor porpoise arched through the water beside us, and the morning concluded with lifting clouds and a talk by naturalist Jason Jones on salmon.
Afternoon operations were centered in the bustling town of Petersburg, a rustic Norwegian-flavored community thriving on commercial fishing. Some folks strolled the docks to learn about the fishing fleet in the harbor; others flew to the LeConte Glacier and Stikine Icefield, seeing bears and whales from the small float plane; other people headed out on a bog walk to explore Southeast Alaska's muskeg environment, and photographers walked a scenic circuit through town.
The evening came to end as the sun set in ribbons of orange and blue and everyone relaxed after attacking the Dungeness crab feast. Undersea specialist Colin McNulty shared footage from the day and talked about his diving equipment. We are heading to sleep content in the idea of sun in the forecast tomorrow.
