Admiralty and Chichagof Islands
How can I possibly start describing our day from the beginning, when we just came in from such an incredible bear experience this afternoon? Let’s start at the end of our day that fed the ship-wide adrenalin rush. Pavlof Harbor on Chichagof Island was the setting, which tells you we saw brown bears. Yes, plural, bears. How many there actually were is still being debated by the staff. Some think the first bear chased off by the second bear was its sibling. Others think the one chased off was a third bear, after observing two bears returning to the waterfall in congenial company to attempt fishing. Unaccounted for was the cub that left the adorable little tracks in the mud along the trail we found earlier during out walks. Those feet were never sized to a bear we actually saw this afternoon. Of course there is also a sow as yet unaccounted for to accompany the cub. She’s somewhere in the forest teaching her progeny the finer points of being a brown bear.
Whether viewed from a floating kayak, perched high along the trail or from an idle Zodiac, we used every conceivable method to get a view of these magnificent creatures of the forest. They seemed perplexed as to how to fish at the falls during high tide. A few attempts were made to ambush the salmon as they used the concrete fish ladder to swim upstream. These attempts by the bears, while amusing to watch as the bears straddled the ladder, were unfruitful. Or would that be unfishful? It seems it can be challenging at times to obtain a fish dinner; blueberries seem a much easier quarry.
Other highlights of our day included observing several humpback whales diving, swimming and feeding along the shore of Admiralty and later Chichagof Islands. The calm demeanor of the whales was countered with a frenzy of Dall’s porpoises darting about. A hatching of alpine butterflies came to fruition after Deckhand Ian led a knot-tying class for our younger travelers in the dining room. The goat cheese sea lion was certainly an eye-catching addition to the appetizer platter this evening.
Attempting to summarize our diverse day, filled with incredible and memorable sightings of Southeast Alaska seems to defy adequate words. It’s easier to just sit back and let the memories wash over, leaving you with a warm fuzzy feeling, like the coat of an Alaskan brown bear.
