Inian Islands and Fox Creek, Chichagof Island
Even though our moon is about 240,000 miles away it still exerts amazing forces upon our ocean planet. Everything on our planet feels gravitational pull from our closest celestial neighbor and our tides are the most obvious result. In Southeast Alaska tides dictate life. Nutrient-rich, oxygenated waters from the Pacific Ocean rush through narrow passageways, resulting in high productivity and a flourishing of life. Today we explored the Inian Islands which are situated at the northern entrance to the Inside Passage, a place called Cross Sound. Due to a new moon the tide swing today was over 15 feet which means strong currents, standing waves and food. With the incoming rush of fresh sea water comes an abundance of food and predators.
The bird life in Cross Sound was fabulous today. You could say that it was a fantastic day to be a diving seabird, especially an alcid. Using their strong, short wings these birds dive to impressive depths to capture their prey, mostly small shiny fish. Our sightings of alcids included rhinoceros auklets, Cassin’s auklet, common murre, ancient murrelet, marbled murrelet, pigeon guillemot and even tufted puffins. Seven species of alcids in just a few hours on the water, this is the prime time of the year for alcids in Southeast Alaska. Sharp eyes also spotted sea otters wrapped up in kelp, some of them with fuzzy cubs. Insulated with the most dense fur coat on the planet, these weasels feed on almost any marine invertebrate and are especially reliant on kelp forests for their foraging. We were even lucky enough to view several sea otters out of their element and on solid ground where they are truly ungainly animals.
Our afternoon was spent back on Chichagof Island, the C in the ABC Islands, at a place called Fox Creek. With an active pink salmon stream running through an intact temperate rain forest, this is a great place to explore and to experience wilderness. We walked along brown bear paths, found half-eaten salmon and were even scolded by red squirrels for wandering too close to their stash of cones. From the still waters others explored nearby Shaw Island from kayak. The random exhalations of harbor porpoise and the squawking of black-legged kittiwakes were the only sounds to be heard. But the best was soon to come.
From our anchorage we spotted tall black dorsal fins against even gray water and sky. In the distance we monitored incoming killer whales with great anticipation. The anchor was quickly brought home and all guests were on deck to watch the largest of dolphins. For the third day in a row we were treated to stunning views and close looks at killer whales, but today we had perfect conditions to turn on the ship’s hydrophone and actually listen to these animals. These are truly intelligent animals with language and culture and it’s a powerful experience to hear them firsthand. There may not have been a better way to end such a great day in Southeast Alaska.
