Pavlof Harbor & Iyoukeen Passage
If there is one thing we can count on in Southeast Alaska, its rain. We certainly have had our share this week so far, as we awoke to another drizzly morning with many shades of green, gray and white, the latter being the low-lying clouds that punctuated the thick temperate rainforest that lined our anchorage in Pavlof Harbor.
Our post-breakfast scout boat, full of staff and heading for the beach, spotted two brown bears up river at the ten-foot falls that deter only the most determined and fortunate salmon bound for their spawning grounds in Pavlof Lake, just above the falls. So much for our planned hikes – all jaunts would be short ones today, to the falls to view the bears. We weren’t disappointed, as everyone who ventured off the ship was rewarded with wonderful 30 to 50-meter views of a young grizzly confidently venturing past us or catching and eating several salmon right before our eyes. Fortunately, the bear didn’t find all of the salmon – I was able to catch one while snorkeling downriver and bring it to the guests on shore to see and touch before releasing it back into the river. Exploration of the harbor continued via kayak and zodiac before heading back to the ship for lunch.
We pulled anchor and headed for Iyoukeen Cove, hoping to find humpback whales, but barely had enough time to finish our lunch before they were spotted, collaboratively catching some of their own. This brought everyone outside again; some like me, with dessert in hand, not wanting to miss a moment of this extraordinary event. Over 15 whales combined their efforts to trap schooling fish, probably protein-rich herring, many filled with eggs. They would do this by blowing a net of bubbles vertically around them, then, all at once, in the largest biomechanical event on Earth, surge to the surface from below them, through the middle of the net, huge mouths agape, gulping up the panicked fish as they broke the surface.
The only clue we had about when they might surface was the eerie, haunting calls we heard coming through the ships speakers via the hydrophone (an underwater microphone) we lowered below the water. As for where they might surface, that became a guessing game with guests positioning themselves where they “thought” the whales would surface so they could get that great photo. We watched in awe as this amazing event was repeated over and over again for well over an hour, as the whales dove, surfaced, and dove again, once even going right under the ship below the wide-open eyes of smiling guests. Eventually, we had to pull ourselves away from this incredible sight and make our way south through Chatham Strait to our evening anchorage at the beautiful Kasnyku Falls.
