Today, the Sea Bird guests went kayaking near Peril Strait on this calm day. The kayakers paddled around the bay and up into a beautiful estuary next to a waterfall. There were occasional bald eagles overhead, harbor seals in the water, and even a brown bear on the beach at one time. We also went on a hike in the forest along a salmon stream. There were huge trees, red squirrels and their middens, salmonberries, and moss everywhere, but the best scenes were the waterfall and the salmon swimming up stream. Some hikers went to the calm Lake Eva, and others saw a brown bear across the stream.
After lunch, the Sea Bird headed out to the Chatham Strait, where we saw killer whales. We all came out on the bow to see an incredible number of orcas. First, there was a group of five of them cruising by us, which we followed for a while. Then, the ship went over to the other larger group of about ten. We followed them for over an hour, watching them surface and dive. Once in a while, one rolled over or did "tail lobbing", which is when they slap the water with their flukes. As if this isn't overwhelming enough, we see a very rare salmon shark!
Soon after we started to cruise north up Chatham Strait, we ran across some feeding humpback whales. They were surfacing with a heart-shaped spout several times before they went down with their flukes up. Two of them came right by the side of the ship. It is so easy to see whales through binoculars and photograph them on a calm, sunny day like today.
