Petersburg, Alaska
During the early morning hours the Sea Lion cruised through the winding Wrangle Narrows on our way northbound to the town of Petersburg. Our ship came alongside the dock just before breakfast and the activities began immediately with helicopter and floatplane flightseeing groups departing at 0800. Those not engaged in flightseeing either explored this quaint, working town or were ferried across Wrangle Narrows for hikes along the flanks of Mt. Petersburg. The shorter walk took us to a muskeg (muskeg is the Algonquin Indian name for a bog) where Sharon Granger told us all about the plants and their adaptations to this unique environment that covers over 10% of Southeast Alaska. One of the most interesting plants we found was the round-leaf sundew. These insectivorous plants live in the acidic and nutrient poor bog but are able to survive by catching insects and spiders and digesting them for their nitrogen and phosphorous. On the longer hike we met one of the truly misunderstood creatures of this world, the banana slug. Most people write off their introduced European cousins as garden pests without giving these native beauties a second look. Well today we gave them a well deserved second and even third look. We noticed that they have 2 sets of antennae, each with corvette headlight eyes that can detect food at over 3 meters. They are hermaphroditic and can thereby mate with themselves or anyone else. But more than that (it’s hard to imagine what could be more than that!), they have slime that is slippery in only one direction. Think of what would happen if their slime slipped in two directions – they would just slide back and forth in one place and never get anywhere. But not so with the banana slug. Their slime slips them forward and then holds as they push against it and then slips again and holds again. All of our brilliant chemists and engineers have been unable to create a substance that will slip and hold over and over again like our new friend, the banana slug. So don’t undersell this slimy little creature of our forests when next you cross their slimy paths.
We were all back aboard the Sea Lion for lunch as she made her way out of this fine harbor into Frederick Sound for an afternoon of whale searching and sightseeing. Before most of us had finished our afternoon nap, the call came from the bow watch that a humpback whale had been sighted. We watched this whale as it moved along the northeast coast of Kupreanof Island, stopping periodically to feed in these prey-rich waters. The rest of the afternoon we explored along Frederick Sound and Chatham Strait, listened to a wonderful talk on whale research and enjoyed a hilarious demonstration of crab eating styles by our hotel manager, Judie Blewitt. All and all another wonderful day aboard the good ship Sea Lion in Southeast Alaska.
During the early morning hours the Sea Lion cruised through the winding Wrangle Narrows on our way northbound to the town of Petersburg. Our ship came alongside the dock just before breakfast and the activities began immediately with helicopter and floatplane flightseeing groups departing at 0800. Those not engaged in flightseeing either explored this quaint, working town or were ferried across Wrangle Narrows for hikes along the flanks of Mt. Petersburg. The shorter walk took us to a muskeg (muskeg is the Algonquin Indian name for a bog) where Sharon Granger told us all about the plants and their adaptations to this unique environment that covers over 10% of Southeast Alaska. One of the most interesting plants we found was the round-leaf sundew. These insectivorous plants live in the acidic and nutrient poor bog but are able to survive by catching insects and spiders and digesting them for their nitrogen and phosphorous. On the longer hike we met one of the truly misunderstood creatures of this world, the banana slug. Most people write off their introduced European cousins as garden pests without giving these native beauties a second look. Well today we gave them a well deserved second and even third look. We noticed that they have 2 sets of antennae, each with corvette headlight eyes that can detect food at over 3 meters. They are hermaphroditic and can thereby mate with themselves or anyone else. But more than that (it’s hard to imagine what could be more than that!), they have slime that is slippery in only one direction. Think of what would happen if their slime slipped in two directions – they would just slide back and forth in one place and never get anywhere. But not so with the banana slug. Their slime slips them forward and then holds as they push against it and then slips again and holds again. All of our brilliant chemists and engineers have been unable to create a substance that will slip and hold over and over again like our new friend, the banana slug. So don’t undersell this slimy little creature of our forests when next you cross their slimy paths.
We were all back aboard the Sea Lion for lunch as she made her way out of this fine harbor into Frederick Sound for an afternoon of whale searching and sightseeing. Before most of us had finished our afternoon nap, the call came from the bow watch that a humpback whale had been sighted. We watched this whale as it moved along the northeast coast of Kupreanof Island, stopping periodically to feed in these prey-rich waters. The rest of the afternoon we explored along Frederick Sound and Chatham Strait, listened to a wonderful talk on whale research and enjoyed a hilarious demonstration of crab eating styles by our hotel manager, Judie Blewitt. All and all another wonderful day aboard the good ship Sea Lion in Southeast Alaska.
