Layered clouds shrouded the hills of Hanus Bay on the northeast side of Baranof Island as guests slowly streamed out of their cabins to watch a lone humpback whale lunge feeding. When the whale would lunge, the quiet ambiance of the bow was ruptured by the rapid-fire of camera shutters only to return to the drowsy sipping of coffee between the lunges. A long pause in feeding signaled time for breakfast.
A light drizzle continued through the morning as hikers were greeted to the trailhead by bald eagles. Ambitious aerobic hikers quickly departed from shore destined for a long (3 hours) hike to Lake Eva trails. Hardy moderate hikers motivated themselves up the Forest Service stone steps and just beyond a gentle cascade to watch Dolly Varden char lazily compose their pictures, whether using a smart phone or a camera.
While half of the guests were hiking, the other half calmly paddled about Eva cove in kayaks. With the tide gently rising, guest were able to paddle through the bay and up into the estuary. The guest traded places after 1 ½ hours with everyone returning for a delicious lunch, during which time Carlos Navarro and Paulo Marra-Biggs, undersea specialists, photographed marine invertebrates while scuba diving in the Hanus Bay.
As the National Geographic Sea Lion cruised about Chatham Strait looking for humpback whales, Bryan Bates honored the event of the solstice with a short dissertation on the astronomy of ancient cultures, showing slides of how Hopi observe and commemorate the solstice and other astronomical events. Based upon his research of the ancestral Puebloan, Bryan extrapolated his findings to reflect upon how human cultures around the world and throughout time have used the Earth’s annual orbit about the Sun as a mechanism to determine seasonal change and ceremonial events. Bates concluded by sharing his perception that religion and science both attempt to explain that which cannot otherwise be explained, but they use different methodologies to reach their conclusions.
Just as guests were sitting down for dinner, humpback whales began bubble feeding in Basket Bay. With the Dining Room evacuated, a shutter storm of rapid-fire cameras commenced. But while all eyes were focused to the place of the last blows, two to three Dall’s Porpoises skittered about the bow of the National Geographic Sea Lion. Just when everything was quiet, a naturalist spotted a Sitka Black-tail deer on one beach with a grizzly (brown) bear strolling along another beach. When everything calmed down, back for dinner but dessert was once again interrupted by breaching and bubble-feeding whales. Such was the June solstice aboard the National Geographic Sea Lion.
