When you wake up on one of these ships, and you would like to know where you are, you walk out on deck and…oh, shock! There is a heavy fog. Yes, it came in from the ocean, which is right behind any of these Inian Islands. Yet, immediately after breakfast, we set out on all our boats to see and enjoy a wonderful species of marine mammal: the Steller sea lions! Without a doubt, our boat captains directed us to a special island where a great number of cormorants and gulls congregate, besides a good number of these very large sea lions. Males can attain weights of up to 2,000 pounds! And yes, they came almost up to our boats to stare at us, five, ten and more. Suddenly they would all dive and a few seconds later show up again.

We left this haul-out and directed our boat further away around a nearby island where we saw a good number of bald eagles, more cormorants and gulls and of course, more Steller sea lions. Yes, we made our way back to the National Geographic Sea Bird, where we repeated the event for a second group of guests.

And on we went on to a very small, quaint little town on a boardwalk, called Elfin Cove. It is definitely a small fishing hamlet, but even with a post-office and a general store. We enjoyed the town for a while, then went back to our home ship, where we crossed a short waterway, all exposed to the open Pacific, and on to George Island.

Here we hiked, kayaked, and enjoyed short boat rides around the small island. This island was used by the U.S. Army during WWII. Today we can still see the old six-inch cannon on the top, put there to protect the northern entrance to Southeast Alaska. It was never used, thankfully!

Those of us who enjoyed the boat ride around the island had the fantastic opportunity of watching a humpback whale breach various times, incredibly near. Cameras clicked desperately, and everybody yelled and jumped with every breach! What an opportunity! Seeing, hearing, and even smelling a humpback whale this near is not a common happening, and wondering how many people in the world get to see this event is very easy.