This morning we awoke to ribbons of mist lightly draped through the trees as we cruised along the steeply sloped fjord walls of Misty Fjords National Monument in Southeast Alaska. High above, snow-capped mountains and blue skies shone down upon us. Dazzling is the word that occurs to me as I think about this morning. While the U.S. Immigration/Customs officers were late in arriving, it would be hard to imagine a lovelier place than Punchbowl Cove to while away a bit of time on a lazy Sunday morning.
Myriad reflections surrounded us, and we had the luxury of time to look at new ways to capture these images. The official’s floatplane circled and roared past us to land, and the formalities were done with quite quickly. We cruised deeper into Rudyerd Bay and this amazing fjord, repositioning outside Owl’s Pass. From there we loaded into our inflatable boats to watch and photograph the ship’s transit through this narrow passageway.
We continued with our cruises around the bay, pausing to admire the various waterfalls, some dropping from a thousand or more feet above us, heavy with melt water from the last several days of sunshine. At the far side of the bay we pushed our way up into a river against the strong current, then quietly drifted back down, all the time looking for wildlife. We were happy to find good views of golden-eye ducks, a belted kingfisher, a bald eagle, harbor seals, and even a river otter. It was a fabulous place and perfect conditions for kayakers to explore, gliding silently along the steep walls, constantly surrounded by stunning views and occasionally curious harbor seals.
As the long morning drifted into afternoon, we returned to National Geographic Sea Lion for a late lunch and to continue our transit of the Behm Canal. Mid-afternoon brought us to a group of Dall’s porpoises, racing along the sides and under the bow of the ship. For several minutes these distinctive black and white animals, usually just seen as a splashy, big rooster tail, could be easily observed underwater and rising to the surface.
Late afternoon had us back in mirror-calm conditions, reflections of mountains all along the way, birds and backlit blows of more Dall’s porpoises punctuating the scene. A breath-taking end to another beautiful day.
