The trouble with describing a day like today as awesome, which it most certainly was, is that we’ve diminished the true beauty of that word by using it to describe things like cheeseburgers and movies. Of course, those things are nowhere near the incomprehensible beauty of watching a mother bear with her cubs feeding, or 7 humpback whales lunging to the surface simultaneously to catch a school of herring. Yes, awesome has been wasted on the ordinary pleasures that make our otherwise ordinary lives enjoyable, so let me just share how truly awesome today has been for all of us aboard the National Geographic Sea Lion.
We started our day entering the misty forests of Chichagof Island. We walked to the nearby salmon stream to look for charming quadrupeds, and we were greeted by two coastal brown bears feeding on salmon in the waterfall. With adrenaline pumping and cameras shooting, we enjoyed seemingly immeasurable time, watching the bears relish their favorite time of year. There isn’t anything quite like watching a bear in front of you catch a salmon from a waterfall, raising it into the air while it’s thrashing. We saw three bears near the waterfall, and the icing on the cake was finding a mother bear with two tiny cubs on our return to the ship. She kept chewing mouthfuls of grass and seemed to pay little mind to us watching her from 50 feet away.
After lunch, we found an equally spectacular presentation by 7 humpback whales all lunging to the surface, mouths agape, to simultaneously engulf a school of herring. This behavior is called cooperative bubble-net feeding and is only performed by fewer than 100 whales in all the world. One whale blows a ring of air around a school of herring, which then rise to the surface creating a seemingly impenetrable net, ensnaring the fish. Another whale, the caller, coordinates the process and uses his loud voice to scare the fish. Once he gives the signal, all the whales together swim up the column, chasing the fish to the surface, open their van-sized mouths at the last minute, and engulf thousands of fish.
We spent a good amount of time with the whales, then sailed north up Chatham Strait. If you can believe it, we found a second group of humpbacks bubble-net feeding. Around the world, there are only about 8 known whales that make the bubble-net call. This means today we saw 25% of the world’s population of callers. Today has been a great day, dare I say – awesome.
These trips change people’s lives. While discussing with one lady this evening, she remarked how strangely we obsess over meaningless things back home, which all seem so trivial compared to bears catching salmon in a waterfall, or whales lunging for food. The beauty of nature is both marvelous and freeing. John Muir says it best.
“Another glorious day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.”
“Between every two trees there is a door leading to a new way of life” ~ John Muir
