Another lucky day in Alaska, sun everywhere. A marvelous sunrise shocked our eyes as we stood on the bow of our ship, the National Geographic Sea Bird. We sailed north along the Inside Passage for a few hours, during which we had a pod of Dall’s porpoise bowrode us for at least ten minutes, showing off their powerful swimming, going left and then right in front of the bow of our ship. They gave us ample time to take hundreds of photographs of them underwater and right on the surface blowing at an incredible speed: pfft! Then they were gone. Probably off to have breakfast.

Humpback whales were seen near the ship, calmly blowing their way along the seaside, right at the rocky shore, very probably feeding off small fish, which they force against the shore and then eat. But that was not all, very near our midday destination another humpback whale surprised us by breaching very near the ship. Wham! was the shock noise of this behemoth falling back in the water with all its fifteen tons of weight.

Yes, eventually we made it, by lunchtime, to Petersburg, that quaint little fishing town founded last century by a Norwegian there, as ice, fish, and wood for the boxes were available. Today it is a bustling town, which up to a few years ago, was the city of the U.S. with the highest number of millionaires per capita. And all thanks to the fish, crab, and shrimp.

Here we divided our enjoyment, some of us taking a floatplane flight up into the Le Conte Glacier, where the sights were amazing, as even a series of animals were seen from the plane, especially mountain goats. Others took bicycle rides into or out of town. Another group was led by Andy along the dock, where a great number of different ships were tied up, and received the necessary information on the different types of fishing vessels: crabbers, purse seiners, buyers, and others. And even another group took a lovely walk along a the next-door island of Kupreanof to a bog, where different trees were to be seen in the, at this moment of early interesting spring, devoid yet of smaller typical plants.

Eventually we got on our way to tomorrow’s destination: Tracy Arm.