Our day began early with a gentle announcement, just beyond midnight, that the aurora borealis was visible. What a special treat to begin our very full, rich day.
Overnight, National Geographic Sea Bird passed north through Chatham Strait, west through Icy Strait and Cross Sound, and finally south into Port Althorp, where we dropped our anchor off of the northwestern corner of Chichagof Island. Our usual range of exceptional options awaited us – kayaking, expedition landing craft and a variety of hikes. With plenty of time to explore, most of us chose two modes of exploration. What did we find? All types of tracks – brown bears, Sitka black-tailed deer, mink, gulls; birds – bald eagles, a great-blue heron, a belted kingfisher, a variety of gulls; sea critters – harbor seals, sea otters and countless thousands of pink salmon. The sun shone and the morning was absolutely delightful.
By the middle of the afternoon we headed out to explore the biologically abundant waters around the Inian Islands. Located at the northern terminus of the Inland Passage, Cross Sound is a major passageway for tidal flows into and out of this complex of fjords. The Inian Islands constrict the flow creating tremendous currents and turbulence, bringing nutrient rich bottom water to the surface. Fueled by solar energy, this turns the water into an abundant biological brew. Taking advantage of this brew are marine mammals – we saw humpback whales, steller sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters harbor porpoises and sea otters. Birds included bald eagles, pelagic cormorants, tufted puffins, horned puffins, rhinoceros auklets, black turnstones and black oystercatchers.
During dinner, we picked up two important people, park ranger Heidi Herter and cultural interpreter William Horton-Garrison in preparation for tomorrow’s visit to Glacier Bay National Park.
To end the day, Undersea Specialist Justin Hofman did a “live feed” dive, in which he not only showed us his dive in real time, but we also had the opportunity to ask questions as we saw the footage. Amazing!
