Seymour Canal/Stephens Passage/Port Houghton
I am in Alaska for my first time and experiencing a vast number of things for the first time, but I have to tell you, the most amazing thing to me is a curious smell I catch, which is sometimes so pungent, it hits me like a wall and I can almost taste it. Like just about everything else in Alaska, it is difficult to select the right words to describe it. Perhaps the majesty of everything that is absorbed by sight and sound is so plentiful that it has to overflow into the nasal passage. It communicates a combination of floral whisperings, salty storytelling, and of ancient purity, leading my imagination into fantasy realms it has never before explored.
This morning, however, the wind was too zealous to allow any gentle scent to linger. Even the humpbacks’ blows that we awoke to were dispersed quickly into the wind. The only notable scent that was caught this morning was of us, by the brown bear on Admiralty Island. He was a large fellow, so large I could see him 0.32 nautical miles from shore with my naked eye. As I maneuvered the National Geographic Sea Bird closer to shore, roving my sight from the depth sounder to the radar and back to the bear, the wind picked up and seemed to deliberately test our determination. We watched that bear for quite a while, watched his bulging shoulder muscle as he turned mini boulders with nonchalant ease. Every so often, he’d pick his head up and look directly into the wide end of our binoculars.
The wind continued to beat an increasing amount of water droplets onto our decks, but still there remained some enthusiasts on our bow looking for bears and whales. The whales surfaced every so often, but even they seemed to prefer the depths than the chilling drizzle that beat their backs with gale force gusts. As we came out of Seymour Canal and headed into Stephens Passage, the seas picked up to an exciting small swell and we had some spray come up over the port side of the wheel house. Two clever guests joined me and the acting pilot in the wheel house under guise of navigational curiosity.
With all the excitement and interest spreading across our decks, the mood must have spilled into the sea, for shortly before the change of watch, when the second mate relieves me of my watch duties on the bridge, a Steller sea lion, poked his head out of the water and sniffed us as he watched us pass. He ducked his head underwater and looked again, blowing a mist out of his nostrils before he sniffed us again. He reminded me of a golden puppy seeing something large he’s never seen before. It made me wonder what he was thinking.
It’s been a relatively quiet day, a cozy day for studying or catching up on sleep with some naps, and for some people, getting used to the motion of the ocean. The reality of actually being here in Alaska is settling in and once you resign yourself to the rain, it’s really quite peaceful. We are in a rainforest after all.
I rejoice in the senses. The constant pitter patter of rain on my foul weather jacket and Grundéns hat, the gentle sound of raindrops on the surface of the ocean in our protected anchorage, are calming to me. The clouds are forever changing on the horizon and weaving themselves in and out of mountains. It seems like every scene is worthy of a photograph. Each time I turn off my camera, I turn and see another sight just as beautiful and amazing as the one before. Alaska is a difficult place to describe with words. If I could only bottle that soapy salty scent, I would have captured the only true wilderness I have ever laid eyes on. I am glad that it too eludes captivity and remains a wandering wonder in the wild Alaskan coast.
I am in Alaska for my first time and experiencing a vast number of things for the first time, but I have to tell you, the most amazing thing to me is a curious smell I catch, which is sometimes so pungent, it hits me like a wall and I can almost taste it. Like just about everything else in Alaska, it is difficult to select the right words to describe it. Perhaps the majesty of everything that is absorbed by sight and sound is so plentiful that it has to overflow into the nasal passage. It communicates a combination of floral whisperings, salty storytelling, and of ancient purity, leading my imagination into fantasy realms it has never before explored.
This morning, however, the wind was too zealous to allow any gentle scent to linger. Even the humpbacks’ blows that we awoke to were dispersed quickly into the wind. The only notable scent that was caught this morning was of us, by the brown bear on Admiralty Island. He was a large fellow, so large I could see him 0.32 nautical miles from shore with my naked eye. As I maneuvered the National Geographic Sea Bird closer to shore, roving my sight from the depth sounder to the radar and back to the bear, the wind picked up and seemed to deliberately test our determination. We watched that bear for quite a while, watched his bulging shoulder muscle as he turned mini boulders with nonchalant ease. Every so often, he’d pick his head up and look directly into the wide end of our binoculars.
The wind continued to beat an increasing amount of water droplets onto our decks, but still there remained some enthusiasts on our bow looking for bears and whales. The whales surfaced every so often, but even they seemed to prefer the depths than the chilling drizzle that beat their backs with gale force gusts. As we came out of Seymour Canal and headed into Stephens Passage, the seas picked up to an exciting small swell and we had some spray come up over the port side of the wheel house. Two clever guests joined me and the acting pilot in the wheel house under guise of navigational curiosity.
With all the excitement and interest spreading across our decks, the mood must have spilled into the sea, for shortly before the change of watch, when the second mate relieves me of my watch duties on the bridge, a Steller sea lion, poked his head out of the water and sniffed us as he watched us pass. He ducked his head underwater and looked again, blowing a mist out of his nostrils before he sniffed us again. He reminded me of a golden puppy seeing something large he’s never seen before. It made me wonder what he was thinking.
It’s been a relatively quiet day, a cozy day for studying or catching up on sleep with some naps, and for some people, getting used to the motion of the ocean. The reality of actually being here in Alaska is settling in and once you resign yourself to the rain, it’s really quite peaceful. We are in a rainforest after all.
I rejoice in the senses. The constant pitter patter of rain on my foul weather jacket and Grundéns hat, the gentle sound of raindrops on the surface of the ocean in our protected anchorage, are calming to me. The clouds are forever changing on the horizon and weaving themselves in and out of mountains. It seems like every scene is worthy of a photograph. Each time I turn off my camera, I turn and see another sight just as beautiful and amazing as the one before. Alaska is a difficult place to describe with words. If I could only bottle that soapy salty scent, I would have captured the only true wilderness I have ever laid eyes on. I am glad that it too eludes captivity and remains a wandering wonder in the wild Alaskan coast.
