Cruising & Pavlov Harbor

A beautiful, slightly overcast morning greeted us on the first day of our expedition. We cruised through Chatham Strait between Admiralty and Chichagof Islands as we headed towards Hood Bay. Here we had our first taste of wildlife as we watched for birds from the bow and scanned the shorelines for terrestrial mammals.

A Sitka black-tailed deer was seen as it fed on the grasses along the shoreline. More bald eagles than we could count were perched on the trees and surrounding the small salmon-spawning streams.

Our next destination was Pavlov Harbor, located on Chichagof Island. This island is one of the “ABC” islands, which are well-known for their healthy populations of coastal brown bears. Pavlov Harbor is also a great introduction to temperate forest ecology. We learned about forest succession, plant diversity, salmon ecology, and all of this surrounded by brown bear tracks and other signs of activity.

Kayakers explored the shoreline, while hundreds of pink salmons leaped everywhere. The conditions were ideal and we had good looks to a few shy harbor seals as they broke the surface to take a breath.

Hiking through the edge of the salmon stream, we could see several hundreds, probably thousands of pink salmon or “humpies”. These fish are waiting for the rains to increase so the fresh water level of the waterfall has enough water for them to make their way up.

As we watched, a small coastal brown bear came out of the forest right behind us! The bear was about 20 yards away. It sniffed the air getting our scent, and in a few seconds vanished back into the forest. A couple minutes later, the same bear emerged again, now on the opposite side of the stream. We had the chance to get a great look as it walked along the stream and climbed a steep mountain side, vanishing back into the woods.

Shortly after recap, as we were underway, we spotted a group of cooperatively feeding humpback whales. We spent some time watching them from a distance. There were about five or six whales coming up to the surface together, as they engulfed large amounts of water in their mouths.

It is hard to believe this was just one day. The expedition is just starting and we have already witnessed Southeast Alaska at its best.