Another Beautiful Day in Paradise
Not exactly a phrase normally associated with Southeast Alaska. This is not the tropics. Not a fluffy sand beach on some palm glazed island slathered in tropical sun. This is rainforest… and we should expect, well, rain. But today blossomed crisp and clean with sparklingly bright skies that issued an invitation to breathe in wilderness throughout the morning and into afternoon. It is a simple invitation to get outside and explore this incredible country. Soak up the sun. Soak up the scene. Soak up the serenity.
This is a special place under any circumstance… but when the weather is this nice it takes on an even more extraordinary aura. The seas are glassy flat. Whale blows hang suspended in the distance. The mountains that surround our little ship loom larger all around us while we feast on yet another wonderful meal. This one is breakfast, but we all know that lunch and dinner will be just as inviting. As usual, and it’s a comfort to know we can count on this, Expedition Leader Tom gathers us together with his microphone at the end of the meal and lays out the adventure of the day. Hiking, kayaking, cruising, exploring… whales, birds, bears, seals… whatever these wild lands offer up to a lively, curious and adventuresome family of travelers aboard the National Geographic Sea Lion on this Family Expedition.
I chose the medium walk and a paddle to start the day. Great for the kids, great for me and the wife, great for the soul (and pretty good for the body too). We buzz over to the shore on the Zodiacs (my son Connor perpetually volunteering to drive) and gather before a sheer wall of green that towers two hundred feet high over our heads… primal forest. This is about as close to the real thing as you can get on the planet. Deep, rich, full, fragrant, dark, quiet, soft, wet and thick. The trail head up to Lake Eva in Hanus Bay is all that and more. Inviting… and a little intimidating. Primal forest. We dive in.
The trail wends its way through spectacular stands of spruce and hemlock. This is not quite a mature successional forest, but it is close. We learn from Scott (our Naturalist) that it’ll take another 100 years for the forest to be truly “natural” again, with 60/40 ratio of Spruce to Hemlock trees. But to those of us from places like Washington DC (where I call home), this is truly wonderful wilderness. I’m sure there are bears around every knoll… and we see plenty of signs. “Bear scat scattered everywhere”, as my five year old son Logan informs me. What a place to spend a few magical moments of ones life.
After we emerge from what feels like a verdant ancestral womb, we climb into the strange comfort and security of contemporary polyethelyne… our conveyances for the next hour or so of this spectacular day. Splashed in red and yellow kayaks, those of us who have an inkling move out into the bay to do what we humans have done for our entire history… look around that next corner to see what’s there. As we sidle up Eva Creek I tell my paddling partner (my seven year old son, Connor) that we might see a bear if we’re quiet. Amazingly (and anyone who has a seven year old will understand this) silence descends. Now the rivulets and ripples, the breeze through sedge grass, the whisper of bald eagle wings, the shallow excited breathing of a child rings in your ears. The world stands still… here be bears.
But no bears today. Instead, not an hour (or was it two) later, back on the ship, we sidle up to another, quite different, majestic creature in this magnetic place. Bursting through the surface of mirrored waters, the blows from four humpback whales echo across the deck of the National Geographic Sea Lion. Towering pillows of steamy whale breath hang like cotton candy over the rotund bodies of the leviathans. Pure magic. “COOL!” comes the retort from most of the kids (young and old) on deck. Laughter. Joyous. mirthful laughter. It’s what humpbacks do for us. That blow; that massive edifice of flesh and muscle; that tail fluke as it gracefully rises and then slips beneath the surface with barely a ripple; that simple, unadulterated, expression of being that is the humpback whale, ignites a deep and unbridled emotion in us - simple awe. They revitalize that sense of wonder we all had as four year olds. The mere fact that they’re here, still with us, is a gift… and we know it deep in our core. Cool.
Cool. You bet… the rest of the day was cool too. It’s hard to feel anything else in this extraordinary place. Cool.
