Eliza Harbor and Port Houghton
Early morning found us cruising off Admiralty Island in Frederick Sound. Suddenly a lot of splashing attracted our attention and a group of beautiful black and white Dall's porpoises was observed off the bow. In what was an unusual behavior for these normally shy animals, a group of them approached the ship and rode the bow for some time giving us a rare opportunity to observe them closely. A short time later we found a few humpback whales swimming nearby and we cruised into Eliza Harbor during breakfast.
Located on Admiralty Island, the harbor penetrates deeply into the forest and has many salmon streams flowing into it. At one of the streams at the end of the harbor we found three brown bears foraging for salmon right near the shore. As it was quite foggy at the time we had a bit of difficulty seeing the bears, so we turned around and headed back out into Frederick Sound.
Not far away were the Five Fingers Islands and here we had one of the great sightings of the day. A fairly large group of humpback whales were lunge feeding near the surface of the water. We dropped a plankton net in the water to see if we could determine what the whales were feeding on. The net came up with a huge number of krill, a kind of crustacean that is an important whale food.
A short time later we encountered a small group of killer whales and eventually found nearly two dozen of these top oceanic predators. We followed various groups of them for about an hour and observed many interesting behaviors, including tail lobbing, and a pair engaged in courtship activities that were of an X-rated nature.
We ended the day at Port Houghton where we explored the old-growth forest on short hikes to a salmon stream and enjoyed kayaking along the shoreline where countless eagles and shorebirds were feasting on the spawning salmon and their eggs.
It was a superb day with outstanding wildlife sightings and it was nice to return to the Sea Lion for our evening recap and dinner.
Early morning found us cruising off Admiralty Island in Frederick Sound. Suddenly a lot of splashing attracted our attention and a group of beautiful black and white Dall's porpoises was observed off the bow. In what was an unusual behavior for these normally shy animals, a group of them approached the ship and rode the bow for some time giving us a rare opportunity to observe them closely. A short time later we found a few humpback whales swimming nearby and we cruised into Eliza Harbor during breakfast.
Located on Admiralty Island, the harbor penetrates deeply into the forest and has many salmon streams flowing into it. At one of the streams at the end of the harbor we found three brown bears foraging for salmon right near the shore. As it was quite foggy at the time we had a bit of difficulty seeing the bears, so we turned around and headed back out into Frederick Sound.
Not far away were the Five Fingers Islands and here we had one of the great sightings of the day. A fairly large group of humpback whales were lunge feeding near the surface of the water. We dropped a plankton net in the water to see if we could determine what the whales were feeding on. The net came up with a huge number of krill, a kind of crustacean that is an important whale food.
A short time later we encountered a small group of killer whales and eventually found nearly two dozen of these top oceanic predators. We followed various groups of them for about an hour and observed many interesting behaviors, including tail lobbing, and a pair engaged in courtship activities that were of an X-rated nature.
We ended the day at Port Houghton where we explored the old-growth forest on short hikes to a salmon stream and enjoyed kayaking along the shoreline where countless eagles and shorebirds were feasting on the spawning salmon and their eggs.
It was a superb day with outstanding wildlife sightings and it was nice to return to the Sea Lion for our evening recap and dinner.
