Admiralty and Baranof Islands
So when does your day begin? I like it best when it is still night. I like the beginning when the mountains are silhouettes and the dark forest is wrapped up neck deep in pale mist. At first the world is black, white and shades of gray when all birds and jumping fish are dark caricatures against a background of silver. I find myself holding my breath waiting for color, for morning, for the sunrise and what kind of day it will bring. This morning the sun found our ship, the Sea Lion, deep within the protected waterways of America’s coastal rainforest and if there had been a voice somewhere behind me, just out of sight, it whispered, “Let today be beautiful!” and it was.
We spent the morning cruising along the western shore of Admiralty Island, one of the ABC islands where brown bears might be found. From the decks we scanned the shore, carefully scrutinizing dark logs and peculiarly shaped boulders draped in shadows. No bears yet, but something did happen. We remembered how to look again, a thing so natural, but so easily forgotten. “Look there, in the water! What’s that?” Rush to the rail… is it something big, something powerful, something rare? No, just jellyfish, no, not just jellyfish, jellyfish everywhere, orange jellyfish, white jellyfish, thousands of jellyfish, drifting through a green broth, graceful and strange and our first clue towards understanding the abundance of life here: nutrient rich waters and long summer days. Then there were Dall’s porpoise, Stellar sea lions and a young humpback whale, and so it begins.
In the afternoon we made a landing on the north end of Baranof Island. The day is bright, teasing, almost hot and there are walks in the forest, along a stream and kayaking on the stream and on the bay. In the kayaks it is quiet within the soft rhythm drummed out by the paddle. From here the trees are so much taller, the bald eagles so much larger, majestic, awesome! Yet most remarkable to me were the fish, pink salmon working their way upstream, their bodies changing, no longer hungry, rather they are both consumed and filled by another need, a need to reproduce before they die and become food for the food of their young. One humpbacked male took a great interest in my kayak, bumping it, rubbing against it. Did he see a rival, a potential mate, or was this yet something else I will never understand but always remember, this last dance? So I wondered, took his picture and wondered some more, and thus it passed, an almost child-like afternoon, old memories found and made new, and then it happened, the best of all, I finally let out my breath and then, well, not much really, I just smiled.
So when does your day begin? I like it best when it is still night. I like the beginning when the mountains are silhouettes and the dark forest is wrapped up neck deep in pale mist. At first the world is black, white and shades of gray when all birds and jumping fish are dark caricatures against a background of silver. I find myself holding my breath waiting for color, for morning, for the sunrise and what kind of day it will bring. This morning the sun found our ship, the Sea Lion, deep within the protected waterways of America’s coastal rainforest and if there had been a voice somewhere behind me, just out of sight, it whispered, “Let today be beautiful!” and it was.
We spent the morning cruising along the western shore of Admiralty Island, one of the ABC islands where brown bears might be found. From the decks we scanned the shore, carefully scrutinizing dark logs and peculiarly shaped boulders draped in shadows. No bears yet, but something did happen. We remembered how to look again, a thing so natural, but so easily forgotten. “Look there, in the water! What’s that?” Rush to the rail… is it something big, something powerful, something rare? No, just jellyfish, no, not just jellyfish, jellyfish everywhere, orange jellyfish, white jellyfish, thousands of jellyfish, drifting through a green broth, graceful and strange and our first clue towards understanding the abundance of life here: nutrient rich waters and long summer days. Then there were Dall’s porpoise, Stellar sea lions and a young humpback whale, and so it begins.
In the afternoon we made a landing on the north end of Baranof Island. The day is bright, teasing, almost hot and there are walks in the forest, along a stream and kayaking on the stream and on the bay. In the kayaks it is quiet within the soft rhythm drummed out by the paddle. From here the trees are so much taller, the bald eagles so much larger, majestic, awesome! Yet most remarkable to me were the fish, pink salmon working their way upstream, their bodies changing, no longer hungry, rather they are both consumed and filled by another need, a need to reproduce before they die and become food for the food of their young. One humpbacked male took a great interest in my kayak, bumping it, rubbing against it. Did he see a rival, a potential mate, or was this yet something else I will never understand but always remember, this last dance? So I wondered, took his picture and wondered some more, and thus it passed, an almost child-like afternoon, old memories found and made new, and then it happened, the best of all, I finally let out my breath and then, well, not much really, I just smiled.
