It was a beautiful morning as we sailed toward and into Pavlof Harbor. We were greeted by a brown bear mother and cub walking along the shoreline. We dropped our Zodiacs and cruised over to a nearby waterfall, where there was a group of brown bears of different ages catching pink salmon and playing in the water. We floated quietly and watched them go about their fishing. We then set sail through the huge fjord of Chatham Strait, looking for charismatic megafauna. After spotting a bunch of spouts in the distance, we headed toward the shoreline, where we witnessed a dozen humpback whales blowing, fluking, and bubble-net feeding. We celebrated the magnificent day with our final cocktail hour, recap, and the guest slideshow. It was a wonderful way to end our Southeast Alaska adventure.
9/7/2024
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National Geographic Sea Lion
Tracy Arm and South Sawyer Glacier
Our expedition began yesterday in Alaska’s capital city, Juneau, at the foot of the coastal mountains, draped in the deep greens and grays of the temperate rainforest. Rain was the operative description of the day, but as we headed south the weather broke and we had fine sailing overnight toward Tracy Arm. This fjord is incised deeply into the mountains, close to the Stikine ice field and the border with Canada. Heading toward South Sawyer Glacier we were able to explore this unique landscape in our expedition landing craft, weaving among the floating broken glacier ice. We spied mountain goats on the steep mountainsides, harbor seals in the water and on the ice, and the deep blue face of the glacier as it tumbled over a rocky ridge into the sea. We enjoyed informative presentations from the expedition staff throughout the afternoon, as well as time to enjoy the scenery from the outer decks of the ship. As we sailed out of the fjord in the golden light of early evening, we saw a lone humpback whale cruising the shoreline and lazily feeding on schools of small fish. A fine day of exploration in Southeast Alaska.
