Daily Expedition Reports

Learn more about our Health & Safety Protocols, Good Faith Guarantee, Reactivation FAQ. 

Sitkoh Bay & Chatham Strait

View all info

  • Daily Expedition Reports
  • 12 Jul 2021

Sitkoh Bay & Chatham Strait

  • Aboard the National Geographic Sea Bird
  • Alaska

After receiving safety briefings, we arrived in Sitkoh Bay for a great introduction to our Wild Alaska trip. Hopping into the Zodiacs we got ashore to split up into a variety of groups for our hikes along the shore of Sitkoh Bay. What a wildlife extravaganza awaited us with the beauty of the forest and meadow at the end of the bay. In the afternoon we cruised Chatham Bay and encountered both bubble-net feeding humpback whales and a coastal brown bear foraging along the shoreline.

Article by

Sue Forbes, Naturalist/Certified Photo Instructor

Sue has been creating wildlife, landscape, and travel photos for over 30 years, traveling to over 90 countries on all seven continents. She has combined this passion with an unusual career that includes being an Engineer Officer with the Royal Air Force in the U.K. and taking on various executive roles in the technology companies of Silicon Valley, California. In 2011, she managed to escape to focus solely on her wildlife and travel photography.

Previous Article

Floreana Island - Cormorant Point, Champion Islet and Post Office Barrel

Next Article

Petersburg

Wild Alaska Escape: Sitka to Juneau

VIEW ITINERARY

Related Reports

Daily Expedition Reports

Aug 21

Read

National Geographic Sea Bird

Dundas Bay, Glacier Bay National Park

We awoke at 5:30 in the morning to be greeted by a pod of transient killer whales as we made our way aboard National Geographic Sea Bird into the entrance of Dundas Bay, part of the 3.4 million acres that make up Glacier Bay National Park in Southeast Alaska. After dropping anchor, we ate breakfast and prepared for a full morning of kayaking near the mouth of the bay, bush-whacking through a dense forest of Sitka spruce and yellow cedar, and following the tracks of moose, brown bear, and wolves along the mudflats that make up the eastern side of the bay. The weather was overcast, cool, and just right for spotting wildlife, which included a brown bear cruising the shoreline, hundreds of young otters rafted up in the kelp beds, and a lone harbor porpoise that seemed to be overly curious about our boat. Before lunch, Lindblad Expeditions’ Global Explorers embarked on their own Zodiac for a lesson in plankton sampling and driving a 60hp engine by hand.   Dundas Bay is special because visitors in motorized watercraft are allowed to leave their vessels and walk the shore, and thanks to our program, we were treated to an entire day of activities in this special place. Kittiwakes gathered in huge flocks at the edge of the mudflat, marbled murrelets called out their mournful song and dove for fish in the middle of the bay, and cormorants flew in graceful dark silhouettes along the surface of the water. We are so fortunate to have enjoyed the splendor of this beautiful sanctuary, and are hopeful that this special place will be preserved for all time.

Daily Expedition Reports

Aug 21

Read

National Geographic Sea Bird

George Island - Inian Islands

We woke up traveling west in Icy Strait towards our anchorage off George Island, where we had a full morning of hiking, kayaking and tide-pooling. On the medium-length hikes and vigorous rock scramble, we passed a large WWII gun that was installed to protect Alaska’s Inside Passage from the Japanese.   Then a few brave souls did the “polar plunge” in the frigid Alaskan waters.  After lunch we moved the ship a short distance to the Inian Islands, where we did two rounds of Zodiac tours. On the tours we saw otters, sea lions, kittiwakes, pelagic cormorants, marbled murrelets, pigeon guillemots, eagles, and a few lucky guests saw some puffins and a Dall’s porpoise.

Daily Expedition Reports

Aug 21

Read

National Geographic Sea Bird

Hanus Bay, Baranof Island and Sitkoh Bay, Chichagof Island

A few arching humpbacks and backlit blows led us to our anchorage at Hanus Bay, where we explored the forest service trail along the stream to Lake Eva. Sockeye salmon and their anadromous relatives mustered and rested in the waters past the cascade they ran, on their way to spawning and contributing their bodies’ nutrients to the “salmon rainforest” along the streambed.   Kayakers paddled into the lagoon below the cataract among lazing harbor seals, chattering kingfishers, and swooping eagles, before the falling tide precluded entry. Hikers experienced the splendor of the temperate rainforest and the massive spruce and hemlock trees that grow large on oceanic nutrients courtesy of the spawning salmon. The translucent green leaves of devil’s club and other understory plants juxtaposed with the bright orange ‘chicken of the woods’ fungus on decomposing trees, and on the pink orchid stalks of the saprophytic coralroot.   Across Peril Strait, on an afternoon excursion in the rectangularly cut Sitkoh Bay, we hiked along an old logging trail. We passed thimbleberries, blueberry bear scats, and banana slugs, emerging onto a vast meadow at low tide where eagles and gulls perched along streams and a distant bear grazed in the vegetation.   On our evening passage we sailed lavender seas up Chatham Strait around Chichagof Island towards our next day’s destination. The mighty Fairweathers, the world’s highest coastal mountain range, emerged silhouetted against a sublime orange post-sunset sky.