Sun! Glorious sun! Wow, what a day! We woke up to brilliant sunshine in Chatham Strait as the moon slowly slipped below the mountains of Baranof Island. Fresh snow rested atop the peaks and a few humpback whales were sighted before breakfast. Following breakfast we brought aboard guest lecturer Andy Szabo, the director of the Alaska Whale Foundation. He presented an energetic and entertaining program on humpback whales in Southeast Alaska, followed by a phantom bear sighting along the shoreline and a beautiful cascading waterfall. For the rest of the morning we cruised for wildlife and found a humpback whale feeding at the entrance of Kelp Bay. Harbor seals sat on small rocky islands and watched the undersea specialist and her dive buddies jump into the water.
After lunch half the group headed out in kayaks to explore Kelp Bay. It was unbelievable how many harbor seals popped their heads out to watch us pass and a bear strolled along the beach into a meadow. Hikers were dropped off on a grassy point and walked an extremely short distance alongside a salmon stream. Several bears had been sighted upstream, so we stood just downstream of where we thought the bears were and waited for them to emerge and fish for salmon. No bears showed up. We did, however, see thousands of salmon swimming in the stream—wow!—and photographers had a ball trying to shoot breaching fish. When the expedition landing craft came to collect everyone we puttered upstream on the high tide and got a quick glimpse of a fishing brown bear. The next round of hikes also had some quick looks at bears and extended time enjoying the smell of decaying, decapitated, eviscerated, and zombified salmon at their feet. At the very end, a massive mother and rolly polly fatso cub emerged on the opposite bank of the river to fish in beautiful backlight.
The sun set as we ate dinner and made our way back out into Chatham Strait for our journey northwards.
