Those of us out on deck early in the morning had the chance to experience the beauty of a real Southeast Alaska dawn with a light rain, low clouds, and a beautiful rainbow, together with the occasional sea otter, harbor seal, or humpback whale breaking the glassy waters. The National Geographic Sea Bird made her way into Idaho Inlet, on the northern portion of Chichagof Island and encountered several more sea otters before heading back into the open waters towards a small archipelago known as the Inian Islands. Located right between the large Chichagof and the mainland, the Inians act as a bottleneck for the strong tidal currents that flow twice into and twice out of this portion of the Inside Passage. And since the currents bring with them abundant schools of fish, the whole area is teeming with life. We couldn’t let pass the opportunity to explore this wonderful region up close and personal, and decided to board our expedition landing craft for a morning that we are all going to remember for a long time. And it all started with a humpback whale breaching a few hundred yards from the ship! Several times the whale repeated her extraordinary aerial displays, including numerous pectoral-fin slaps.
As we made our way throughout the Inians, we encountered numerous creatures. Sea otters wrapped themselves in the kelp fronds and some females even had their fluffy babies dry and cozy on their bellies. A few of them even showed us their breakfast as they came up to the surface holding a basket sea star or a crab. Steller sea lions were quite conspicuous there and their guttural roars filled the air at their haul out. Many were in the water looking for fish, and whenever one got lucky enough to capture large prey, they would shear it into more manageable pieces by shaking it out violently with their heads out of the water, much to the content of numerous gulls and bald eagles that quickly picked-up the leftovers. Meanwhile, we kept looking at many, many humpback whales all around us, including a female with her calf that were hugging the shore, presumably looking for prey to eat.
After having had a great morning at the Inians, we headed to nearby George Island, where we spent a fun afternoon hiking, kayaking, and learning. I went scuba diving to bring back video of the myriad beautiful creatures beneath the surface, including rose, giant plumose, and crimson anemones, leather, north sun and sunflower sea stars, bull kelp, northern abalone, greenlings, and many more. And as the sun approached the horizon, we all kept deep in our hearts the beauty of this region, above and below the waves.
