Pavlof Harbor and Chatham Strait
It was a grey on grey morning (as a friend of mine has said) inside Iyoukeen Cove when we rose to the sound of whales breathing. Inhalation followed exhalation, duets and solos. We followed them for a while, but decided that the protection of the forest would be a setting for activities in the drizzle that held fast over our heads.
When you leave Iyoukeen Cove and take a U-turn to your right (south), you encounter Freshwater Bay. Once inside Freshwater Bay, the second cove to the left is Pavlof Harbor, our destination for the morning. We didn’t need long-distance vistas to see the salmon jumping, or “breaching” as we say. Nor did we need powerful binoculars to see the rather large brown bear shambling along the low-tide shoreline.
Bears filled our minds, eyes and camera viewfinders throughout the morning. Over eight individuals that we more-or-less identified were seen in the area, and as Berit said, dictated the paths taken through the forest. The salmon were running for their lives in the stream, preparing themselves for spawning upriver and escaping the bears (the last rather unsuccessfully from what we could determine in the short period of time we were watching).
After lunch we set off on our search for more marine life, and with the ultimate in good timing (after a siesta), our second deck officer, Chris Murray, spotted Orcas, or killer whales just ahead. It turned out to be a pod of fifteen to twenty resident Orcas, vastly different from the quiet transients we had seen yesterday. These stayed on the surface quite a bit, and spoke to each other frequently, which we listened to by way of the hydrophone. It was thrilling to see the tall dorsal fins of the males rise smoothly and cleanly through the waves, and a very young Orca calf bounced alongside its mother.
It really works! It seems every time we have everyone comfortably ensconced in the lounge for a presentation, something will happen that calls us out once more. A presentation offered on marine mammals was first delayed for the Orca sighting, and then when we thought we were safe from interruption, was cut short by a call from the Captain Kalbach to announce the presence of humpback whales practicing bubble net feeding! Berit had just reached the part in her presentation which dealt with this incredible phenomenon when we dashed out on deck to see the real thing. Hydrophone over the side, we were kept in suspense as the crescendo of calls preceded the explosion of mouths out of the water, gulls in a frenzy overhead.
We couldn’t, just couldn’t, have asked for a better day.
It was a grey on grey morning (as a friend of mine has said) inside Iyoukeen Cove when we rose to the sound of whales breathing. Inhalation followed exhalation, duets and solos. We followed them for a while, but decided that the protection of the forest would be a setting for activities in the drizzle that held fast over our heads.
When you leave Iyoukeen Cove and take a U-turn to your right (south), you encounter Freshwater Bay. Once inside Freshwater Bay, the second cove to the left is Pavlof Harbor, our destination for the morning. We didn’t need long-distance vistas to see the salmon jumping, or “breaching” as we say. Nor did we need powerful binoculars to see the rather large brown bear shambling along the low-tide shoreline.
Bears filled our minds, eyes and camera viewfinders throughout the morning. Over eight individuals that we more-or-less identified were seen in the area, and as Berit said, dictated the paths taken through the forest. The salmon were running for their lives in the stream, preparing themselves for spawning upriver and escaping the bears (the last rather unsuccessfully from what we could determine in the short period of time we were watching).
After lunch we set off on our search for more marine life, and with the ultimate in good timing (after a siesta), our second deck officer, Chris Murray, spotted Orcas, or killer whales just ahead. It turned out to be a pod of fifteen to twenty resident Orcas, vastly different from the quiet transients we had seen yesterday. These stayed on the surface quite a bit, and spoke to each other frequently, which we listened to by way of the hydrophone. It was thrilling to see the tall dorsal fins of the males rise smoothly and cleanly through the waves, and a very young Orca calf bounced alongside its mother.
It really works! It seems every time we have everyone comfortably ensconced in the lounge for a presentation, something will happen that calls us out once more. A presentation offered on marine mammals was first delayed for the Orca sighting, and then when we thought we were safe from interruption, was cut short by a call from the Captain Kalbach to announce the presence of humpback whales practicing bubble net feeding! Berit had just reached the part in her presentation which dealt with this incredible phenomenon when we dashed out on deck to see the real thing. Hydrophone over the side, we were kept in suspense as the crescendo of calls preceded the explosion of mouths out of the water, gulls in a frenzy overhead.
We couldn’t, just couldn’t, have asked for a better day.
