The silver bellies were scattered across the dark sand beach of Gold Harbor this morning. Silver bellies that belonged to the hundreds of newly weaned elephant seal pups that awaited us on shore. These curious big-eyed adorable seals were everywhere, barking, screaming and sneezing. The cute factor was off the charts. This location is personally one of my most favorite places on planet earth. To be on a beach surrounded by these adorable seals, watching king penguins come and go from the surf. Seeing the adult elephant seals scatter sand across their backs as they lay steaming in the sun... This morning was magical. Gold Harbor always is. The beautiful Bertrab glacier cascading down to the sea, with a foreground of animal diversity such as this is something that is hard to describe.
For the afternoon, we traveled north to Godthul a deep inset bay where some of us went ashore for a long hike and others explored the bay by Zodiac. This location is not a predominant elephant seal colony so the beach has been open for the fur seals to come in and claim territories. We saw several fur seal pups that were only a couple of days, if not hours old. We explored kelp forests and tussock slopes. It was a very different destination from this morning and did not disappoint. What will tomorrow bring?
