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Ghost Villages, Puffins, and Incredible Sea Kayaking at Unga Island, Alaska

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  A brilliant horned puffin, lit up by the mid morning light streaming through one of the sea arches. Today was one of our best days of the entire ten day expedition cruise here in Alaska. We visited one of the Shumagin Islands, called Unga Island, and explored by kayak and on land. We were greeted with early morning fog, so intense that we couldn't see the land on either side of the small bay. Luckily the fog started to lift just as we started launching our kayak group from the back of the Safari Explorer. The water was calm as glass, with no wind and no swell. Perfect for exploring all the nooks and crannies of the shoreline. And the shoreline here is about as wild as it gets. We started off by paddling over to the outer point of Delarof Bay, where we could see a giant sea rock arch that looked perfectly for kayaking through. I caught some photos of the guests as they came through behind me. I like that in some of the photos you can also see the Safari Explorer, far in the backgr...
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Kayaking with Whales at Castle Cape and Hiking to a Waterfall at Hook Bay. What a day!

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  Our kayakers and small boats hanging out with thousands of feeding sea birds with whales surfacing in between them. We were offshore from Castle Cape, taking advantage of some unusually calm offshore waters. One of the best parts of expedition cruising, is the amount of flexibility that you have to change the schedule and take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves. Earlier in the week we spontaneously canceled the evening presentation in order to load up our small boats and go skiffing in the middle of the ocean with fin whales. The sea conditions were so calm, and the whales so plentiful, that we had to take advantage. Today we pulled into a bay that we had never been to before. Its name is Hook Bay, named after a big rocky spit with a big bend in it. Since we have never been here before, my coworker Christian and I took a small boat out in the morning before breakfast to scout out different landings and hiking areas. We found a few places that looked great from ...
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Finding New Adventures at Imuya Bay, Alaska

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  Beautiful Imuya Bay, untouched wilderness, and we are here to explore. This is how you do expedition cruising. The spot I had picked out to take the guests to this morning, here off the wild coast of the Alaskan peninsula, was too wild with wind to be much fun. We searched around for a bit, but during our search I could see down the coast a few miles looked very nice and protected from the wind. We quickly looked at anchoring charts and satellite images of the spot, called Imuya Bay. We've never scouted it out, but it looked nice, so we changed our plans and moved the ship to our new anchorage. Imuya bay looked amazing. There were all these little islands that would be great for kayaking and skiffing around. The mountains in the back of the bay were jagged and stunning. Some still had snow on top and we could even see a glacier hanging up in the high valley. Shortly after anchoring, two white wolves were spotted running across a green hill behind the beach. Then right before kaya...
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