Capturing the Moment

  Behind the waterfall. During our shorewalk we came across several waterfalls cascading down to the beach below. We finally made it to the Aleutian Islands! It was a bit rocky getting out here, although it has been an incredible adventure so far. We have had families of bears, feeding fin whales, more puffins than we can shake a stick at, and some incredible hikes and paddles along the way. And now we have made it to Akutan, one of the first islands in the Aleutian chain. We had very nice conditions in Delarof Bay, and permission to go ashore and check out the little village of Akutan. There isn't much going on at this little town. A few houses connected by a boardwalk, a couple of churches, including a very old Russian orthodox church, and a general store make up the town. When we got in touch with the town manager and told her we wanted to come, her response was, "Why do you want to come here?" But this was just what I was looking for. I wanted to the guests to get a f...

  Our mobile adventure platform, the Safari Explorer, anchored of a remote island in the Shumagin Islands, called Unga Island. Today we explored the Shumagin Islands, far out the Alaskan Peninsula. These islands are almost out to the start of the Aleutians. Again, we weren't sure what we would find once we got here, but this turned into one of my favorite stops on the entire trip. We anchored in Delarof Bay, the site of an abandoned village. There were whales a few miles out, and lots of birds flying around the rocky headlands. Huge sea arches were also visible off to the south of the boat. Right after anchoring, Christian and I jumped in one of our small boats and raced off for some early morning recon. We checked out the ghost town, which was inhabited by a bunch of big, hairy cows. Then we slipped through the rock arch, and drove over to where we saw the birds. It turns out that there were many, many more birds than we thought. Tens of thousands of kittiwakes, five thousand puff...