Capturing the Moment

  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...

  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...