Capturing the Moment

   It has been a crazy week. I feel like our guests have experienced more exceptional wildlife encounters than most crew does working all season. Alaska is definitely providing for those willing to step out of their bubbles and hit the deck running.     This week started off with multiple sightings of black bears in the fjord leading up to Dawes Glacier. Then arctic terns and harbor seals lounging about on ice flows. We ran across orcas back out in Stephens Passage, who led us to more orcas that were predating on a dall's porpoise. Then we found the early season motherload of humpback whales with another pod of dall's porpoise. Then after birthday celebrations in front of a huge waterfall at Red Bluff Bay, we entered brown bear territory. Here we had a close encounter with two young bears on the beach at our landing spot! They trotted off into the woods and used our trail (really their trail), to stay well ahead of us until venturing off into the forest. We awok...

    Thoughts from an UnCruise Expedition Leader   I am back in Alaska! Most of the cruise ships are still locked down in ports around the world, but UnCruise ships are filled with guests and leading expedition cruises in Southeast Alaska. As Expedition Leader of the Safari Quest I am just wrapping up my first trip, and we capped off a wonderful week with the infamous polar plunge. I made sure to wait for the coldest water, with icebergs floating by, and a glacier in the distance for my first polar plunge back after missing the entire Alaska 2020 season thanks to the pandemic.    Now, have tested out the frigid, icy waters, I feel like we are officially back in business here in Alaska. It feels very good to be back.

  Baranof Island is the 10th largest island in the world, slightly larger than the state of Delaware. It was named in 1805 by the Russian Imperial Navy to honor Alexander Baranof. Sitka is located on the west side of the island, while the rest is covered in temperate rainforest and controlled mostly by the Tongass National Forest. The southern part of Baranof is my favorite, as it is designated a Wilderness area by the National Forest which gives it the highest protection in the 17 million acre forest. This week on the Safari Quest we explored a small part of this wilderness area by boat, kayak, skiff, and paddle board.   The entrance to Red Bluff Bay faces east towards the whale-rich Frederick Sound. Red Bluff is named after the hillsides near the entrance and their distinctive reddish coloration due to the high levels of chromite. The opening to the fjord doesn't look big enough for a ship our size, but for those in the know an amazing wonderland exists inside. ...

Discoveries along the way Through a patch of devils club   One part of my job this season up in Alaska is taking guests out in the bush where there is no dock, no trail except those left by game, and no real destination or goal other than to immerse ourselves in the temperate rain forest and explore. We call this bushwhacking, and it is a favorite past time for people who live in and around the forest. You can blaze you own trails and find new discoveries on every trip. I don't carry a machete because I don't want to leave a trail of destruction behind us, but I do carry bear spray.    One big aspect of bushwhacking or hiking in Alaska is that you are walking through bear country. Luckily humans are not on the normal menu so it's not like bears are stalking you as you walk. If anything they want to get out of your path or just hunker down and hide until you are gone. I make plenty of noise so as not to startle any bears, and to make sure that moms with cubs ar...

Whale Pics at www.daimarsphotos.com   I had seen bubble net feeding humpback whales before, but never like this. I was leading a skiff tour in one of our small 12 person zodiacs when I spotted multiple whale blows out in the distance. I had planned on staying near the Sitkoh bay, where the Safari Quest was anchored, but the possibility of seeing whales from almost water-level was too much of a draw. I checked in with the guests who non surprisingly all wanted to go out for a closer look. Luckily it was a rare flat calm day in Chatham Strait so out we went. This shot and more for sale here .   I knew we were getting close, but I didn't know how close until I saw the ring of bubbles. We stopped the boat just in time to witness half a dozen whales burst through the surface of the water with mouths wide open . We found ourselves looking up at the whales as they towered above the skiff. They were still about 200 yards away but it felt like we were right next to them. ...

Our Guide Dan Kirkwood Mom and yearling cubs  With our small group of five passengers this week we set up a special surprise visit to the Pack Creek bear viewing area on Admiralty Island. I have been wanting to go to this place ever since I started working in Alaska. The meadow at Pack Creek shows up in almost every bear documentary filled with bears. We knew that visiting in June wouldn’t be crowded since it was in between mating time in May, and the salmon runs in July and August. But we thought we would stop in , check it out, and see if we got lucky. We had the manager of Pack Creek Bear Tours , Dan Kirkwood, fly in to show us the ropes and introduce us to the bears we might be lucky enough to come across. He has spent the last five summers guiding daily fly in bear viewing trips to Pack Creek.    It looked like our lucky day when we awoke to a mom and two cubs playing and strolling along the shoreline. They stayed all during our breakfast, and then when ...

Rediscovering New Lands in Southeast Alaska Rebecca at the Baird glacier lake    The retreating glaciers of Alaska are leaving behind a moonscape land of boulders, silt, and minerals that have been scraped off the sides of the valleys or scoured from the valley floor. This jumble of dirt, rocks, and silt is left behind once the glacier starts its retreat and is called the terminal moraine. The constant melting of the glacier can build up a lake between itself and the moraine which is what you see in famous inland glaciers like Mendenhall outside of Juneau.    The terminal moraine provides a wonderful science experiment in plant succession. Recently uncovered land lies bare until the crypto-biotic soil provides enough nutrients for the pioneering nitrogen fixers to gain hold. Shrubby alder trees come in next and pave the way for bigger trees like spruce, hemlock, and cedar to follow. The whole process reminds me of Hawaii’s lava fields, new land which...