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...

  My coworker, Christian, took this photo from one of our small boats. I am in the middle in the orange, setting up a paddle high-five in front of Holgate Glacier. I led a wonderful, five mile kayak trip today in the beautiful Kenai Fjords National Park near Seward, Alaska. My group of ten and I paddle through a fjord, past thousand foot waterfalls, up to the face of Holgate Glacier. This glacier had some of the bluest ice that I've seen. It was very low tide, and the glacier was resting on a sandy/rocky bottom, so we were able to safely get very close. On our paddle we came across a family of river otters as well as a mom and baby sea otter. There were a few water birds, with the horned puffin being the big star. But the glacier was by far the most memorable sight of the morning. I don't think the guests will forget looking up from the kayaks at a two hundred foot tall wall of ice, disappearing off into the horizon in front of them. There is something so special about explorin...