We left Cannery Cove and Pybus Bay around 6am and headed into foggy but super calm conditions. Our destination today is Explorer Basin on Kuiu Island.
Today is a long day (roughly 58nm), and a bit of a detour to make between Pybus and Red Bluff, but the opportunity to see a lot of humpbacks and potentially some bubble net feeding is a huge draw, and today the gamble paid off! Unfortunately, I didn’t get any photos of the bubble net feeding (we were just too far from it), but here’s a shot right after the big exciting part where all the whales come up with their mouths wide open:
There were quite a few whales breaching over the period of time we watched…and I even captured a few breaches by accident when I was photographing something else!
And here are some fluke shots with identification:
After all that whale excitement, we spread out and anchored in Explorer Basin, and then got in the dinghies to go look for black bears. Before we left Airship, we spotted one right on the beach near our anchorage.
We took the dinghies way farther into Tebenkof Bay and saw a few whale spouts, five or six more black bears, two swimming Sitka black-tail deer, and some otters.
A fantastic wildlife day!!
Back at our boats to warm up and make dinner after a long cold ride in the dinghies! Kevin took the drone up for some aerial shots of our anchorage.
What a day!!