Today was a good day for wildlife! As we rounded the tip of Chichagof Island at Morris Reef, there were a couple of humpbacks hanging out near the point.
And on Buoy 35, almost as many sea lions as would fit. I’m sure there’s room for a few more.
A little ways up Chatham Strait (which was just about flat the entire cruise), we had some Dall’s porpoises surfing Airship’s bow (and later Melissa Lynn’s bow too). They are SO fast!
On our port side toward shore we started noticing a LOT of herring balls…we kept expecting to see a giant humpback mouth (or ten!) lunging up in the middle of them, but it never happened. The herring balls lasted for miles though. Clearly here between Peril Strait and Freshwater Bay is where the food is.
As we neared Freshwater Bay we started seeing more whale spouts in the distance. This area is normally pretty rich with both humpbacks and orcas.
We’re all anchored in Pavlof Harbor now…several folks went ashore for a beach walk (haven’t seen any bears yet), and others are out fishing.
Some aerials of our anchorage:
Airship’s crab pots had two good-sized males in them this morning, but I forgot to take photos. Tonight’s dinner on Airship: crab enchiladas!
Russ and Missie spotted a couple bears on shore. So our wildlife list for the day just got longer!
The sun is back out so I snapped a few shots of our boats at anchor.
One of the bears came back out for a while, and the crew on Ithaka went over to get a closer look.
Gorgeous evening in Pavlof Harbor!
