Day 6, Aug 5, Thursday
We're in Idaho Inlet, and the mouth of a fresh water creek (Fox's Creek). They've given us two choices, a kayak ride or a walk. We've chosen both. The slightly gray skies begin to clear as the sun gets higher, and the day once again turns into a glorious overdose of sunshine. Illiena, the lovely naturalist who specializes in marine animals, took us for a walk up the creek, and we spotted several salmon spawning upstream, wiggling and fighting in the very shallow water. It seems impossible that they could actually force their big bodies upstream, but they seem to manage, sometimes with more than half their bodies out of the water as they thrash and throw themselves about to get over the shallow areas.
We also found schools of fry, the very young salmon, fairly newly hatched, only a couple of inches long. Eventually we turned off the creek and into high grass, calling loudly to scare off the bears, since it was clearly a bear track we were following, with bear scat visible on the trail. We saw a lovely dark brown flower called a chocolate lily, and saw a little immature banana slug with its tiny antlers moving slowly around. We wandered deeper into the woods and saw what Illiena called squirrel condos made from the Sitka Spruce pinecones at the base of the trees. Ed found some wild raspberries, and I found some watermelon berries, small round single berried plants that tasted blandly like watermelons.
Eventually we made it back to the shore, and climbed into our kayaks. We headed out to a small island to find harbor seals. We rounded the other side of the island and there they were, their little heads poked up out of the water like small, wet dogs. They watched us curiously, not going away, but not coming any closer. We sat silently in the water gradually drifting closer. They stayed among the kelp, just watching, every once in awhile ducking below the water, only to pop up again somewhere else close by.
Sea Otter with only its Head above Water, Watching Us
As we left that area, Ed and I spotted a large blob of dark, sparkly water that seemed to move as if it were alive. We paddled closer, and discovered that it was a huge school of tiny fish, millions of them, traveling so close together that they roiled the surface of the water, perfect feeding ground for birds or...whales.
We saw two small Sitka black-tailed deer on the shore. They looked very delicate, almost miniature, standing in the grass near the shoreline. We spotted a bald eagle, then made our way around the other side of the island and back to the landing area.
Two humpback whales had been hanging around that general area all morning, and as we turned the corner, we spotted them, only yards away, between us and the shore. They were very close to shore, trolling the area for fish, evidently, because they seemed to completely ignore our presence, raising their huge bodies almost halfway out of the water and then shallowing out. The guy in the zodiac moved that boat between the kayakers and the whales, somewhat to my disappointment. We were all directed to move to the outside of the zodiac, and make noise on our kayaks or paddle so the whales would know where we were. At last, the whales moved on a little and we were told to paddle furiously toward shore, where the crew was waiting to pull us onto a spit of rocks and get us out of the water.
We had no sooner gotten everyone on land when the whales came back, even closer than before, again just trolling beneath the surface of the shallow water and coming up again and again. It was unbelievably thrilling to be that close, rubber-booted feet still in the water, madly taking pictures of these magnificent beasts. We practically had to be dragged away by the crew, but the whales again moved off and disappeared for a few minutes, so we were finally persuaded to board the zodiacs and return to the ship.
About half an hour later, we boarded the zodiacs once again and ferried about a mile away to another beach where the crew had set up a barbecue of sorts...if you call fresh green salad, curried pasta, shrimp salad, grilled chicken, fresh made focaccia and the richest chocolate brownies you've ever eaten a "barbecue." The weather was perfect, the scenery was beautiful and the food was delicious.
By the time we returned to the ship a couple of hours later, the whales had returned to the spot where we had been loading the kayaks earlier and were once again trolling the area for food.
They loaded up the zodiacs and we headed north up the Idaho Inlet to look for sea otters. Eventually we found them, traveling together in packs, or what is officially termed 'rafts', where they hang out together on their backs, their little feet sticking up in the air. They were everywhere, groups of them, singles, just floating around, or playing, rolling in the water and around each other for no particular reason.
At one point, we could see otters, whales, harbor dolphins, eagles and jumping salmon, all in the same vista with giant, craggy, snowcapped mountains, fluffy clouds clinging and drifting down their valleys, blue sky and dense forests of emerald and blue green. You see posters of these kinds of views and figure they must be contrived, but it was absolutely real, right here in front of our eyes.
