We started the day with a bit of “housekeeping.” The grey water from the sink and shower isn’t draining properly, so Pete has a hatch open in the kitchen and is working to fix it. Kona the kitty has her head down in there getting involved. Sue told me she once got into the ship’s inner walls and they had a hard time getting her out again! She is a true ship kitty and knows her way around the inside and the outside of this boat.
Have you ever heard a bald eagle’s cry? For the first time I hear one this morning, and it is surprisingly high pitched, more like a song bird than a large and magnificent bird of prey.
Pete figured out and debugged the greywater problem and we’re underway again
After an hour of cruising, I ask Sue “If I don’t see whale today, will there be another chance?” and she reassures me there is always a chance, that all the way to Sitka, where I depart for home in 5 days, I may still catch a glimpse of one. I decide to go below deck and type for a while.
Whales Ahead!
Pete shouts out that he’s seen a humpback whale blow up ahead!
The two of them are looking beyond the bow… “Did you see that, Merry?!” I’m wishing I could say yes, and looking so hard to the left of the island up ahead where they spotted it, but there is nothing I can say with certainty that I’ve seen. “Another one!” Still nothing, I’m feeling disappointed and a little foolish. I go out on the front deck with Sue, hoping for a little more clarity without the window barrier.
Then I see one, black curved back, the blow, and the tail pointing vertically, ready for a dive. Looking through binoculars, my eyes inexplicably burning with emotion. The holy magnificence of the hump back whale, then an entire pod, probably 5 or 6 of them. I see more over the next couple of hours, but that first glimpse is the one I could barely contain without shouting or jumping or doing something else a little foolish and unexpected.
Sue tells me of the time she and Peter saw a humpback mother and her calf close to the boat, and while admiring this miracle, the whale blew, instantly engulfing them with the smell of fish. Sue wrinkled her nose to demonstrated her reaction to this unexpected and monstrous exhalation of bad breath. I wish I could experience that, but the whales I see are a little further off.
When the water is calm again, I go downstairs to record this experience. I’m jazzed up with this new joy of whale watching.
Sea Otter Spotting
“Merry!” I rush up the stairs again, as quickly as I can. Pete tells me he saw some otters, and there I see that iconically adorable little face with the elongated body, floating off the bow, and I think that yes, I captured him pretty well in my earrings and necklaces if I say so myself!
Peter laughs at the charmed moment, and that laugh instantly makes me think of both Ed and David, their sweetness and love of animals. The Rosenfield men, so many similar and endearing qualities.
We’ll go right past Admiralty island soon, and that’s where we’ll dock and hope for bears. Pete and Sue make lots of jokes about “rock bears” the ones you spot with your eyes but they never move. We’ve seen a lot of those, but so far, no actual grizzlies.
Sue and Pete dock the boat together, and I am on the deck, spotting bald eagles soaring above the spruce and hemlock trees.
Pete is fishing, hoping for a halibut. Those strangely flat fish with the eyes that migrated to one side of their body when they were just an inch long. Peter catches one, but it is too small to keep and it is released.
Grizzlies at Last!
We spot an entire Grizzly bear family! A Mama and her 2 cubs, languidly moseying across the grass between 2 streams. I never would’ve seen them without Pete’s spotting and holler to us. I still couldn’t see them without the binoculars. Sue handed me the big ones, so heavy I’m glad I do a little working out to keep my arms fairly strong.
The babies are play-fighting, and the mama is standing up on her hind legs, looking back at them, willing them not to dawdle. A universal and non-species-specific action that moms everywhere understand. Sue asks me what this bear would be afraid of, since she is the apex predator here. I tell her, “A male grizzly” and Peter concurs.
She is rusty brown and her little ones are blond. They disappeared into the wooded area to the left.
The bears have company on this little beach; bald eagles, both adults and juveniles feeding on the leftover salmon from bear meals.
After dinner we took the dinghy out to travel just a little closer to watch a couple of other bears who just showed up to fish for salmon, an older silvertip male and a youngster. We were a comfortable distance away.
Where the stream commenced from the bay we spot a commotion as a school of salmon find their entrance to go upstream and spawn. We can hear this as well as see it. It occurs in waves as the persistent spawners reach the beginning of the end of their goal.
So Grateful for this Amazing Day!
This was quite a day; I go to bed with a smile of gratitude.
Your Animal Loving Artist,
Merry
