Chatam Straight
The morning began wet as we cruised quietly along the mysterious shores of Admiralty Island. We had heard of this place: a place of great giants and foreboding. A place forbidden for us to enter, a place we may not ever go even if we had permission. For this is the place of the brown bear. An island with so many brown bears that the government says we can only go with a small experienced group of people. A place listed as having the densest population of "brownies" or bogies as the fishermen call them anywhere in the world. The captain took us into Hood Bay where it was still and quiet as we watched a few deer hesitantly coming down to the intertidal grass for a snack. They know of the bear and what it can do as it gets hungrier and hungrier waiting for the salmon to arrive. We watched and waited, but there was no bear for us to see. It only heightened the anticipation for any future sighting.
As we left Hood Bay we went whale watching. We found a few humpback whales, but started watching only one as this rather small whale practiced a unique behavior among whales, among humpback whales and even among the humpback whales of Southeast Alaska. The behavior is called bubblenet feeding. An ingenious practice of whales to swim down below their prey and release bubbles in a ring to frighten and collect the small fish into a ball at the surface of the water. The whale then appears in the center of the ring mouth agape to engulf the panicked prey. The method is very effective and can be practiced by a large number of choreographed individuals or by a single animal as we saw.
After an educational lecture by Roger Luckenbach on the importance of the old growth forests we had been and will continue to visit there was some down time before lunch.
After doing some feeding of our own the sun made an appearance for our afternoons activities which included hiking and kayaking on Pond Island in Kelp Bay on the north end of Baranof Island. It was interesting to think of the many layers of geography in Alaska. Some of us had made it to a beaver pond surrounded by an island which was surrounded by a bay which lay in another island which is only a small part of Southeast Alaska.
The morning began wet as we cruised quietly along the mysterious shores of Admiralty Island. We had heard of this place: a place of great giants and foreboding. A place forbidden for us to enter, a place we may not ever go even if we had permission. For this is the place of the brown bear. An island with so many brown bears that the government says we can only go with a small experienced group of people. A place listed as having the densest population of "brownies" or bogies as the fishermen call them anywhere in the world. The captain took us into Hood Bay where it was still and quiet as we watched a few deer hesitantly coming down to the intertidal grass for a snack. They know of the bear and what it can do as it gets hungrier and hungrier waiting for the salmon to arrive. We watched and waited, but there was no bear for us to see. It only heightened the anticipation for any future sighting.
As we left Hood Bay we went whale watching. We found a few humpback whales, but started watching only one as this rather small whale practiced a unique behavior among whales, among humpback whales and even among the humpback whales of Southeast Alaska. The behavior is called bubblenet feeding. An ingenious practice of whales to swim down below their prey and release bubbles in a ring to frighten and collect the small fish into a ball at the surface of the water. The whale then appears in the center of the ring mouth agape to engulf the panicked prey. The method is very effective and can be practiced by a large number of choreographed individuals or by a single animal as we saw.
After an educational lecture by Roger Luckenbach on the importance of the old growth forests we had been and will continue to visit there was some down time before lunch.
After doing some feeding of our own the sun made an appearance for our afternoons activities which included hiking and kayaking on Pond Island in Kelp Bay on the north end of Baranof Island. It was interesting to think of the many layers of geography in Alaska. Some of us had made it to a beaver pond surrounded by an island which was surrounded by a bay which lay in another island which is only a small part of Southeast Alaska.
