One of the best parts about Alaska was the wildlife. Thanks to our guests Glenn, Vicki, Sean, Colleen, John, and Ellyn for sharing their photos…at times, we’re too busy with captaining and hosting to shoot photos. This blog will be about marine and terrestrial mammals.
Whales and dolphins
The whales were amazing. We saw mostly humpbacks and a few orcas. We saw our first humpback while entering Revillagadero Channel approaching Ketchikan in the fog. I was at the helm, and noticed a small skiff in the distance at about 10 o’clock. I glanced back at it a few seconds later, and it had disappeared…which was when I realized that I had seen a whale. We followed that whale a few more times as it continued north along our path. North of Ketchikan, whales were a common sighting. Later, as we headed north, we were lucky enough to see a great display by several humpbacks feeding near shore, just south of Frosty Inlet. Here are a few of the photos from that encounter.
Sometimes, I only was able to get the splash.
Whale tails were fun to see:
Sometimes, they would roll on their sides, and display their fins
And their feeding behavior was amazing:
At least two whales feeding on the surface
Same group a moment later
The most surprising humpback experiences were while we were at anchor. We would hear the humpback spouting before we saw it, often right next to the boat. Those encounters were often brief (too fast to grab a camera or a phone), but very memorable.
And then there was our transit back east after Sitka through Chatham Strait. It was a cloudy day, and there was a slight chop in the strait. We saw a pod of sea lions feeding, then saw a few whales. The spouts are generally what alerts us to whales.
Dolphins in the foreground, humpback spouting behind
We drifted for awhile, watching the whales head north. All of a sudden, a whale surfaced just feet from the side of the Gyrfalcon. It was too close for the 500 mm lens on my camera, so all I got was an out of focus close-up of a hump. This whale cruised along the side of the boat, no more than twenty feet away for several minutes. We were totally speechless.
Our best orca sightings were in Auke Bay. We were anchored and watching fisherpeople in small boats trolling for salmon, when a pod of orcas came through doing the same thing.
Stellar Sea Lions
Interestingly, unlike the Stellar’s Jay, and the Stellar’s Sea Eagle, the Steller Sea Lion in not a possessive noun. Rocks and islands in the middle of waterways are hot spots where colonies of sea lions rest and are noisy, smelly, and fun to watch. We often saw groups of sea lions fishing together in open water.
Look at the baby on the back of the sea lion in the foreground.
Here are 2 more photos; these taken by Sean.
Sea Otters
We saw sea otters in clusters near islands, resting on seaweed beds. Some of the die-hard fisher/crabber people disliked the sea otters, claiming they took all the big crabs. We didn’t mind.
Typica sea otter posture, lazing in the sound
Apparently, they do like crab
Harbor Seals
We also saw river otters and harbor seals. Although harbor seals are common in the Puget Sound, they are threatened in AK. Seeing them raising their young on ice bergs (away from predators) was fascinating.
The seal moms park their babies on small ice bergs (bergettes), so that they can hunt, while the babies remain safe from predators
While underway, we had pacific white sided dolphins or Dall’s porpoises surfing in our bow wake. It was very cool. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any good pictures, but head over to MV Discovery’s FB page for a great video (link below).
https://fb.watch/8GYlB4tC8l/
Stay tuned for some more wildlife blogs in the near future.
