Home Again, Part 4

After Seattle, Glacier Bay, and Juneau, we continued down the Inside Passage and arrived at Sitka, AK. Sitka gets only about 1/4 of the visitors in a year that Juneau does, due to a slightly rougher passage and a shallow harbor that forces everyone to use small boats to tender from the large cruise ships to the pier. We went on two excursions in Sitka: a hike through Tongass Rainforest, and a Marine Life photo safari. Tongass in Sitka was just as amazing as its northern end in Juneau had been, but with more ecosystems. Our hike took us through the forest itself, (sometimes through a tree itself)to tiny coves, an estuary where the pink salmon run was going on, and to the muskeg. Muskeg is a really interesting acidic ecosystem, similar to a peat bog. The soil can hold 15-30 times its weight in water, so stepping on it isn't a good idea...it would feel like a sponge, and then you would sink. The soil is so acidic that the few shore pines that can grow in it gain only 5-15 feet in height in 400 years. We have few pictures of the forest, unfortunately, because while we were there it was accumulating some of the more than 200 inches of rain it gets per year. I feared for the camera's safety. Also, if you ever risk being out in the rain for 3 1/2 hours, double check to be sure your coat is waterproof, not just water-resistant...not that I would know anything about that situation...

Eventually we had to leave that amazing forest and head to our next activity, a Marine Life Photo Safari, which was incredibly fruitful. We headed out on a covered catamaran, (protected from the wind, which I was very grateful for) and very soon we saw a group of harbor seals sunning on rocks. Just a little further out, we came across a lone humpback whale feeding in shallow water, surprisingly close to another grouping of rocks. We watched it for a while, and moved on to find a cove that provided the opening to an estuary, where pink salmon were continuing their run, and where a large number of bald eagles were getting their fill. I'd never seen so many eagles in one place before, even in my time working with exotic animals. It was breathtaking. We eventually continued out in the bay, seeing large numbers of various birds on the way, and saw two sea otters wrestling in the water. I was very excited, having been hoping to see an otter or two, so imagine how I felt when the captain announced that we were slowing down to try to creep up on a raft of otters! A raft is a large grouping of sea otters who are just floating together, and I had never even seen a photo of one. They very kindly stayed put for us, and there must have been about 60 otters in the raft, just floating together, interacting, with a few breaking off every now and again to wrestle or swim a bit more energetically. Here are two that were a little separated from the raft, which you can see a little bit of in the top right corner. Look at the belly on the otter on the left!

After marveling at the otters for at least half an hour (I myself would have been happy to stare at them all day) we moved even further out in the bay, and found ourselves with humpback whales on every side. There were probably 4 or 5 out there, casually feeding, ignoring us. Hubband ran up onto the top deck to be sure the photos wouldn't be obscured by the windows, as some earlier shots had been, and caught these two amazing photos:

The whales were beautiful, and brought back memories for me, as every New England schoolchild goes on at least one whale-watching field trip. I hadn't seen a humpback in person in about 15 years, and I was thrilled to see so many. As we moved around, we also saw Steller sea lions, just barely poking their faces out of the water. 

It was a great time, but it had to end, and the catamaran brought us directly back to our cruise ship, where some silly person who was still utterly soaked to the skin finally got to take a hot, hot shower and warm up from that 39 degree air. 

Home Again, Part 3

After our time in Glacier bay, the ship moved on to the state capital, Juneau. Fortunately, our room faced the port so we woke in the morning to a view of the city:

Hubband, T, and A were booked to go on a float trip down the Mendenhall River, near Mendenhall Glacier. Being prone to motion sickness, I opted to go on a hike through the temperate rainforest on Douglas Island, just across the channel from Juneau. We decided that it would probably be better if the camera came with me. There were about 24 of us on the excursion, and we split into two groups to go through the forest. It was beautiful there. 

It was very different from the forests I knew growing up in New England; there were far more lichens and mosses, and fallen trees decompose very slowly due to the cold, leading to a very wild, almost overgrown look. Some on the walk expressed the thought that the forest looked 'jumbled' or 'messy', but I just saw it as renewal. There were still berries out, even though we were there at the beginning of fall.

We walked a few miles through the forest and eventually came out on the shore of the Pacific, on the far side of Douglas Island. There is really no dirt here on the island, just rock topped with volcanic ash and the composted remains of old plant life. There was a very sharp delineation between forest and shore, because the shore really didn't have that compost layer. There were some tenacious rye grasses growing among all the rocks and bits of shell but the rest of the vegetation was mostly sea weed brought up by the tide. While at the shore, we watched a pair of Harbor Porpoise feed, a pair of bald eagles defend their territory from another, and a porcupine strip bark off a hemlock tree. 

After we walked back through the forest and were transported to the pier, I waited for Hubband, T, and A so that we could go on our next excursion. Unbeknownst to me, they had returned much earlier than I had, and much wetter and colder, so they had already reboarded the ship to change into drier clothes. They did have a good time, but also learned just how cold glacier run-off can be. (If you're curious, it's about 34 F.) Eventually we found each other and headed off to the mine, where we heard about the founding of Juneau, mining techniques, went inside a mine shaft, and saw an equipment demonstration. The view from just outside the mine shaft entrance was amazing:

After panning for gold and garnets in the old tracings from the mine (cheesy, I know, but still kind of fun) we went back to downtown Juneau looking for a snack. One of my rainforest guides had mentioned a little hut near a parking garage that sold king crab, so Hubband, A, and I headed there while T stopped at a different hut making crepes. Hubband and I each got a cup of steaming hot king crab bisque, while A got an order of legs. Both came with delicious garlic rolls. The bisque was unlike any other I've ever had; there was definitely a mustard flavor to it, and while it was thick and rich, it didn't sit in our bellies like a brick the way some will. There was a ridiculous number of enormous chunks of crab in each cup. Fabulous. A, who doesn't particularly like seafood, ordered the crab legs in a fit of adventurousness, and reaped the dividends. Steamed freshly to order, caught that day, he was shocked by how much he loved them. T caught up with us, carrying an enormous crepe folded in 4 and filled with chocolate, strawberries, and bananas. Perhaps not as authentically Alaskan as king crab, but delicious. The young woman making those crepes loved her job, and it showed. Everyone we met in town seemed to share that quality of love; mostly it was a love for their home, and an eagerness to share the reasons why. I think the reasons were pretty obvious.