I’d love to report that my Inside Passage trip finished off with smooth sailing, however, on the last evening the seas were rough and our small boat took a beating. In fact Janice Rosner, one of the clients, almost fell overboard! She was saved by first time workshop attendee Jennifer Mathes, yeah Jennifer!! Apparently Janice was trying to get from one spot on the boat to another and the boat tossed, she leaned on one of the doors—and it opened, she held on for dear life…. only on A Creative Adventure can you have this much fun <wink>.
Aside from the high seas drama the trip was good. I can’t say fantastic because we had a few glitches along the way but all in all everything worked out well. I especially loved a few of our sightings. Did I mention that we had an Orca Whale pod attack a sea lion. I wrote this on Facebook:
Alaska Inside Passage, It is the third day of our adventure... Resident killer whales (Orcinus orca), most commonly referred to as "Orca Killer Whales" in Alaska feed exclusively on fish with their preference being salmon. However, transient killer whales eat mostly marine mammals and squid. The pod of Orcas that we found on our second day were transients and they were attacking and playing with a small sea lion. First, they play a game of "cat and mouse" then they hit it with their forceful fins and ram into it and bring the prey underwater and drown it, We watched as this happened over and over. At one point they lost the sea lion with all the splashing and commotion. This large adult rose out of the water as if to look around. It was an amazing wildlife experience.
Sony A1, 200-600mm lens, full frame.
A minimalistic view.
Next, we watched as Humpback Whales bubble-net fed over and over again. I especially like the image directly below as it shows the inside of their mouths and the baleen really well. Baleen is a filter-feeding system inside the mouths of baleen whales. To use baleen, the whale first opens its mouth underwater to take in water. The whale then pushes the water out, and animals such as krill are filtered by the baleen and remain as a food source for the whale. Wikipedia
No trip to the Inside Passage would be complete without a whale tail.
A minimalistic view.
We also visited Anan Creek, located 30 miles southeast of Wrangell on the Tongass National Forest. It is a very popular spot for black bears as they feed on salmon. We did see one brown bear along with lots of black bear and about 20 eagles. There is a viewing platform and a photo blind. We were blessed with many bear sightings. I’ll share some of those images later.
During our cruise we visited a glacier, saw icebergs and lots and lots of pine trees. Sorry to make this so short but I’m still in Alaska and plan on shooting some more bears this afternoon in Ketchikan.
