After beginning the trip with three days of rain, we had another beautiful day at sea. Whoever scripted this trip did a wonderful job.
This final day would take us first to Pavlof Harbor, named by 19th-century Russian fur traders. Near Freshwater Bay and Chichagof Island, it was an important supply area. The area is becoming well-known for bear watching, and that's what we were hoping for. In the afternoon, we'd transit back through Chatham Strait, on wildlife watch the whole time.
Another map.... Making our way back down.
A lovely sunrise. And I woke with a screaming headache. I hoped to keep it to myself, but the wellness instructor saw it in my eyes, as did one of my passengers. Well, I hoped the medicine would work, and by the time we left on the zodiacs, I was feeling a little better.
Which was great because there was lots to explore! Here's a salmon skeleton.
And I found a small dungeness crab. I thought it was a molt, but it had gills.
We and another small group waited patiently. Bears had been out earlier that morning. The waterfall is where we expected to see them, if they came fishing.
But the birds were out in force, gorging themselves on dead salmon.
Salmon eggs! I found two fish by the shore that still had eggs.
They're quite pretty. I'm not a big fan of eggs, of any variety, and I have had these, last year during our meeting in a First Nations' community in British Columbia.
And just as I was showing folks the eggs, out came a bear! There he is, on a rock at the front of the waterfall. Too bad I didn't have the bigger camera.
This one's harder to see, but he's climbing the waterfall with a salmon in his mouth. Salmon are so plentiful here that the bears are picky; they often take just a few bites, usually eating eggs, skin, or heads, before they toss them away and get another. This bear did that once or twice, then took a whole fish up the waterfall and away. But from the above photo, you see how close we really are....
Oh, just some details about the ship for those of you who are interested.
It's small by cruise ship standard, but I do prefer this style. While the odd cabins went for their bear viewing time, I lay in a dark room, hoping to feel better. It didn't work. The wellness instructor and I had a date after lunch to try the foam roller.
But before we could get started, a lifelong dream of mine came true. We sailed into a small pod of orcas.
These are two males. They seemed to be playing for a while, but we didn't really get any fun behaviors, aside from a couple of tails. There was also a mother and calf. And a few other orcas. But one passenger did catch a bit of orca porn in a photograph! I saw pink, watching as I was through the binoculars, as was the wellness specialist next to me, but she wasn't sure we'd really seen what she thought we'd seen.... We had.
Inspiring. The guides lowered the hydrophone, but the pod wasn't really talking. Nevertheless, we had orcas for more than an hour. This will stay with me a very long time. It's right up there with swimming with sea turtles.
Amazingly the foam roller did work, and I felt like a new person by dinner! Thank goodness. It was a lovely final meal, and most folks retired early to get packing. I spent a little time with a couple of the guides, just chatting. Eventually I conceded defeat too and gave in to reality, although I wasn't excited about it.
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