Cruise — Day 05 — Sitka 



Ship's Time — 21:15 (Tuesday, June 13, 2006).
Ship's Position — Somewhere southeast of Sitka (guessing 60 or so miles — Navigation info unavailable)

Pictures for this blog can be found here.

Well, we were out early this morning and surprised that despite having a forecast calling for cloudy, cool conditions, we had another Chamber of Commerce day for our exploration of Sitka. On tap for today was the "Captain's Choice" Wildlife Quest and Beach Trek (this is the replacement Shore Excursion because of Lynda's sore ankle). We rode the tender boats (life boats) into the pier from the ship to catch our little jetboat to go look for wildlife. There were only 16 on the tour, plus our captain, two naturalists and and their assistant, so we had lots of opportunity for personal attention for our questions and we didn't have to crowd in tight too hear what was being said. This is a very good proportion of crew to guests, and made for an enjoyable and informative three hour tour (Gilligan's Island theme plays softly in the background).

We had seen three adult and one juvenile bald eagles on way into the pier and we saw several on the early leg of the our tour and even a nest with an adult sitting in it. We also had several chances to hear eagles singing to each other — that scream they play on TV and in movies is actually a red-tailed hawk. We cruised the channels around the islands for about an hour, looking for more wildlife — Lynda spotted 2 Sitka Black-tailed Deer on the beach of one Island — saw more eagles, a sea otter (maybe, maybe not), Lion's Mane Jellyfish drifting in the water by the boat (looked like white ghosts pulsing along under the surface as we idled by) and several different kinds of water birds.

We were let off on a remote beach with the naturalists. Beach might be a bit of a misnomer, as it was not sandy, but made up of a shattered slate-like rock and broken shells. The main naturalist (if you ever take the tour, pray you get Anne, she is good) was wading into tidepools and scrambling over the beach plucking up various sea stars, sea cucumbers, crabs and what-have-you and letting us all touch and handle them, get plenty of photos and enthusiastically telling us all we could want to know about them. We then cut across the little point we were on through the woods for a different experience. They only have about 6 species of trees up here, but something like 600 species of mosses, lichens, ferns and fungi, so it is a very diverse ecology. Walking through is like walking on a thick, springy carpet, for the trees are rooted in the old logs of fallen trees (called nurse trees), so you are actually walking on old rotting wood and thick covering of moss. There are mosses and ferns growing on everything, above you, around you and underfoot.

After another hour on the beach, the captain brought the boat in to the new beach we had walked to and picked us up for the hour-long ride back to Sitka. On this leg we did see a sea otter mom and her pup and a Minke Whale fairly close in, right in front of us. Whales don't usually come back into these channels, so we were very lucky to see a whale on this trip. More eagles on the way back to the pier and even a few comorants, so we got to see lots of wildlife, including two (the deer and the whale) that the naturalist said are rarely seen.

We were on-shore a couple more hours, so we grabbed some lunch right off the tender jetty at BayView Restaurant. They have really good burgers, and if you are in Sitka, try them out; and order the onion rings, really really good. They are at 407 Lincoln Street, a little over a block from the pier on your right. Downstairs from the restaurant, we stopped in at Goldsmith's gallery to look at jewelry and art glass works. Lynda wound up buying some jewelry, and I just looked on while she shopped.

We caught the tender back to the boat and got online to deal with email and such and to send up the previous day's blog. While I was sitting out on the verandah, an eagle swooped by close enough for me to hear the wind in his feathers, but my camera was back in the cabin in a drawer.Thought it was cool anyway, and a bit of an adrenaline rush. So far we have seen about all the wildlife I think we set out to see other than bear and moose, which we weren't likely to see and puffins which were supposed to be here, but were probably entertaining a different shore excursion than the one we were on. Oh well, get em on the next trip. We will be coming back!

We ate in the Lido and as we steamed south, we were treated to humpback whales surfacing real close to the ship; we're talking less than 200 feet. We could also see several blow-spouts of whales out to maybe a mile or so west of us. We ran back to the room to get the cameras, but all we saw were blow spouts about 2 miles out. That is until we shut the cameras off, then a big one surfaced about 250 feet from us. Figures... All together, maybe 30 whales in the waters off Sitka.

Well, we just goofed around in the onboard shops for a while and went to bed. Earlier day in Ketchikan tomorrow on the float plane trip to Misty Fjord! 

Posted: Wed - June 14, 2006 at 05:46 PM          

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