Wednesday, July 15^th

Idaho Inlet, AK

• Giant vegetables are common in Alaska due to the extremely long days in summer. Alaska has grown a record cabbage weighing in at 94 pounds. Think of the size bowl you’d need to make coleslaw out of that thing!

• The downside of long days in Alaska is it messes with the heads of nocturnal animals. It’s hard to sneak up on your prey if it’s still light out at 2:00am.

This morning Mary & I opted for a skiff tour thru Idaho… Inlet, while Debbie went kayaking with Nancy. With forest-covered mountains surrounding us, we headed up the watery inlet in search of more fauna, less flora. No sooner had we left the mother ship, when we saw a breech. Then another and another – unfortunately, all from 18” salmon leaping out of the water, not 40’ whales! This area was packed with salmon, which could mean bears, eagles and other large critters that feed on these tasty fish, so we were all on high alert. We did spot a deer on the water’s edge, and multiple bald eagles standing majestically in the tall trees, but nothing larger than that.

After a while, Pam, the captain of our Zodiac style boat, noticed a tall dark ‘thing’ sticking out of the water, far ahead. And then a second one. Being so far away, she wasn’t sure if what she saw was what she thought she saw. The tall dark things turned out to be the 5’ tall dorsal fins of 2 male orcas slicing thru the cold water, heading straight towards our little rubber boat. COOL!! (No CJ, really!) Casually approaching us, they split off on either side of the boat, giving everyone a great view, and no doubt some sort of plan of attack – while we’re photographing from the port side, the other slips up on the starboard side and takes a bite. What a graceful creature these are in the wild. Far better than to see them here in Alaska than leaping up to splash kids holding ice cream cones & cotton candy while sitting in the front row at certain amusement parks.

2015 Alaska-1429 Moving in for the kill?

2015 Alaska-1443 One of two orcas passing close by our little rubber boat

With such a long dorsal fin, we would watch them approach as the fin would start to ‘grow’ from the surface of water, reaching its full 5-6’ height, then with a quick exhalation and a slight puff of water, they’d gracefully slip away. We stayed with them for quite a while, watching as they swam ahead of our boat, we then would catch up, only to have them disappear again as they sank back into the water. When they last appeared and were again heading straight towards or little rubber dingy, they passed within 20-25 feet of us – so close in fact, my camera lens had too long a focal length to fully capture them. It’s times like this I don’t know whether to snap off as many frames as possible, or put the camera down and enjoy the actual scene playing out in front of me.

Our afternoon was equally exciting as we passed thru both Icy Straits and Chatham Straits. Since the beginning of the cruise, both Mary & I were always on the lookout for whales and the possibility of seeing bubble-net feeding. If it were to happen, this was the area it could happen in – there were whales everywhere. Bubble net feeding is a group effort feeding behavior, not commonly seen unless you’re on a big cruise ship with Rich & CJ, who have now seen it twice! During this feeding frenzy and while being directed by a matriarch, the whales swim around in a giant circle burping out bubbles that trap schools of herring in their ‘bubble-net. Once a complete circle of bubbles is formed around the school, the whales come up from the bottom with mouths wide open and engulf the trapped fish, sucking up 1000’s of pounds of fish at a time. Humpback whales are able to extend their mouths so wide when they do this, you could easily fit a large car inside.

Even though we didn’t see any of this activity, we watched a close cousin to it - lunge feeding. During lunge feeding, a single whale swimming on its side will extend its mouth near a school of herring or krill and take in a huge gulp of water, while lunging at them (I perform a similar feeding activity around Chrissy’s fresh baked monkey bread). Once they've gulped in this massive amount of water and food, they close their mouths and filter the water out thru their baleen, trapping the food. For about 30 minutes, we watched as numerous whales all around us were noshing on the tiny crustaceous krill. 

2015 Alaska-1706 The whale's mouth wide open, sucking in the krill. The hairy looking stuff is the baleen

Standing on the deck of the boat with the engines shut down, it was so quiet you could easily hear the non-feeding whales as they came to the surface to breath, exhaling a puff of trapped water and then sliding back down into the icy cold water.

Along with making a fast friendship with Nancy & Susan, we also hung with Mark & Barb, from Colorado, and the 7 of us made a name for ourselves while on-board. At dinner tonight, the we all ended up discussing the merits of Ira Glass vs. Garrison Keillor. Interesting how these NPR-listening, kale & quinoa-eating, Birkenstock-wearing, Prius-driving, marriage equality-loving, left-leaning, Fair Trade-buying, Animal rights-marching, Affordable Care Act-appreciating travelers (phew!), who where unknown to each other just a few days ago, would automatically gravitate to each other and then start talking about their political views.