Ice boulder rolling down a cliff

 This was at Northwestern Glacier, and it was the coolest thing to watch it roll down the hill.  Will it make it to the bottom?

The second Aleutians trip!

I'm nearing the end of my rotation on the ship, and this trip from Dutch Harbor has been a great one.  There were foxes in Dutch harbor that I saw.

I think this is an arctic fox.

Here is a Laysan Albatross that we saw just after Dutch.  The weather was pretty crappy for a few days, and we had some rain and lots of wind.

Here's a female Harlequin duck

And some rain on the grass

And in the shumagain islands there were a lot of otters on land, with this mama hauling her baby around with her.

A nice Pidgeon gillemot

This is a Whiskered Auklet, but sadly I didn't get a good picture of it as it was flying away.

I had two eagles screaming.

An otter looking cute

And as we came to Wide Bay, the weather got really nice.  We had two bears as we came into the bay

I love the mountains around that bay

Residual swell made for nice waves

I got to hike up this hill, and it was beautiful

Here's a shot of Dai Mar and Carrie coming to shore

I'm not sure of this flower, but I like how they look

The mountains!

I found a Rock Ptarmigan up the hill.

Are these Forget-me nots?    

I found two bears on that hike, and got as close as I could.  It was a mamma and a cub.

The Lupine are blooming and it is amazing

And the ship as I was coming back from an afternoon skiff tour.

On my skiff tour there was a little lake I went over and looked at, and it was quite charming

When we went to Kukak Bay, we had a great experience with a bear.  This bear was resting in the meadow and we walked over to look at it.  

After watching him sleep for about 30 minutes, he got up and started eating grass about 80 ft away from us.

He got closer, to about 70 or 60 ft, and we eventually headed back.

There was also a moose that walked across the beach near us at the same time.

At Kodiak we had some tufted puffins in a cave

And more lupine

And at Northwestern Glacier we had amazing calving.  Almost nonstop pieces falling all over the place.

A few big ones too.

And when they hit the water it was really cool.

 

First Aleutian Islands trip

I made it to the Aleutian Islands!  I'm the furthest west in Alaska that I've ever been, and I've been having a great time exploring new areas on this trip.  The above photo is from the Chef, Brendan.

The trip started in Seward.  We got folks onboard and headed out into the Gulf of Alaska for a short dip until we rounded the corner to go into Kenai Fjords National Park.  There are glaciers in those fjords, and we cruised one (Aialik) then went to another to kayak and skiff tour (Holgate).  Then we headed further west overnight.  We found some Orca that evening.

There were Double Crested Cormorants on some rocks to see as well.

Here's a view of some of the headlands we passed around to go looking into the fjords.

And there were a lot of valleys that looked very interesting for looking into

Here's the orcas

And then we found more orcas later on that evening.

The next day we got to Kodiak, and anchored in Foul Bay.  It was foul weather and we were hiding from high winds and rain, but we went on bushwacks and kayaks and skiff tours anyway.  I found a fox roaming the beach.

That evening we crossed the strait to Katmai National Park, and I found a Northern Fulmar

In Kukak bay, (in Katmai) we found some Brown bears

And some Sea otters

And then went for a walk with some other Brown Bears

And here's an eagle nesting on the ground.  It was strange to see this, but as we went west, I have found that this is a more common thing.

From Kukak, we headed to Wide bay.  It was a pretty rough night getting there, so most folks were tired, but we found it was a gigantic bay with tide flats that are miles long.  We anchored in the middle of the bay and it was not very appetizing.  After a skiff tour around the place, we moved to the southern entrance to the bay and found this.

The green on the cliffs is easy walking moss and heather, springy and soft, and not too deep.  It is fantastic.  

We sent everyone ashore for the afternoon and it was very nice.  This is also where I found the caribou antler.

There were a lot of bears there, and I saw 11 from the skiff tour in the morning, and walked around with a few of them in the afternoon too.

The bears are big and pretty bold.

The hills around the bay are amazing, with lots of sedimentary rock layers

And the green hills and cliffs are the same

We found a fox here too

I found a plover nest on the beach before we left.

This is a photo from the crossing from Kodiak to Katmai

The next day we headed to Aliakchak bay, which is more affected by the ocean swells, and it was really windy, but clear.  The wind blows from the north as a Bering Sea overflow, so it is strong.  Its kind of like the north winds in Baja.  Except very cold.  We explored a lagoon, and I did a skiff tour over to the main river, but it was shallow and hard to make it up with the skiff.  I did see some Long Tailed Ducks

Here's another shot of that

That afternoon we cruised and found a group of Fin whales.

The Fin whales were lunge feeding.  It was windy but beautiful

Another shot of the fins

We went around Castle Cape, which looks like a castle.

After that we headed to Unga Island.  Its amazing there.  Its part of the Shumagan group, and the weather was great.  We explored the arch and found thousands of Puffins

There is also an abandoned village there, and we got to have a look.

Here are a few sea lions lounging.

And some Red-Faced Cormorants

Lots of Common Murre also

Here's the Puffins

We also found some foxes.  This one was very soulful

And we are out of the land of trees, so also out of the land of Marbled Murrelets.  But there are lots of Ancient Murrelets instead!

The Mountains around here are amazing, and a lot of them are volcanoes

This is mt Pavlof

Then we went to King Cove, and drove around all the roads there in search of adventure.  This is Mt Dutton, which is behind the town.

On the way out from there we passed by Unimak Island, which is the first actual Aleutian Island, and got a view of the volcano there, Shishalden.  It was really beautiful.

The next morning as we passed into Akutan, we had some Laysan Albatross 

They were whipping past the boat 

I really like the look of the wings

When we were in Akutan we found some otters

And a Tufted Puffin, but not in breeding plumage

There were some older berries in the heather

And some Lupine

I found a Rock Sandpiper nest

And some willows

We got to Dutch Harbor and did town tours and things yesterday.  From here, we have a day to get ready, and then head back towards Seward tomorrow.