Final Alaska Week

 What a week!  My favorite week of the season!  Also my last week of the season.  I started it out by going for a hike in Ketchikan, and I managed to find a little meandering river that was chock full of salmon. 

 It winds around through a cool little canyon

 Then I had a nice kayak up the river at the highest tide I've ever seen at Walker Cove, and I got way up the river, further than I've ever got before.  There were some Harlequins up there, also lots of salmon, and a few bears, but I didn't see the bears.

 I did, however, find a bear in Anan Creek Bear Observatory, and got some nice close looks

 It looked back

 And here it is eating some Stink Curant Berries. 

 Then we went to the Keku islands, and I got a skiff tour, and found about 60 whales that went about their business around me

 Also a Common Murre

 Then we took everyone out cruising for critters and found the whales, an elephant seal, and finally, Orca! 

 Here are some shots of them!  They hung out with us for a long time, we stopped, shut down the main engines and sat dead in the water for about 45 minutes and they circled and looked at us a while.  When we finally started up again and began to move off they began to slap their pectoral fins as if to tell us not to go, or to wave us goodbye

 The next day was Robert and Crow and I got another skiff tour and found more whales

 The whales got real close

 and some of our kayakers came out and the whales passed close to them as well.

 Here is some whale poop.  Its mostly krill, I think, because of the color.

 And a nice look at some tubercles

 Then we went to Dawes glacier again, and found some seals

 and then we had a really cool calving, where the ice hit the water and then a gigantic plume of spray went way way up, almost twice the height of the glacier

 More seals on ice

 That evening, we had some northern lights.  A perfect way to end the trip

 Here's another shot of it.

So I'm done for the season, and then I'll go begin driving down for my wintertime of playing in mexico