Georges Island, Elfin Cove, Inian Islands
How do we keep up? Southeast Alaska this week has offered up wonders every single day, and at times it can feel like there is no way to keep pace, keep attention, keep keen enough to take it all in. Let me say, this is a splendid and magnificent dilemma.
This morning, we woke to calm seas and clear skies at our anchorage by Lemisure Island. Early risers on the bow were treated to parasitic jaegers powering into the air and scattered groups of sea otters paddling in Idaho Inlet. “Can you believe it?” one after another of us asked, “This weather! This view!” The Fairweather Range was out, its craggy peaks spiking up from sea level to over 15,000 feet. In sunglasses and short sleeves, we gawked.
The National Geographic Sea Bird anchored in Granite Cove, a protected nook on George Island. Here, we set off to explore the trails, shores, and kelp beds of this beautiful spot. Some were even so drawn by the day’s beauty that they plunged into the sea itself. Brisk, to be sure, but the bright day quickly warmed them post-swim. After being given insight by local entrepreneur Shirley into what life is like in Elfin Cove, a community with a winter population of under 50, we tromped along the small town’s boardwalks.
There can be no doubt that the highlight of today was a Zodiac cruise that we took through the Inian Islands. Right off the ship’s stern, things got interesting. Alongside a low, tidally-exposed rock, a family drama was unfolding. A trio of sea otters—mother, pup, and male—were intensely engaged. The pup was big, almost as long as its mother, yet it was still nursing. The male was biting the mother’s nose and rolling with her in the water, trying to entice her to mate. All the while, these generally silent mammals were crying out. Plaintive, awful sounds that held us rapt. Not wanting to interfere, not sure of who to wish well, we continued on.
In South Inian Pass, we cruised along whirling eddies peppered with pelagic cormorants and steep rocks laddered by the soft forms of Steller sea lions. At times boisterous, at times relaxed as someone in a sauna, the sea lions were in their element, and it’s quite possible that they knew it. Only humpback whales could pry us from watching them… spouts shone in the early evening light of Cross Sound, and a young, boisterous humpback rolled, kicked, and even breached nearby.
Honestly, there are days that feel so rich, so chock-full of wonder, that it’s hard to imagine how it can all be contained between such a regular and predictable thing as the rising and the setting of the sun. I didn’t even mention the sea otter on a rock (a sea otter out of the water!), the puffins (both horned and tufted!), the minke whales, the harbor porpoise charging along as if chasing after a train, the kelp beds, the red mouths of pigeon guillemots crying above mussel beds, the schools of fish leaping, and the sunset itself: peach, gold, and deep plum shining on the water and interrupted only by the backs and breaths of humpback whales feeding near Pt. Adolphus.
