Our two-week odyssey from Sitka to Vancouver began with a calm, gray morning. Clouds wisped through the coastal mountains of Southeast Alaska and set a peaceful, ethereal mood for the morning’s cruise. Haida Cultural Interpreters Gidinjaad (Dee Dee Crosby) and Barbara Wilson sang an enchanting melody of gratitude as humpback whales approached, their voices seeming to harmonize with the powerful exhales from the whales’ blowholes.
The afternoon’s highlight was Zodiac cruises, during which wildlife stole the show. The Inian Islands, situated at the northwestern edge of Alaska’s inside passage, are among the planet’s great wildlife hotspots. The Zodiac I piloted was witness to Steller sea lions performing an aquatic ballet, sea otters zipping through the kelp forest, and bald eagles fending off glaucous wing gulls for scraps of rockfish torn apart by other predators.
We then gathered in the lounge in anticipation of National Geographic Explorer Mike Libecki (on assignment with National Geographic) and his evening program. Our photo expeditions with National Geographic Explorers provide an in-depth look at the planet’s most extreme and fragile biomes, and the ship teems with anticipation as we await Mike’s tales of adventure at the edges of the world.
