![]() ![]() They were floating on their backs, flipper feet turned up, front paws holding fish or wiping white, whiskery faces. The day before, I had passed a half dozen on my way across Resurrection Bay to Fox Island. Meanwhile, the still reaches of the fjord harboured seals and their pups serenely lying on drift ice.īut the most endearing creatures were the sea otters. The great glacier at its end shimmered an intense shade of blue and we sailed close enough to see and hear boulders of ice thundering from it as the frozen river met the sea. We moved on past rocks draped with sleeping sea lions into the Northwestern Fjord. Yet at the end of the boat trip a park ranger told me, with an annoying shrug, that my wildlife sightings were "just normal".Ī little later, we found ourselves amid a large pod of orcas, and then we had our first sighting of a humpback whale – with calf. Alaska appeared to be showing off that day, producing a remarkable theatre of sea creatures along with a finishing touch of early summer sunshine. It remained silhouetted against the skyline for a few seconds, then the mighty mammal disappeared. We rounded the rock and, wham: the tail of a humpback whale rose majestically from the water just yards from us. ![]() ![]() Lined up along the ledge of an offshore rock, they looked absurdly like small waiters deferentially ushering us on to a formal event. Penguin-like, but in fact unrelated, these were murres or guillemots, and are genetically predisposed to meet and greet. The little black-and-white birds stood upright and bowed one after another as our boat passed. ![]()
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