Otters, raptors, bears, and more

The day began with dramatic views of the shoreline, along with a few brief whale sightings.

Whale sighting from cruise ship.

Our planned excursion promised to take us to a bear refuge, then a raptor rehabilitation center, and finally a boat trip to see sea otters.

The bear refuge was built from the remains of a paper mill shut down by the EPA in the 1970s. They housed mostly brown bears that had been orphaned by human activity.

The refuges were nice enough, but the real treat was the boat ride. First, we saw salmon leaping into the air all over the sea. As we approached a hatchery, the captain spotted a bear, which we watched for a while before edging even closer to the hatchery and finding another bear.

Just before finding a third huge brown bear, we passed by some eagles perched in the magnificent trees.

From here we headed out to open ocean where we found a humpback whale, which we watched feed and dive three times. 

Humpback whale feeding.

Finally, we came upon some sea lions on a buoy and then a raft of sea otters. 

The excursion lasted at least an hour longer than I expected, 5 1/2 hours!  We were late for our dinner with Judy and Eliza, unfortunately. They had already been seated and so we went to the buffet, which was pretty good. Hunger is a good spice, as they say.

After dinner we went to the Wheelhouse bar to listen to some music while the ship set on its way up to the Hubbard Glacier.

This morning we have “moderately choppy” seas, but this behemoth vessel barely moves. I can’t image we will see much through the rain, except that the weather varies throughout the day. So, we might get lucky.