Orca Inlet & on to Juneau by air

We were exceedingy grateful that Friday dawned clear and sunny. We were flying out to Juneau in the afternoon, so this morning was and the last chance to take our much anticipated – and much delayed – wildlife boat tour on the Orca Inlet.

After another light breakfast (ahem), we loaded up in a van and drove to the Port of Cordova to board our boat.  (It was low tide, so the boat couldn’t dock at Orca Ldoge boat ramp.)

It was interesting to be chugging out through all those fishing boats, large and small, that we had been eyeing from land all week. Very few boats had left the harbor, since the Fish & Game folks had not yet called “time” on commercial fishing for the giant runs of salmon returning to the area to spawn.

Our route took us from the Cordova Harbor northwest down the Orca Inlet, then around Hawkins Island to dock back at Orca Lodge (4 hours later, when the tide was in).

The day was bright, but not balmy.

The waters just outside Cordova harbor were filled with sea otters. I’m sure the presence of fish canneries operating on the dock had nothing to do with the abundance of these little opportunists.

We came across of pair of Harbor Seals jockeying with one another for the prize perch on a bobbing buoy. Photographing these quarrelsome boys was a challenge, since their antics literally kept rocking the boat. Most entertaining!

The temperature stayed chilly, but we could duck into the boat’s cabin periodically to get out of the wind.

 Our Captain, Boone, knew where the critters hung out and kept us mostly close the shoreline.

Bald eagles were present everywhere. We started thinking of them as Alaska’s pigeons.

Purple orange seastars clinging to the tideline.

We encountered a colony of  adult and juvenile harbor seals near the end of Hawkins Island.

Can you spot the bald eagles?  There are 5 perched in trees in this shot.

Our most unexpected encounter was a coastal brown bear with her 2 very young cubs sheltering at the back of Simpson Bay.

We came across a raft of otters, including moms floating on their backs (as otters do) with rambunctious babies clutched to their chests. There was a lot of otter rolling – some pups just did not want to stay put.

Those specks in the water are the sea otters – dozens of them, some washing their faces like cats.

And a grand time was had by all!

Back at the Orca Lodge, we relaxed in the sunshine over lunch from the Whale’s Tale coffee shop (located in the former cannery building), enjoying our last glimpses of those gorgeous dockside views.

After lunch, we drove back to the Mudhole Smith Municipal Airport to ditch the rental land boat and board our 3:22pm flight to Juneau – really two 30 minute flights separated by a stop in Yakutat.  On the first leg of this commuter flight, the crew outnumbered passengers.

Cruising at airplane height transports one to a different realm, where the vast icefields of the Coast Mountains loom like the Wall of the North in Westeros (Game of Thrones, for the uninitiated).

Yakutat is a Tlingit-Eyak community perched on a peninsula of relatively flat land.  The name means “Place where the canoes rest.”  We spent about an hour on the runway, but couldn’t see much beyond the tiny airport.

Up in the air again, we flew right over the Fairweather Range and Glacier Bay, destination point for hundreds of Alaska cruise ships. I counted half a dozen giant cruise ships and about 25 smaller boats tootling around in the bay as we flew over.

Juneau is part of the Alexander Archipelago, a 300 mile long group of islands (or peaks of submerged mountains, to be geographically accurate).  Juneau lies along both sides of the Gastineau Channel, a relatively narrow inlet separating the mainland from Douglas Island, site of our Juneau home-from-home.

Bright and friendly airport with lovely art, like this installation using native forms to represent native birds.

Our rental house was right across the Channel from downtown Juneau, with marvelous views both ways. 

And so we settled in for a week-long stay in our very quirky rental house (more about those quirks in a later blog).