Icy Strait Cruise

On  Saturday morning, we took one last Alaska boat ride, a 3.5 hour whale watching tour in the Icy Strait.

The Icy Strait lies between the Alaska mainland and multiple islands of the Alexander Archipelago. It’s the primary channel for water flowing between the Pacific Ocean and the northern Inside Passage, with currents and tides that concentrate feed for all kinds of marine life, including Humpback and killer whales, Steller sea lions, Dall’s porpoises and sea otters (in the kelp beds near islands).  It is a favorite spot for fishers, kayakers and wildlife watchers. 

We cruised around between Pleasant Island and Lemesurier Island, both part of the 23,000 acre Pleasant/Lemesurier/Inian Islands Wilderness Area. We departed from the public boat dock near Gustavus, on the good ship Taz, booked through the ever helpful folks at the Glacier Bay Country Inn.

Our captain was a grizzled veteran named Todd (unusual among all the youngsters piloting boats in these waters) and Sandy was our excellent interpretive guide. There was plenty of room on the boat and we were joined by 3 young women working for the NPS concessioner, plus our host, Curtis, and his young family. I thought it was sweet for Todd to allow the seasonals to ride gratis since they are certainly not paid enough to book a cruise on their own. Curtis and Todd clearly had a solid working relationship, sweetened by a gift of home-made donuts from the Inn’s excellent chef.

The whale watching was excellent: we saw more than two dozen humpbacks, with lots of tail flukes as they did deep dives. Two whales surfaced very near the boat and did a beautiful double dive – of course, all the photographers on the boat missed that action.

Pleasant Island is about 19,000 square miles with a human population of 1 (according to the 2000 census). The island is home to brown bears, Sitka black-tailed deer, marten, mink, land otter, red squirrels, ptarmigan, gray squirrels, grouse and gray wolves. The wolves apparently swam to the island and, according to Sandy, seem to be outstripping their food sources. She has seen otter carcasses with signs of wolf predation – and apparently otters are a bad-tasting food of last resort

These fishermen were stalked by an opportunistic bald eagle looking to snatch a catch from the air.

We also saw a pod of Stellar sea lions playing in the waves off Pleasant Island, followed by Glaucous gulls diving down to catch bits of fish splashing up from the sea lions’ feeding. No pix, sadly.

The young ladies had a good day (even if one spent most of the morning on her phone).

The Taz’s tiny head had some interesting potty reading.

How do you know if a woman has been looking at a computer?
There’s “white out” on the screen. Ha, ha
“You dumb hypocrites,” the woman replies. “You mock the half of humanity that makes your graceless existence bearable. Men should pause for one moment and take another long hard look at the very thing that brings meaning to their meaningless lives.” 

Outland, 1993
_{This installment of Outland was pulled by newspapers nationwide, fearing their readers would be offended. I miss Bloom County!}

A flock of Glaucous gulls was on hand to greet us back at the dock.