Puffins and Whales and Capt'n Davey ... (or Otters have it all figured out!!)

5:15pm Monday (ship's time) and well underway from Sitka, Alaska.

We just finished our self imposed 30 minutes of track time up on deck 10 and are settling in for a fairly long passage ... our next port is Victoria, Canada day after tomorrow at 3pm local ... so we have basically 2 days at sea to look forward to.

I had booked our Sitka excursion way back in April or May on the suggestion of another cruiser I met online at cruisecritic.com .  She suggested a very small operation named "Puffins and Whales" run by a young fellow named Davey Lubin.  I exchanged emails with Davey and discovered that his boat accommodates only 6 passengers and himself as captain.  This sounded like the kind of excursion  Carolyn and I prefer ... small and intimate.  Sitka is the only tender port on our cruise and Davey had suggested we get the first available tender to be sure we could make our 8:30am pickup ... well, telling me to "be early" is tantamount to telling a sled dog to run ... it really isn't necessary but we appreciate the encouragement. So ... Carolyn and I were the first passengers down to deck 3 when the tenders started running ... turns out ... we were the ONLY passengers down at the tenders when they started so we got our own private tender (they probably hold 50+ passengers) into the beautiful port of Sitka.  We arrived about 8am.

Capt'n Davey showed up about 8:15am and suggested we walk with him to get coffee ... as we strolled along we had a pleasant chat, exchanged family details and got to know each other a bit.  Davey has worked as among other things a deck hand on commercial fishing boats, a commercial diver, was educated in Idaho and nowadays spends his working like providing water taxi service around Sitka sound (there are many many small islands here) and the wildlife tours like ours.  He has an expansive knowledge of the local wildlife with an emphasis on water fowl and large sea mammals.  We ambled back to the dock and met the four other passengers booked on our 4 hour excursion  ... a grandmother and 3 granddaughters aged 11,13 and 15.  We boarded the "Ester G II" (named for Davey's grandmother) and off we went in search of wildlife of all kinds.

The Sitka sound body of water is very large and surrounds many small islands including the island of Sitka itself.  Today the water was like glass ... barely a ripple as far as one could see.  Davey was amazed at the sea conditions and said typically we would be experiencing 4-6 ft seas rather than the bathtub like water we had today.  The calm water made it fairly easy to both see and hear whenever a humpback whale would "blow" at the surface and gave us ample opportunity to locate and motor towards the creature as it would breach the surface 3 or 4 times before finally "showing tail" and diving deep  for several minutes.  We got several good pictures of these enormous animals as they fed on krill in the 450+ ft deep water.  It is hard to describe what it is like to be literally yards from one of these graceful behemoths in placid seas as they break the surface in a gentle swell of grey and see the geyser of water climb in the air knowing that shortly you will be rewarded with two incredible flukes waving to you as the creature dives deep to sweep thousands of krill into its mouth.  It is breathtaking.

After watching several whales and with a promise to return on our way back in Davey took us to St. Lazarious island.  This island is among many that are part of the federal game preserve in the area (there is a more official sounding name than game preserve but I can't recall that at the moment).  I can say without equivocation this is one of the most beautiful places I ever hope to see ... it has a raw and unscathed beauty one would expect to see in a pre-historic era.  There are spruce trees high above the water line, grasses flowing down the rocky cliffs, thousands of various water birds nesting in the vertical rock faces, star fish and anemones all along the waters edge and brilliant colors due to coral and sponges just at and below the waterline.  We have pictures to be posted because words cannot describe the absolute beauty of this very special place.  We spent a good bit of time slowly circling this 65 acre island just observing the interaction between the sea and the avian inhabitants.  There were hundreds of puffins, murres and auklets ... all water fowl of the area.

As we headed back towards Sitka we stopped at another small island to observe several harbor seals lounging on the rocks and swimming in the icy water... all very unconcerned about the tourists snapping pictures and pointing excitedly.

Of all the creatures we saw today I have to say that my personal favorites are the Sea Otters.  The Whales are magnificant, the Puffins are beautiful and the Seals are comical ... but to my mind the Otter has the perfect attitude.  We regularly saw several of these animals laying out on their backs, heads either resting on their chests or poking up observing their current situation basically thumbing their noses at the rest of the world.  The expression on their face is one of absolute disinterest ... basically they have staked out their patch of ocean for the current while and life is more than welcome to pass them by ... they simply don't seem to care.  A couple of times we would see one eating (still on its back and chomping away on whatever it had snagged for lunch) casting an unconcerned eye to the boat and crazy people snapping pictures of what it does every day .. all day .. as if to say ..."what's the big deal?? Nothing to see here ... nothing to see at all ..."  ... I am fascinated by these critters.

All to soon our four hours were up and Capt'n Davey dropped us off at the pier making a quick turn around to pick up his next 6 very lucky guests.

Finally a short note about Sitka ... the village of Sitka has approx 8,500 citizens all living on a spectacular piece of this planet that is almost unspoiled ... they have purposefully NOT built a large dock that can accommodate cruise ships because collectively the town does not want to turn into another "Skagway" where tourists out number the citizens almost every day during the summer.  The town itself looks very much like you might picture a small, quaint fishing village.  As we walked to get coffee with Davey it was clear the citizens know one another and genuinely care for each other ... they support each other by promoting local business over the "national chains" and seem very protective of the environment they are fortunate enough to call home.


Carolyn here - This has been an absolutely awesome trip.  We have had some thrilling adventure excursions,  seen unbelievable unspoiled scenery, and have been fortunate enough to view some of the really special creatures that call this part of the world home.  Of all the port calls we have made, Sitka was my favorite.  We may have had more excitement on some of our other excursions but the town itself is truly unique.  It reminds me of the fictional town of Cecily, Alaska on the TV show "Northern Exposure".  Everybody seems to know everybody else and the citizens seem to have a mutual goal - show the tourists a little glimpse of the last frontier that is Alaska but don't make it too convenient.  I have a hope of someday returning to Sitka, spend a week or so, and get to explore this wonderful little community.  Something to dream about in the future. 

In the mean time - on to Victoria and then shortly back to Texas.