5/19/2023 (Friday)
As forecast, we woke up to more typical southeastern Alaska weather. It was cool, overcast, and drizzly. Our captain had made a good call by reversing the cruise direction to put us in Glacier Bay National Park early in the week, as this would have been the day we arrived based on the original schedule.
We chose a Tidepool Ecomeander as our morning activity. We departed the ship at 8:45 with Kelsie as our leader for the short shuttle to Wahlpole Island.
The timing was perfect, as we arrivied right at low tide and were able to find lots of Sea Stars, Sea Cucumbers, Barnacles, Limpets, Mussels, Sculpin, etc.
One fun thing was to stick the tip of your finger into a Green Anemone. They would close around it and kind of suck your finger.
We did see a couple of birds as well. Black Oystercatchers and Black Turnstones love to feed in the tidepools. They are the northern Pacific versions of the American Oystercatcher and Ruddy Turnstone that we have on the Gulf Coast of Texas.
It was a very rich area and we could have stayed for hours finding and identifying (or not) creatures. But the tides in Alaska are relentless and the entire time we were on-shore the tide was coming in. So after a couple of hours we headed back to the ship to relax and warm up.
Our afternoon activity was a Guided Kayak trip again with Kelsie. We circumnavigated Crow Island, which turned out to be quite a long paddle. Getting from the ship to the island, then all of the way around the island and back to the ship involved over two hours of paddling. We had a Humpback Whale blowing and surfacing around us for much of the first part of the trip. We saw several Bald Eagles and nests, also a Spotted Sandpiper, Belted Kingfisher and a group of Harlequin Ducks. With the drizzly weather there were a lot less pictures taken!
It was a good paddle and we stayed warm as we got plenty of exercise.
Next - Endicott Arm and Dawson Glacier
The tide pool identification looks like fun. The trip around the island sounds like fun too, but exhausting if you are out of shape like me.
ReplyDeleteThe tide pools were fun. There are some weird critters in the ocean.
DeleteKayaking wasn’t hard. We didn’t get into hard currents or waves. Of course, Mark does most of the paddling and I just enjoy the ride.