Thursday | May 12th
I missed Klemtu…terrific last time with the Oceanus three years ago. Captain Marce said she saw some Pacific white-sided dolphins at 3 a.m. Today lots of rain squalls, most of them light rain followed by brief bursts of sunshine. Lovely scenery that grows on you…endless mountains and glacial fjords, trees and waterfalls, eagles and inlets….
Right at the time that Lauri was to give a talk on the Tongass National Forest we arrived in Butedale. Bosun was to take Randall out for pictures…Randall forgot his pics and I jumped on board to do a plankton tow with the net that Jacqui gave us for the season…another reason I really like her and wish we’d cross paths again soon. We end up going over and talking to the two caretakers that have been on Prince of Wales island for a long time. Fun to see the dilapidated old cannery started in 1902 with a very cute stocky orange cat named “Tiger”.
We give them the very tasty breakfast burritos we had earlier and some of the fabulous bread that Lee cooks up for us every day. Then we invite them onto the ship. Bosun then drove Randall and I for some pictures of the waterfall and I do my plankton tow and put them in Petri dishes and have the passengers enjoy in the 20X and 40X of the stereoscopes.
Ron gave a talk to the passengers for ½ hour or so and we said our goodbyes and it was fun to be a part of the dignitary group…reminded me of the chiefs of Ifaluk in the south pacific 3 years ago as well. I feel I’ve reached a certain maturity and it is fun to be on the Bridge. Before lunch, I grabbed the microphone and thanked the Captain, Chief Mate, Bosun, E.L. and Hotel Manager for their flexibility and for bringing us this serendipitous expedition stop and announced the new map on the wall that Randall and I put up, as we finished the previous one.
Beautiful rain squalls for more pictures and a project just before the rain of putting together all of our tents this morning going through all of our first aid kits and labeling items….
I gave a talk on the natural history of the 3 bear species in alaska and what to do around bears. Entertaining and I also showed some slides of my program on the Great Bear Wilderness of the Kermode/spirit bear with some of my slides from Katmai. Mentioned Timothy Treadwell from Grizzly Man.
Pass Prince Rupert at 11:30 and we will enter the State of Alaska soon after passing through the testy waters of Dixon Entrance, lasting 4 hours
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Tags: Adventure, Adventure Blog, Adventure Travel, Alaska, Alaska Cruise, Grizzly Bear, Grizzly Man, InnerSea Discoveries, Katmai, Timothy Treadwell, Tongass National Forest, Travel, Travel Blog
