Icy Strait
July 23-25


The Adolphus herd

Icy Strait.  Point Adolphus.  These are magical places of huge, friendly whale pods, exotic birds, frolicking sea otters, and the sweet, heady scent of millions of smelt.  Point Adolphus is one of the happiest places on earth, and I hadn't been there in eight years.  During the summers of 2000 and 2001 I traveled to Icy Strait two or three days a week, three hours a day of which I spent watching wildlife with independent travelers on the Auk Nu.  My crew and I had consistently amazing wildlife encounters there; I think I traveled the Juneau-Gustavus-Point Adolphus-Gustavus-Juneau route about 75 times those two years and dreamed od coming back some day on my own.  Eight years later I finally found myself in a position to go and was determined to do it.  My July was pretty booked up, so I put aside the only weekend still available in the hopes that the weather would cooperate.  My friend Dru agreed to accompany Chris and I on his own boat.

Gustavus is about twice as far away from Juneau as my homestead.  I filled my on-board gas tanks (15 gallons) and brought along an extra 20 gallons in jerry jugs and packed up food and camping gear in the days before we left.  Chris and I needed to be back in town by Saturday night, so we wound up leaving Thursday morning with the intent to camp out for two nights--one on Lemesurier Island in Icy Strait and one at the Couverdens.  It was going to be a bit of an adventure--Lynn Canal and Icy Strait can be big water and I'd never camped at either of these places and didn't know what to expect.  The forecast Wednesday night called for south winds and seas two feet or less in Stephen's Passage and up to three or four feet in Lynn Canal and Icy Strait.  Dru was going to launch from Auke Bay, we were going to launch from North Douglas, and planned to meet up near Shelter Island around 10:00am.  I got up and finished packing in the morning and hitched up the trailer and Chris and I took off on time at 9:00 am.  Unfortunately, that was right around low tide, which was -4.5', or just about as low as it gets.  When I pulled the boat around to the launch ramp at Douglas Harbor, the water level was below the end of the concrete ramp, revealing a relatively hard bottom below a three inch drop from the end of the concrete run.  I was not thrilled with the idea of pulling the boat up over that lip and was a bit worried about pulling it off.  But, adventures awaited, so we decided to give it a shot.  At that moment, the morning's drizzle turned into a truly torrential downpour which neither of us was really prepared for.  I backed the trailer down and we managed to arrange the boat after repositioning the trailer once.  I was pretty worried about getting it over the hump and put Trucky into low 4 wheel drive.  It made it up on the second try.  The rain had soaked the driver's seat (I had the window down while on the ramp), so I wound up with wet pants and Chris was wet from being out in the drenching rain.  It had been raining for days, and the boat was full of water up to the front seats.  I still hadn't fixed the bilge pump system and had put off bailing it out knowing that it could drain while it was trailored.  We took the plug out, tied it down, and headed for the North Douglas boat ramp.  During the drive I thought the boat looked a little funny and was simultaneously discouraged by watching a crack in my windshield migrate from the bottom middle over toward the driver side until it stopped right in the middle of my main field of vision.  When we pulled into the launch ramp and got out to prepare the boat for launching, we saw that the bow of the boat was unusually low and the front of the trailer inexplicably close to the ground.  We found out later that the wooden supports for the hull had broken, but I still don't know why the trailer was so close to the ground.  We'd intended to load the boat there, but decided we'd better get that boat in the water before the trailer collapsed entirely beneath it.  I backed it down, and only then realized that the boat had failed to drain out during the drive.  The opening was, of course, plugged with debris.  So I stopped just short of the water, got in the boat, and leaned over the back to stick my fingers in the hole; I cleaned out quite a few rocks and twigs and Chris helped bail with the bucket.  All of this put us a bit behind schedule, and I called Dru to let him know.  He was already out near Shelter and heading toward Admiralty to escape the swells. 

I had to clean out the drain hole a couple of times and the draining took so long that I also had to pull the boat up a few feet to avoid the rising tide.  Eventually we were able to slowly load the boat, put the plug back in, and launch at the very tail end of the dock.  I pulled up and parked the trailer on the bank below the highway and decided to use the portapotty one last time.  As I was pulling my pants back up I heard a clunk and a plop and knew instantly what had happened: my cell phone had slipped from my back pocket and died a watery death.  Although I didn't voice this in fear of jinxing myself, I secretly hoped that this sacrifice might help with wildlife encounters.  It certainly beat my normal offering of a splash of beer or whiskey in the ocean. 

So we weren't off to a particularly auspicious start and I was a little bummed about my trailer and my cell phone, but we headed out toward Shelter Island on the lookout for whales with beers in hand.  The day before there had been two groups of bubble net lunge feeding humpback whales in that area and I hoped to encounter them on the way north.  They'd been hanging around for days, so I was relatively optimistic and kept an eye out for groups of whale watching boats.  With wheel houses much farther off the water and a network of observers, commercial whale watching boats tend to spot things before I do.  I saw an Allen Marine boat heading south along the Admiralty shore, which seemed suspicious, but it dropped out of sight before I spotted anything interesting and I was already late for the rendezvous with Dru.  We slid through some swells from the south as we crossed over to Admiralty, but the seas diminished by the time we hooked up with Dru.  We touched base, checked the hand held radios, made a communication plan, and headed north.  At Faust Rock we stopped to check out the sea lions on the buoy and I glassed North Pass.  Three Allen Marine boats and several other boats were parked in there and at least three other whale watching boats had left that area heading south.  I thought that was a good sign, so Chris and I headed up there in the Ronquil while Dru stayed behind to troll near Point Retreat.  Ten minutes later we slowed down in the pass and watched for a while, but saw nothing but a pair of whales and a single whale near the boats a little farther north.  We turned and headed on our way, seeing some dramatic light displays over Admiralty.  Dru was reeling in a salmon when we arrived, but it turned out to be a pink.

From there we headed south along the shore of Admiralty Island about half way to Funter Bay, then crossed Lynn Canal (I was still hoping to catch any lunge feeders that might have ducked behind Admiralty).  The weather was cooperating and it was a fairly smooth crossing and not rainy.  On the Chilkat side we turned south again and suddenly came up on glassy smooth three foot swells around Point Howard, widely enough spaced that they were comfortable and even a little bit fun.  The farther south we headed, though, the worse the seas became until we were plowing through three and four footers with chop.  Dru's C-Dory was handling it better and he took the lead; we got a bit beaten up and took a few sloshes of green water over the bow (see photo to right of the Little Bitty behind a swell).  We cut between two islands and finally saw Rocky Island in the distance, near where we would turn into Icy Strait and hopefully put the swells behind us.

Chris impressively managed to nap a little in the passenger seat while we continued to bang and slide our way south.  In the distance I saw an occasional whale blow as I gritted my teeth from the pounding.  Among the islands, the height of the swells diminished somewhat, but were spaced tightly enough to slow us down.  As we pulled a little closer to Icy Strait, I began to see, periodically, what I thought was a clump of whale blows, maybe four or five together.  I didn't dare let my hopes up when I saw a white splash in the distance among the swells, but a few minutes later I saw it, the unmistakable silhouette of a group of bubblenetters lunging above the surface.  We were still at least half a mile away, so I didn't disturb Chris, who woke up on his own after a particularly unpleasant bump.  We passed Pt. Couverden and I called Dru on the handheld to let him know that we were going to hang out for a bit with the whales.  I needed to have the engine in gear to keep the bow pointed into the waves (which were 2-3 footers there) but we slowed to an idle.  Suddenly, about 100 feet away, the water turned light green and pectoral fins broke the surface moments before an enormous black head shot high above the water, followed by a less dramatic lunge next to him.  It was incredible, and quite an introduction to bubblenetting for Chris.  Welcome to Icy Strait.

We stayed in that area for about half an hour, mostly in the company of a Canadian sailboat, and watched the whales lunge about three out of four dives.  We did shut down a few times to listen for vocalizations through the hydrophone, but heard nothing.  It was a little tricky whale watching among the waves!  Eventually, the whales began heading farther into Lynn Canal and we turned and met up with Dru who'd been fishing and had several strikes already.  The seas were mercifully behind us and somewhat diminished as we turned and cruised along Home Shore.   As we turned around a point and faced Excursion Inlet I stopped in some calm water close to the mouth of a creek and filled up my 10 gallon gas tank, then we headed on past the  Porpoise Islands and into Icy Passage.  Only a few miles out of Gustavus the wind suddenly shifted and we ran into some brutal chop that was aggravating and slowed us down considerably.  Again the Little Bitty was able to handle the chop better and pulled ahead of us.  Soon the chop turned into tight 2-3 foot swells, rain came, and we lost Dru altogether.  I hailed him on the radio and he said he was already at the dock, which soon materialized in front of us.  It was about 5:00 pm and the charter boats were coming in, so we were worried that we wouldn't find a place at the small dock to tie up while we refueled.  Thankfully, the rush  was over and a few spots opened up after a couple of minutes; the only major activity on the dock was passengers boarding inflatable tenders back to a Cruise West ship anchored in the channel nearby.  Chris and I pulled in on the left, Dru on the right.  Chris stayed behind to watch the gear while Dru and I carried as many jerry jugs as we could handle up the ramp and down the veeeeeery long wooden dock, stepping into the pedestrian passing zones when trucks drove by.  I felt a little funny trudging by the steady stream of leisurely, well-dressed tourists while wearing my baggy fisherman's bib rain pants, xtratuffs, rain jacket, and hat (all soaking wet).  I confess I felt a bit smug, too; Juneau to Gustavus is a significant journey in a small, open boat.

At the end of the dock, Dru's friend had parked a yellow pickup for us to use to refuel.  We drove straight down the road to the gas station with its archaic 50s style pumps and struggled to get the credit card to work.  Dru wound up holding the handle on the gas nozzle up the entire time while I filled our seven jerry jugs of various sizes.  We fueled as quickly as possible as I still had some traveling to do and was anxious to get underway; Dru was spending the night in town with his friend.  On our way back we stopped briefly at the mercantile where I bought a soda for Chris and Dru accidentally met up with his friend.  I admit I could have been friendlier, as I was losing steam and eager to get back to the dock.  It had been a very long day, we still had a significant ride to Lemesurier Island, and I didn't know whether the brutal chop we'd encountered approaching the dock would hold.  I admit that I considered finding a place to camp nearby on Pleasant Island to avoid the crossing.

Dru and I left the mercantile and drove down the long dock to the ramp (this time making the tourists step aside for us), then lugged the jerry jugs down to our boats.  Chris drove the truck back to dry land while I followed Dru out to the mooring area nearby to pick him up after he anchored.  His anchor didn't catch the first time and he had to let out a bit more line.  I took him back to the dock, completely exhausted, and picked up Chris.  As we puttered away from the dock, I asked Chris what he wanted to do.  As always, he had the right answer.  "Is that your favorite island in the world over there?" he asked, gesturing toward Lemesurier.  "Yes" I answered meekly.  "Then let's camp there!"  He'd picked up a second wind while at the dock which helped rally my flagging spirits.

So off we went toward Lemesurier Island.  Lemesurier is my favorite island in the world, but I hadn't yet set foot on it.  I couldn't even remember exactly why I liked it so much, but we almost always cruised by its northern shore and sometimes circumnavigated it before we visited Point Adolphus on Icy Strait wildlife trips.  It left a dramatic impression and I used to tell my crew that if I could own only one island in the world, it would be Lemesurier.  As we headed west, I was relieved to find Icy Strait flat calm, but visibility dropped and soon Lemesurier was entirely out of sight.  It was the first time that I've really put my boat's compass to good use.  About half way across the entrance to Glacier Bay, a corner of the island came into view, then gradually the rest of it emerged from the mist.  Just as we entered North Passage between Lemesurier and the mainland we passed over an area of boiling, turbid ocean, huge circular upwellings that jostled us as we passed.  And then there it was--the long gravel beach where we used to watch deer.

It had been eight years since I'd seen this beach, and I didn't know what to expect in terms of camping!  Also, although the wind that day had so far been mostly from the south, I wasn't sure that a breeze might not wend itself around the islands or a north wind kick up and grind my boat against the beach all night (it wasn't particularly sheltered).  The chart showed evenly spaced rocks all along the beach but I didn't remember seeing a continuous reef there and the chart is not large enough to include much detail, so I hoped we'd find a spot suitable for the boat.  Everyone I talked to suggested camping on the south side of the island and seemed puzzled when I suggested the north side, but I was determined to try this beach, knowing that conditions could force us well beyond it in search of a more adequate or sheltered cove for the night.

It was calm when we arrived and scoped it out.  Looking up the rugged valley in the middle of the cove (which is somewhat reminiscent of picturesque mountains in Chinese paintings) I began to remember why I liked this island so much. I looked for deer but found none.  We were facing some dramatically high tides and wanted to make sure we didn't get flooded that night, so we looked for a place with room to camp off the beach.  At the westernmost corner of the cove we found a beautiful pebble/sand beach free of rocks on the approach with a smooth, steep slope up from the water and a border of grass at the edge of the forest.  A big rocky point swept out from the west side of it and a large kelp bed grew along the east side of it inhabited by several sea otters.  As we pulled up to the beach I was stunned by the clarity of the water, beyond anything in the Juneau area.  I could see 20 or 30 feet down with complete clarity.  We unloaded the boat, hauled our gear to the top of the beach, and anchored it, throwing a second anchor off the stern to help keep the boat in deep water during the tide.  It was drizzling and the noseeums were pestering us and I admit that I began to wonder if I was crazy to go out on a camping trip in the rain like this.

But, we put on bug dope and set about getting camp in order.  We saw seaweed pushed up against the edge of the grass at the top of the beach, so decided that camping on the sand was out of the question.  Chris pitched the tent in the grass and I got ready for dinner and tromped into the forest to look for firewood.  The forest looked like second growth--no underbrush to speak of and an endless supply of dryish dead branches ideal for fires.  I grabbed an armful, cleared an area on the beach of fetid, sandflea ridden seaweed, and dug a little fire pit.  Using a bit of cardboard from a cracker box we got a fire going immediately, poured ourselves some red wine, and sat down in our camp chairs for a moment.  I immediately cheered up.  With a little crackling fire and a broad sweep of beach and ocean in front of me, I felt a bit less crazy.  There were no signs that other campers had used the area.

 But we were pretty hungry.  We broke out Chris's new amazing propane camping stove (with two burners that start at the push of a button) and I managed to slowly cook a big chunk of halibut a friend had given us and some bisquick biscuits.  The drizzle had ceased and we even saw some sunshine lighting up the tops of the trees above camp.  We made a couple more trips into the woods for firewood, but mostly sat on the beach and chatted.  Once we saw a huge splash over toward Glacier Bay and heard the crash a ridiculously long time later.  I wound up drinking a bit too much wine.  After dark we stumbled our way into the tent for the night and I quickly passed into oblivion. 

But not for long!  I slept well and was super comfortable all night, but I did wake up many times.  Every time I was awake and drifting off to sleep I heard a continuous stream of whale blows from whales passing by and lingering in the cove.  There were crashes that I expected were breaches, often following a blow that sounded like a fog horn.  In my sleepiness I came up with a theory that Hootie (as we used to call an Adolphus whale (or probably several) that blew noisily that way) was the breacher.  It was a magical way to sleep. 

Point Retreat	Dru with a fish on, Point Retreat	Lunge at the Couverdens
Chris on the Gustavus dock	Lemesurier Island beach at sunset	Cooking supper

 Long about 7:00 am I also began to hear some rhythmic scraping sounds and thought they might be caused by my boat going aground with the falling tide.  I wanted to make sure the boat was as far out as possible so it would quickly float later that morning when the tide began to rise, so I put on my long underwear and xtratuffs and stepped outside.  The morning was calm and misty and wonderful.  There were three whales in sight, two in the cove toward the right and one just off the point to the left.  The boat was, indeed, bumping gently on the gravel at the bottom of the beach, so I walked down, threw the anchor farther out, and pushed it.  More whales cruised by and as I was watching to see how the boat would respond, I watched the whale at the point remain stationary while doing some interesting antics.  He arched his back, but never dove deep, sometimes showing the edge of his tail or snout and remaining very close to shore near a kelp bed.  I watched and watched him wiggling around out there and finally couldn't bear it any longer.  It was a bit far away, but this whale was so close to shore I couldn't resist.  It was a long walk and soon the sand and gravel gave way to large slippery rocks covered in limpets and shiny seaweed.  As expected, the whale began moving away when I was still about 200 feet from the point (see photo below).  As he approached the pair of whales farther along the beach in the next cove, Hootie blew dramatically, dove, and came up in a big spiral breach, immediately followed by his companion in a smaller breach, and the crashes sounded just like the ones we'd heard from the tent all night.

Entirely delighted by Lemesurier Island and our campsite, I picked my way back over the rocks, stopping to check out some of the myriad limpets.  I climbed back into bed and managed to sleep a little longer.  When we got up a couple of hours later my hangover headache was gone and we had instant oatmeal and hot chocolate and Russian tea for breakfast, sitting in our camp chairs and watching whales pass in front of us along.  Seals and a gang of sea lions also passed by.  The boat was still aground, but by the time we broke down camp  it was floating on the rising tide.  We left the island around noon and hung a left to check out the little rocky island just around the point to the west.  There used to be a seal haul out there, but we didn't see any seals, so we turned around, passed by the long beach again, then turned the corner to stop in front of the huge kelp bed along the northeastern corner of the island.  A dozen or so otters floated around, including a mother with a baby resting on her chest.  From there we turned and headed for Point Adolphus, beckoning from across a glassy Icy Strait.  It was overcast and gray and very placid.  The water was alive with marbled murrelets, gulls, and black-legged kittiwakes feeding everywhere around us.  As we cruised through one flock of gulls a dark individual caught my eye and I told Chris to pay attention to it in case it turned out to be what I hoped--a jaeger.  Sure enough, as we got closer we saw the brown and tan coloration and the two long, sharp tail feathers of a parasitic jaeger.  To eliminate any doubt, the jaeger began chasing a gull in incredible aerial acrobatics.  As I explained to Chris that jaegers harass gulls until they release their fish, this gull dropped its prey and the jaeger picked it up from the water.  It immediately lifted up again and began chasing another gull, this time grabbing the disgorged fish before it reached the water.  We chased the jaeger crazily all around, thankful for the calm water and lack of debris (see photos below).

From there we continued to Point Adolphus, slowing down just west of the point.  We saw one whale farther west along the shore, but nothing else manifested itself right away.  We continued on, thinking that more whales might be on the other side of the point.  After we got up to speed, two whales suddenly came up, one about 100 feet to port, the other about the same distance away off the port bow.  We shut down and drifted.  The whale to port continued traveling west, but the other whale appeared to be sleeping.  It breathed regularly, and never dived or slipped beneath the surface.  Crazily, the current and whatever movements the whale was making were bringing us inextricably together.  When we watch whales from a distance, and primarily in silhouette, I don't think we  realize how wide they are!  This whale, heading straight for us at an alarming rate, kept his dorsal fin above the surface and its broad back fell away on either side like a bus....like two buses, side by side!  It was MASSIVE and I thought it was pretty neat to see the dorsal fin from this unusual angle as it got closer and closer and bigger and bigger.  The whale kept coming and seemed to be deep in sleepy oblivion, unaware that it was about to collide with us.  I felt bad about starting the engine with a whale so close, but it suddenly didn't seem like I had any choice--I really didn't want him to wake up by bumping into the boat!  As it happens, the whale (who was only half asleep, of course) arched his back when only about 20 feet from the boat, just as I was starting the engine and pulling away, and fluked magnificently (see series of three photos below). 

While it was approaching, a whale in the background farther east rose in a beautiful breach and twisted in a dramatic spiral before crashing back to the ocean.  It breached twice more, but we were too distracted by the charging whale to fully appreciate it.  After the sleeping whale dove, we also noticed a clump of blows out in the same area and decided to check them out.  We cruised past the point and a little further east in the general area of the group, which appeared to be made up of at least 8-10 whales.   This group moved in typical Adolphus fashion, taking long series of breaths followed by short dives that usually didn't last more than a few minutes.  Their blows lingered in the calm, as many as five plumes rising simultaneously.  A fog horn whale was among them, letting off ridiculously loud blows.  We were careful to follow humpback whale watching regulations and never wound up in the proper place for a close pass, but they were mesmerizing nonetheless.  After a while we wound up back off Point Adolphus and were distracted by a whale tail lobbing repeatedly offshore, crashing his flukes down in dramatic splashes over and over, almost in slow motion (see photo below).  While we were watching this whale, we started to hear loud claps like thunder and spotted a whale slapping the water with its pectoral fins in the direction of Lemesurier Island some distance away.  There were several seconds between the fin disappearing in the water and the sound reaching us.  Several times he fluked and came up in half breaches. 

In short, it was everything I imagined hanging out at Point Adolphus on my own would be.  There were whales everywhere--sleeping whales, breaching whales, lob tailing whales, fin slapping whales, groups of whales, whales coming within feet of my boat (legally), harbor porpoise sounding unpredictably all around us, gulls and jaegers.  The air had that heady Point Adolphus smell, the water was flat calm, and more often than not we were the only boat in the area.  It was wonderful.

After all the excitement died down and we gave up on getting any closer to the fin slapper/breacher (he stopped his activity while we were only thinking of trying to get closer), we decided to have lunch while shut down and drifting in the general vicinity of the big group.   As we gazed over the bow of the Ronquil where we thought the whales would come up next, we were startled by an explosion behind us and turned to see a solitary whale 100 feet away or more where we hadn't realized there was one.  This whale was heading directly for the side of the boat, water sliding off his massive gray sides as breath after breath he came closer, enormous and unstoppable.  When he was about 15 feet away he arched his back directly broadside to the boat, his flukes flashing just under the surface, and I called to Chris to look underwater.  I was half yelping with delight as I saw streaks of white beneath the boat as the whale disappeared.  Suddenly my view was shattered by an enormous tail thrust up high in the air above my head only a few feet away as the whale adjusted course underwater.  Those flukes, which look so slender from a distance, were thick and rubbery and impressively stout (see photo at the bottom of the page).  Somehow I managed to snap a photo in my shock moments before those flukes slipped beneath the surface, passing only two feet from the edge of the bow.  I was stunned and full of adrenaline.  The whale then came up on the other side of the boat about 50 feet away and I snapped a photo of his solid black flukes (see photos of the stealth whale below).

Whale off the point	From a limpet's perspective	Whale passing the island
Lemesurier Island	On the way to Point Adolphus (in the background)	Jaeger chasing a gull
Sleeping whale	Sleeping whale getting closer!	Sleeping whale diving
Pectoral fin slapping	Stealth whale approaching the boat	Stealth whale's tail
The Adolphus herd	The Adolphus herd	A member of the Adolphus herd

It really couldn't get any better than that.  We watched the group a bit longer, then repositioned near Point Adolphus and drifted there for a few minutes before heading back across Icy Strait.  Dru and I had agreed that I would try to hail him on the hour starting at noon and, if that failed, would meet up with him at the Gustavus dock at 4:00.  I'd tried calling him but never received a response, though strangely I heard another boat trying to call him.  On our way across the strait we passed a clump of kelp harboring an adorable sea otter with some gulls perched on top, then I spotted four very dark birds sitting together on the water.  More jaegers!  All four of them rose into the air and I chased them madly, snapping photos (see photo to left).  Soon we reached the dock and Dru pulled in after us.  We reconnoitered for a few minutes, then decided to take off for the Couverdens.  Dru left the dock first, but his engine quit on him and the current was carrying him toward the construction barges nearby.  We'd intended to fill the fuel tanks at the dock, but quickly left in case Dru needed assistance; by the time we made it out, he'd started the kicker and was on his way east.  I followed him out past all the moored charter boats and shut down to start fueling.  For the next few minutes we had amazing encounters with the smallest, shyest cetacean in the area, the diminutive and adorable harbor porpoise.  These guys are tiny and shy and have a habit of showing themselves ever so briefly once--or twice--and then disappearing.  I'd pointed them out to Chris a number of times, but they never came up again once I mentioned them.  He'd caught some glimpses of them at Point Adolphus, but here they suddenly made up for all their allusiveness.  At least three porpoise were zigzagging around the boats, getting close and closer until they were surfacing just a few feet away from us.  The water was so clear that we could see their shapes underwater when they were within 30 feet (and the glare was down) and we also got looks at their palef gray sides.  I followed a pair for about 15 feet underwater and was all ready to take an amazing photo of them when they came up, but my card turned up full when I hit the button.  Another porpoise came up moments later right next to the motor, then dove and swam parallel to the boat just under the surface of the water about two feet away.  It was amazing and delightful.  We could see the whole shape of this porpoise underwater, swimming crazy fast until it veered off toward Dru's boat and disappeared.  By this time we'd drifted pretty far back and were approaching the barges at the dock again (a new dock is under construction), so we finished fueling, changed the card and the batteries on my camera, and turned into Icy Passage.  In the distance I saw a black fin come up and told Chris to pay attention because something was different about it and I thought it might be exciting.  What I had in mind was a minke whale (which we often used to see briefly in that area), but when it came up again another fin appeared nearby and that one was six feet tall.  Orcas.

Wow.  I quickly looked around for more fins, for once hoping that I wouldn't see very many more and that we'd encountered transients.  Chris and I had spent time with residents twice this summer, but I really wanted him to see the mammal hunters too.  We saw no other fins than these two--a female and a huge male with the straightest fin I'd ever seen (see photo to right).  They were separated when I first saw them, then came together as they neared us and the dock.  I really wanted to get ID photos, so we turned and traveled in their direction for a while, not having much luck getting close enough for a decent photo.  Once they passed Pleasant Island they turned southwest somewhat, so I turned as well, knowing that I'd soon have to leave them to continue in the other direction.  Suddenly the female startled me with a blow about 50 feet off the stern, now heading more to the west.  I traveled at a distance parallel to her and took a series of great ID shots, but the male wasn't surfacing.  She went through a long breathing cycle before he finally came up about 200 feet in front of her.  I pulled up as courteously as I could and took some photos of him before turning and leaving them to their travels.  A harbor porpoise surfaced leisurely just a few feet behind him going in the opposite direction, which I found interesting.  Unfortunately, one of the enormous barges from the dock was bearing down directly on the orcas as I left, but they seemed to travel past its stern unperturbed.  The male's dorsal had a nick several inches long near the top and I was pretty confident that we'd be able to identify him.  It couldn't have been easier.  He is T87, one of the older orcas in the area at 46 years or more, and he was traveling with his long-time companion T88, about the same age (photos identified in the table below).  I was delighted and couldn't imagine the day getting any better.

We met back up with Dru closer to Gustavus and headed back down Icy Passage.  The seas were calm and Dru and I joked silently to each other about driving without touching our steering wheels.  The trip was uneventful as we passed Pleasant Island and the Porpoise Islands and Chris dozed for some time.  I was still trying to absorb how amazing the day had been.  Then in the distance off a point along Home Shore I saw some splashing that looking like little breaches, but it was too far away to make out.  As we got closer I saw another boat turn in that direction and stop and I slowly began to make out several black fins rising together among the splashes.  We'd encountered a second pod of orcas!  We pulled up into a frenzy of activity.  One enormous animal was spy hopping high out of the water in a most dramatic way, his white belly shining brilliantly, and once he flipped over on his back and slapped his tail as he went down.  Another was rolling over and over at the surface, slapping his fins and making a terrible ruckus; the rest were sounding chaotically in all directions, one of them wiggling as he came up.  I managed to snap photos of most of them in those first few minutes.  The commotion soon stopped, but the group continued to come up erratically, alone or in twos, moving in all directions, which reminded me of resident orcas milling and hunting for fish.  But, there were only about seven orcas, including a calf, and most of them had at least one nick in their dorsal fins, so I suspected they were transients.  They certainly weren't any residents I was aware of.  Whatever we'd stumbled on was evidently pretty exciting; although the surface activity soon tamed, they were making a cacophony of sounds I'd never heard before and continued to mill.  We dropped the hydrophone and listened in on a chaotic (to our ears) mix of intense orca sounds--they were loud, continuous, and overlapping, an endless stream of crazy orca vocalizations.  I've never heard anything like it!  We paddled over to Dru so he could share the hydrophone, but he caught only a few seconds before the ocean went silent again.  The orcas clammed up, stopped milling, and assumed a line formation heading west.  We tried to catch up with them one more time and some of them passed close to our stern, but it was clear that they were seriously on their way somewhere else and we decided to let them be.  They turned away from shore and headed for Point Adolphus and we headed on toward Lynn Canal.  These orcas were a little more difficult to identify than the other two.  I'm pretty confident that one of them was T137A, born in 2002, with two distinctive nicks in his/her dorsal.  I also suspect that T137 was among them (T137A's mother), though the angle on the dorsal fin isn't ideal for identification.  But, a seven-year-old orca is quite likely to still travel with its mother and I found no better match for her dorsal.  Among this group was also a juvenile orca; although young orcas are more difficult to identify that adults, it's quite possible that this orca, the only one I saw with an unblemished dorsal fin, was T137B, another offspring of T137, born in 2006.  Two others I took photos of had distinctive doral nicks (like the one to left and the one traveling with a very young calf in the photo below), but I can't identify either. Unfortunately, I was on the wrong side of the pod for the best ID shots.

Less than an hour later we reached Swanson Harbor and slipped between Entrance Island and Ansley Island.  Chris and I planned to camp at Entrance Island at the recommendation of a friend, but Dru wanted to check out the dock inside.  We passed between Entrance and Couverden islands and turned into a sheltered bay with two public docks just offshore.  There were boats tied up to both, so we pulled up to the less occupied one.  Dru didn't have a stove with him, so we decided to have supper together on the docks.  Dru made amazing creamy macaroni and cheese and Chris and I had chips and tomato bisque soup.  After supper Chris and I returned to Entrance Island and Dru anchored up for the night in the harbor and slept on his boat.  Entrance Island has a nice steep beach of medium sized rocks and we were greeted by hundreds of squirting clams submerged beneath the rocks when we stepped ashore at low tide.  Again, the water was ridiculously clear and here we could see brittle stars and sea stars, jellyfish, and lots of other critters.  Some areas of the water were alive with tiny moon jellies.  It wasn't the softest beach for letting the boat go dry, but it looked reasonable and was definitely out of the wind.  We unloaded the gear and carried it up to the edge of the beach grass and Chris explored the island while I anchored the boat.  I used the same system--a long anchor line to make sure the boat didn't pull anchor and a shorter anchor off the stern to help keep it in deeper water as the tide rose in the middle of the night.  Chris came back as I was finished, have perused the whole island for camp sites.  The island isn't very big, and the forest on top is of a first growth variety, dense at the edges, open and decaying in the middle.  We fought through the brush and chose a relatively flat site on the far side of the island to pitch the tent.  We packed our camping gear over there and left the food and other unnecessary items in the grass above the boat.  Chris pitched the tent while I went about gathering fuel for a fire.  The beach facing Icy Strait had a lot of driftwood and a narrow band of sand and large rounded rocks above an expansive black and jagged reef.  The weather had been clearing all afternoon and the view was gorgeous as the sun set.  After the exciting day we had, I didn't last long around the fire and soon crashed in the tent.  I was sound asleep when Chris joined me later.

Gulls and kelp in Icy Strait	Harbor porpoise	T88
T87	Transient 1 & 2	Transient rolling
Transient 2	Transient 1 with calf	T137?
T137A	T137B?	Entrance Island
Camp	Fire on the island	Reef at sunset

Low tide was at 10:00 am, so we knew the boat wouldn't be floating until noon or so.  Dru had planned to get up early to fish and agreed to pick us up at 9:00 am to fish for a few hours before we headed back to town.  I was pretty excited about it, as the area had been crazy with jumping fish and Dru had had two on while we were watching the lunge feeders two days before.  I drained the boat and boiled water for hot chocolate while Chris got ready and cleaned up the tent.  We had a quick, light breakfast on the beach before Dru came by.  We headed outside the harbor and Chris and Dru tried halibut fishing nearby; Chris caught a chicken (which he released) and we both learned more about fishing for halibut.  I was content to enjoy the morning and let them fish.  After 45 minutes or so and a few repositionings (the current was active) we decided to switch to salmon fishing.  Dru tutored us and we managed to set the poles.  Chris caught the first pink, and I reeled in the second.  It was the first salmon I'd ever caught trolling!  In all I think we caught about five pinks before we tried for halibut again.  Dru caught another chicken before we headed back to the island to pack up.  Dru watched his boat on the beach while Chris and I gathered our gear and loaded up.  We pooled our food for a quick picnic lunch on the side of the Ronquil before we left.

At about 1:00 pm we headed out under a blue sky and decided to go straight across Lynn Canal to the Admiralty shoreline.  There was a bit of a chop from the north as we crossed and I stuck behind Dru when I could to let him break it up for me a bit.  We reached Funter Bay and turned north and there the chop was more troubling and slowed us down a bit.  I tried to stay behind Dru, but had trouble catching up to him when I lagged behind.  About half way to Pt. Retreat I saw some tiny, quick splashing to the left--Dall's porpoises!  I'd practically forgotten that they were a possibility.  We veered over in their direction and skirted the edge of the pod, which were "zooming," in the hopes that they'd be interested in riding our wakes.  A pair rode the stern wake a couple of times, but they were otherwise disinterested.  I hadn't seen DPs in a long time, and these were a first for Chris.  

A little farther north and a couple of points away from Retreat we started to run into sport fishing boats.  Ahead of us I saw a clump of whale blows close to shore and wondered whether we might have another group of lunge feeders in our future.  A few minutes later, about ten whales exploded out of the water just between us and shore and I immediately shut down.  It was spectacular.  They weren't coming out as high as the ones in the group we'd seen at the Couverdens, but the sheer number of them was impressive and the day couldn't have been better for it.  By that time the water was calm and we just drifted with the current in the sunshine.  They moved south along the shore during their breathing cycle; we were slowly drifting in that direction too, but they'd put some space between us by the time they dove.  I expected them to come up much farther away, but instead they came up in the exact same place again, not far away.  Several times they traveled south while breathing, only to turn underwater and lunge in the same place.  Eventually they repositioned a little farther north and started making their way south again.  When there were few other boats around, we dropped the hydrophone just as the whales dove.  Silence.  More silence.  Then more silence.  I was beginning to think that the whales weren't going to lunge at all when a shrill bellow erupted, and another, and another, wavering toward the end in terrifying screams  Then silence again, and moments later the whales lunged.  It was spectacular.  The proximity of boat motors and other complications discouraged us from trying to listen again, but it had been the loudest, clearest bubblenet call I'd heard (probably because I had my own private hydrophone this time).  The whales repositioned a couple of times, and so did we.  Once Dru wound up just between us and the group and I got some pretty good pictures of them.  On many of the lunges, a whale came up alongside the group (maybe 20-30 feet away) simultaneously, but not lunging, then would get absorbed among the other whales.  He was pretty small, so we wondered if he was a calf whose mother was among the bubblenetters.

At 3:00 pm it was getting pretty crowded with boats and we decided we'd better head in.  The high tide was at 4:00 pm and Chris and I wanted to run the channel given that we didn't have a functional trailer at Douglas.  We talked about one of us driving the truck back, but decided to pick it up the next day.  I'd only run the channel once before and found it a little nerve wracking (I spent some time aground in the middle of it waiting for the tide to rise).  This time the tide was significantly higher, but my mother had mentioned that she'd seen the channel markers from the air earlier in the summer and noticed that they didn't line up with the actual channel in some areas!  But, it was going to be a pretty high tide, so I wasn't concerned.  We touched base with Dru at South Shelter, then we parted ways and Chris and I headed to town.  We passed a marker that indicated that the shallowest point in the channel was five feet, then we zoomed on our way, passing quite a few fishing boats headed in the other direction and one or two heading to town.  I didn't realize that so many boats still made use of the channel.  Everything was pretty flooded, but we had fun following the channel markers until we shot out past the hatchery and into deeper water.  I had to change gas tanks there and took that opportunity to try the satellite phone to ask my parents for a ride home from the harbor, but got no signal.  We passed Aurora and Harris Harbors slowly, then got back up to speed for the last leg to Douglas Harbor, arriving around 5:00 pm.  We secured the boat, then Chris started packing our gear up the ramp while I asked around for a cell phone.  The first guy I asked lives on a boat and took my inquiry as an invitation to chat a little about his choice not to own a cell phone and the future of the harbor; the next couple had left their cell phones at home.  Finally, I disturbed a young couple sunbathing on the back of a sailboat.  The man's first response to my question was to ask if I was with Fish & Game, but I managed to derail further suspicions by confessing that my cell phone had dropped into a portapotty.  The woman lent me her phone immediately and I got ahold of my parents.  A few minutes later, my mother arrived to get us and home we went, with enough time for showers and a moment to relax on the couch before showing up to a going away party at Auke Rec, exhausted and sunburnt and dazed from the amazing trip.  Icy Strait!  It was everything I'd imagined it could be and more!

Towards the ends of a lunge	The group
		Heading down Gastinuea Channel

Stealth whale fluking at Point Adolphus (Point Adolphus on the very left, Lemesurier Island in the distance to the left, )