I sighted the whale near the ship and as the ship slowed to a stop it dove, reappearing on the other side. There it spouted several times before going deep as its tail appeared. The ranger said it would be too long to wait and so we started to leave, when suddenly the whale broached and then started to slap its tail on the surface of the ocean.
It continued doing this for a long time and we all lost count, before it seemed to tire. It then switched to slapping its pectoral flipper. Again and again it slapped the water as it if were sending an important signal, but no one knew what it was.
It wasn't the first humpback we had seen today, but the fourth, as we had also watched a mother and calf playfully romp in a cove. Another humpback whale had also appeared at a distance and it was like we were seeing whales everywhere we went,(On a sadder note we have seen whale baleen sold on street corners, even here in Seward).
They weren't the first sea mammals of the day as those had been two different pods of Orcas. One was the AB pod which swam through the oil spill of the Exxon Valdez. The ranger on board told us that the pod had never produced a calf since that exposure and it makes you wonder what the future holds for the Gulf of Mexico.
We still weren't done as several pods of Dall Porpoises rode our ships wake. They seemed to love riding the surf of the ship's wake and several rode the bow wave. Its so refreshing to see large mammals at play and so we kept a watchful eye on the sea.
We stopped at a haul out for Stellar Sea Lions and they all lazed on the rocks. Another island and this was an unofficial rookery, it it had been an official rookery we could not approach within three miles of the resting endangered mammals.
We still weren't done as we stopped at a tidewater glacier and there three harbor seals rested on the ice. Sea otters ran across the ice fall and glaucous and herring gulls rested after feeding on the herrings that congregated in the area.
What a day! It was filled with too many images of ice, mammals, rock, and birds. Those are other parts of the story and I simply don't have room here to crowd them all in. The Orcas alone would have been worth the cost of the cruise and we had seen so much more. Clear skies
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