Alaska – Part 4

We are completing our wonderful trip after such a wonderful evening.

As we are heading towards Petersburg we run into more wales.

It is impossible to tire of the view of the tail from a diving whale in such scenery – maybe you are tired of these photos, so I will try to be even more creative for this last blog.  We did have a lot to see in the last two days.

We continued to stay away from the larger cruise ships. At a distance, they are not too bad…

Cruising along Storm Islands that lies between Stephens Passage and Frederick Sound.  It has an interesting light house called the Five Finger Light House, unfortunately no longer in use.  It was first lit on a very auspicious date – spring equinox of 1902, the second lighthouse to be lit in Alaska.

The lighthouse appears to be a magnet for breaching whales.  We sat there for quite some time just watching one whale and then another doing this several times in a row.  Not a full breach, but close to 50% of the whale comes out of the water in the sequence above.

This is a better sequence of photos.  The first time I went whale watching, I had an old film camera with an auto-winder, but it was very slow.  I took 14 rolls of film that one day, but my photos of breaching whales had something like this to start, than a big splash and nothing in between.  Winder just too slow.  I am glad to have upgraded (twice) since that time and can now take 6 photos per seconds.

… and yes, there is still a big splash at the end.

This one had maybe an even better splash.

This is a sequence of pectoral fin splashing, another behaviour that whales often exhibit.

Here is a more complete panorama of Storm Island with the Five Finger Light House, from the opposite side.  We are now heading South into the Frederick Sound and towards Petersburg.

There appears to be some restoration of the light house going on, which is great to me as I really think we need to protect and preserve this wonderful history of early navigation.  On multiple occasions, before GPS was a common thing, I would go offshore with a small sailboat and eventually a light house would tell me that I was in the right (or wrong) place as we neared shore again after a long crossing – always a very welcome sight.

One last wonderful view of the Frederick Sound.  Blue sky is nice but clouds and muted light sometimes provides more interesting views.

I cannot say enough how much I enjoyed this trip, and the people I was privileged to go with.  A great experience all around.

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