After the guests’ first night on the ship, Monday morning started off with strong wildlife showings. The guests aboard the National Geographic Sea Lion awoke to a true Southeast Alaska sighting – a coastal brown bear just off the bow. Coastal brown bears are larger than inland brown bears because of their proximity to a great source of protein – salmon.
The first bear brought everyone on deck and began the day fresh. Following breakfast, the groups began to come ashore for true Alaskan hiking. Pond Island is a beautiful, secluded place within the area of Kelp Bay. Long hikes spent time truly bushwhacking, making it over logs and across streams, finding paths off paths and getting shin deep in good old Alaskan mud. First, having found our way into the woods on a small bear trail, hikers passed through a wide meadow, checking for wildlife with every step. The first animal to be found – a banana slug! What a cool creature, with a color palette that leaves it perfectly camouflaged on rocks and in the forest. The banana slug moves around on a trail of slime it leaves under its path. Deeper and deeper into the woods, what will be next? Through the meadow and back into the woods the path took them. Suddenly it opened up into a picturesque temperate lake scene, with a foundation of muskeg and a litany of stag trees. Sundew plants sat at the very shortest base of this ecosystem, just a small but incredible plant. Sundew is one of the few carnivorous plants in the Alaskan rainforest. Exuding a sticky sap, this plant traps and devours small animals such as flies and gnats. An insect who is interested in that smell may realize at the final moment it was their most fatal mistake.
While the hikers and kayakers were out enjoying the day, so were the divers. Each trip with Lindblad Expeditions has an undersea specialist onboard, diving and collecting footage and photos for the guests to enjoy each night. The dive today was fantastic, with sea cucumbers of a couple varieties, rockfish and camouflaged crabs too.
