Alaska 2007

For the moment, life was quiet and ever so relaxing. We had just consumed a fine lunch of portobello mushroom soup, salad and sourdough French bread, all prepared by our talented gourmet chef, Melissa. Some of us were napping, others pursuing the extensive natural history library aboard the 50-foot Delphinus. The liveaboard boat, with its six guests and four crew,  glided through glass-calm waters of Frederick Sound, in the heart of Southeast Alaska. We were en route to the Tlingit community of Kake, where black bears fish for salmon in the heart of town. That was our itinerary, said our naturalist Ronn Patterson enigmatically, “unless something else happened first.”

            We relished the quiet afternoon after several days of action-packed bear photography, wilderness rainforest hikes and up-close time with sea lions so curious they seemed as if they wanted to jump in the boat. Several of the passengers had seen these dramas many times during earlier trips. On the Delphinus, folks return again and again, savoring these wilderness moments. “Every trip is so different, says Susan Ott, returning for her third Alaska adventure.

            Then far away, the “something else” alluded to by Ronn happened. Tiny white clouds came and went just above the water , shining against the verdant backdrop of Kupreanof Island. “Whales!” shouted our captain, Rich Foregger, as his binoculars swept over the scene .

            The photographers in our group scrambled for lenses, but they need not have hurried. We motored ever closer to the giant mammals, but they didn’t seem to care about us. They were busy eating, engaged in a remarkable cooperative behavior known as bubble net feeding. The 40-ton humpback whales  circled schools of small fish or krill, released a ring of bubbles to confuse and herd their prey, then rose en masse with gaping mouths. In this northland orgy, sometimes a dozen or more whales burst to the surface at once. They did this over and over. The sight was one of the more heart-stopping natural history dramas on the planet.

            Ronn, a former whale biologist and gifted professional photographer, more or less predicted when and where the whales would rise next, and so positioned the boat for the best vantage points.  He’s been leading photographers and adventurers to this part of the world for nearly 30 years. Legally the boat was not supposed to approach closer than 100 yards, but often the whales came to the boat.

For more info on the 2008 trip, which features a similar itinerary, contact Betty Sederquist.