We had an amazing first day in Southeast Alaska. We woke up as we sailed towards William’s Cove. This place is located at the entrance of Tracy Arm. We landed on the beach to commence our explorations that would lead us into a magnificent temperate rain forest. Bear trails guided us through the pristine woods on different length walks. The soft ground of the forest was quite evident for all of us during our first steps in this new environment. Sitka spruce and western hemlocks sheltered a wide array of understory vegetation like devil’s club, dwarf dogwood, blueberries, and false azaleas.
Many of us had the opportunity to kayak thought the cove. The day was ideal as the skies were blue and the wind was quite warm, considering we are in Alaska. We explored the shorelines and had occasional views of harbor seals that would showed a shy behavior as they noticed our presence. The casual bald eagle would fly above the forests, and white-winged scoters and pigeon guillemots took flight off the mirror waters.
We embarked the National Geographic Sea Bird to continue a journey that would take us to the heart of Tracy arm. South Sawyer Glacier was our destination for the day. On the way we had a decent view of a black bear that placidly foraged on the shoreline.
Once near South Sawyer, we deployed our expedition landing craft to sail through the ice and take a closer look at the magnificent glacier. Surrounded by majestic geological features we sailed among icebergs. We got close enough to the face of the glacier, where we could observe and listen to the murmurs and thunders of the colossal frozen giant. We witnessed several calving episodes of masses of ice splashing into the water of the fjord. We saw a couple shooters that emerged inadvertently from the submerged portion of the glacier, and at a safe distance, harbor seals hauled out on the floating ice.
On the way back, we had an amazing view of a mountain goat nanny and her kid. This was unusual, since at this time of the year they tend to inhabit high altitude. These two goats were right at the water’s edge and were a pleasant surprise for the day.
