A day away from Glacier Bay! The park only lets in 25 private vessels at a time, so most of the permits get snatched up at the beginning of the year. They have a small number of short term permits that they only release 48 hours in advance, so I got up at 6 AM yesterday to call as soon as the office opened. Sure enough, I was the first caller, and about a minute into the conversation I could already hear the phone ringing off the hook in the background. I feel like I won a radio competition. Our week-long park permit begins tomorrow, so we’ll spend another night here and head to Glacier Bay tomorrow.
In the meantime, we’re spending the day anchored in a bight of Neka Bay, which is about 40 miles south of the park. It’s peaceful, with still water, salmon jumping, and a waterfall rushing a little ways away. Dan and Kathy went for a kayak, and while I’ve been hanging out on the boat a school of harbor porpoises has come to visit me. The water is so clear, every once in a while you can see an entire porpoise from above as it shoots under the boat, presumably going after a fish it likes. But, here’s a little bit of one’s back, camouflaged pretty well against the surface of the water:
I like these harbor porpoises. They’re serious guys. They don’t play like the Dall’s porpoises or flop around like the orcas. They just cruise around doing what they’re doing.
No comments:
Post a Comment