"Baloogas at the bottom of the stairs right now!!!"Despite the spelling and cryptic nature, I knew what was up and flew out of my office; at long last, the elusive, ivory, grin-mouthed whales were making an appearance off the coast of our beach! Sure enough, I jogged down the stairs to the wide stretch of sand below to find white backs rising up and sinking down into the water; a whole pod of them with dark headed harbor seals mingling in between were cruising up the coast, presumably munching on silver salmon. J had the fat bike and handed it over so I could ride and catch up to them...we weren't the only ones appreciating this rare visit!
And to have a sense of why these whales are interested in being here right now, check out these shots of our buddy Chris wrangling a silver - between his and J's handiwork combined, they scored four in one afternoon... tasty!
STAND UP PADDLE. Saturday we ventured out to a favorite haunt, Engineer Lake Cabin, with the plan of picking some more berries (seems like all we do, right?) and enjoying a fall weekend in the wilderness. J decided to challenge his balance prowess and use our SUP to transport some of our gear across the lake while Indigo, Chris and I hiked around on the trail. It turned out to be an absolutely serene evening and the addition of the paddleboard made for some excellent rainbow, loon and river otter viewing.
And the cabin came with it's own row boat... but it was BYOCostumes!
AURORA. Then late that night, after a delicious mini-Thanksgiving meal with very fresh cranberry sauce by candle light, we were gifted with a glorious spectacle... not only green, but some pinks, too. Keep in mind that none of this sky light is residual sunset or anything; it's all aurora borealis!
SIT DOWN PADDLE. And to top it off, we hit the Kenai River on Sunday for a packraft trip down "The Canyons." Yellow leaves, turquoise blue water, and bright red fish that we would hit with our paddles and scoop backwards as we moved over waves trains.
From ocean to river; whales to salmon; rainbows to auroras... a fantastic 48 hours in AK!
But where is the empathy, the human kindness for the silvers? Everyone is all about the whales, but what about those poor fish? I am spearheading an international effort to train them to evade these killers, whale, seal and human. We will put them in schools for remedial training...oh....wait. They have been in schools all along and learned little they really need to survive, rather like most of our own kids in the lower 48. I'm starting over...Ed
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