Alaska Trip 2022 Day 5 -- Skiff Ride, Kayaking 101, and Humpback Whales

Day 5 of our trip. 7-31-2022 was the first full day on the Safari Endeavor.  We packed lots of exciting activities into the day.  

Below in lime green with the red directional arrows is the gps track for the day.  It is mostly in and just off of Icy Strait.  See an image of all of the gps tracks in the first blog post for the location of Icy Strait.

Except for a slight mess up at the beginning of our time on the ship, I left the gps on for the entire cruise 24/7.  It sat in our cabin while we were on the ship and it was fastened to my belt when we left the ship.  The gps automatically saved the tracks by date, so the tracks are midnight to midnight Alaska time.

GPS track for Day 5 (7-31-2022) in lime green.  Skiff ride and kayaking were at locations to the west (zoomed in shots below) and the area near the shore south of the large loops in the center is where we stopped to watch the humpback whales after dinner.

 

The morning adventure was a skiff ride among the several islands in the northwest portion of this map labelled Inian Islands  In the afternoon the ship moved south where we did kayaking 101.

Skiff ride at Inian Islands. First up for the day was a skiff ride among the Inian Islands. 

Sea otters. Although they were not close, we saw our first sea otters of the trip.

The black dot in the center is a sea otter.

We saw individuals, which we presumed were males  I could not judge the size of the animals, but based on my online research adult sea otters may grow up to 5 feet in length. The males weigh 80–100 pounds but can weigh more than 100 pounds. The females are smaller, weighing 50–70 pounds. 

 

Sea otter from the skiff at Inian Islands

We also saw pairs, which we think were a mother with a baby on her chest.  Maybe it was because it was getting late in the season, at least by Alaska standards, but the baby looked pretty big to me. Apparently the pups ride on their mother's chest until they are 3-6 months old.  By that time they weigh about 30 pounds.

Mother and baby sea otter from the skiff at Inian Islands. 

I was especially anxious to see the sea otters, so was excited that we saw them on our first day out.  Sea otters have the densest hair coat of any mammal, with 800,000 to one million hairs per square inch (humans only have 20,000 hairs on their entire head). .It was these luxurious dense pelts that caught the interest of Russian fur traders in the 1700s.  The sea otter fur trade was nearly the sole reason Russia had any interest in Alaska.  By the 1900s, sea otters had almost been hunted to extinction and were locally extirpated in many places.   Following protection under the Fur Seal Treaty in 1911, the sea otter population rebounded dramatically in the 20th century. In Alaska, sea otter populations in South central and Southeast Alaska have stabilized or are continuing to increase.  It is estimated there are over 8,000 otters in Glacier Bay alone.  Lifespan for these cute looking little critters is 15-20 years.

Stellar sea lions. We also saw lots of sea lions, both in the water and lounging on a small rocky island.  If sea otters are large, sea lions are HUGE.  According to the Alaska Fish and Game site, the average  adult male is 10’ 8” long and weighs 1,245 pounds.  An adult female is 8’ 8” long and weighs an average 579 pounds.  Even a newborn is a whopping 51 pounds.  Males have a life expectancy of 20 years and females 30 years.

Stellar sea lion in the water near the skiff.   Note the external ear flap.   Stellar (or northern) sea lions are the largest member of the family Otariidae, the “eared seals.”  These include all sea lions and fur seals.

Male sea lion with his harem (lower left) on a small rocky island as seen from our skiff.  A few of the many ubiquitous gulls are near the top.

All  of this was very exciting, but the day was just getting started.  While we ate lunch, the ship moved to Idaho Inlet a few miles away.  Of the various possible activities for the afternoon, we chose kayaking 101.

Kayaking 101 in Idaho Inlet.  Kayaking was a common activity on this cruise, but for novices like us, we needed some instruction.  This afternoon was the only time kayaking 101 was being offered so even though the guides warned everyone that kayaking 101 is sometimes referred to as "divorce 101" we decided to give it a try.  

One of the great things about kayaking from the Safari Endeavor, as opposed to most of their other ships, is the EZ dock launch platform on the back of the ship.  The kayak is sitting on a solid surface when you enter or exit the kayak.  That has to be easier than stepping into a kayak bobbing in the water.

View approaching the EZ dock on the back of the ship.  The guides in black help pull the kayak up onto the dock, which is then a solid surface for exiting the kayak.

Close up view of the EZ dock during the polar plunge

The good news is that we safely made it into and out of the kayak -- no unplanned polar plunge.  We were also able to propel the kayak with ease, despite our guide complaining about the increasing current due to the tide change.  We are happy to report that we made it back safely to the ship.

 

Approaching the ship after our kayaking adventure.  We are in the yellow kayak with the white paddles.

However, there was a serious problem with the steering.  These two person kayaks had a rudder on the back controlled by foot pedals.  The foot pedals are controlled by the person in the back, in our case the Frog.  Either the rudder system was defective or it was not adjusted properly for his legs.  In any case the rudder would either go all the way to the left or all the way to the right and even then only after lots of effort to get it to budge at all.  It would not make small changes.  This made controlling the direction of the kayak with the rudder extremely difficult.

However with some wider than expected turns and a few unexpected detours we made it down along the nearby Shaw Island and back.

GPS track of the Safari Endeavor at anchor and our kayaking 101 adventure.  All of the crazy track at the ship is due to the ship's movement while anchored.

 

GoPro pic taken backwards over my head.  The Safari Endeavor is visible in the distance over the Frog's right shoulder.

Despite the strong current, the water was quite calm with little or no wave action.  We did end up going through a sizeable kelp field, which was tough going at times.

Our first up close experience with seaweed.  They have long buoyant tubes that are an inch or more in diameter. We had to go through a large field of it.

On our way back.  The Safari Endeavor is ahead on the left. 

As mentioned above, we made it back safely.  We also did not get divorced.  However, given this less than ideal experience we did not do anymore kayaking on this trip.

Whales in Icy Strait!  It was great to sit down and relax at dinner after such a full day.  However, there was still more to come.  Shortly after dinner the word went out that the ship was detouring based on a reported sighting of humpback whales.  

That is what UnCruise is all about.  There is no hard and fast schedule.  If there is something potentially interesting to see they stop and take a look

The orange section of the gps track is the position of the ship from roughly 8-10 pm, where we saw many humpback whales.

It was a beautiful evening in a beautiful place.  I don't know what the temperature was, but it was not especially cold.  I guess I would think of it as "jacket weather".  Even without the whales it would have been great. 

View from the deck at 8:20 pm in Icy Strait, stopped to watch the whales.

 

 But there were whales!  We started seeing the whale blows.  There were lots of whales!

 

One of many blows, although they were hard to photograph.

Pretty soon in addition to the blows we saw more and more of the telltale humped backs, hence their name humpback whales.

The tell tale humped back of a humpback whale.

Several whales -- one blowing and one fluking.

After watching for awhile we saw more and more whales diving.  Of course, when they dive they go head first with their tail high out of the water -- otherwise known as fluking.

We shortly caught on to what the whales were doing (with some help from the friendly guides).  The whales would make several smaller blows, often while swimming just below the surface so their hump was visible.  Eventually they would make a large blow. arch into the water bringing their tail high ("fluking"), then dive. When they fluked  it was time to watch elsewhere because they would be underwater for multiple minutes and would likely resurface someplace else.

What exactly are they doing?  Whales are in Alaska for one reason -- to eat.  In the winter they go to warmer waters in Hawaii or Mexico to mate and calve their babies.  However there is no food for them there.  They will not eat again until they return to Alaska in the spring.  I will have much more to say about whale feeding in a later post. However, for now the important thing is they have to dive to where the food is.

Whales are mammals and do not have gills.  They must breathe air to survive.  But they are very good at holding their breath, which enables them to dive hundreds or thousands of feet under the water.  Although they typically only hold their breath for 4-6 minutes, they can go for 45 minutes or more.

How do they do that?  It is not larger lungs.  Their lungs relative to their size,are actually the same or smaller than a human's lungs!  The trick is more efficient breathing through chemistry!

As described here, whales exhale first (i.e. blow) getting rid of all the stale air in their lungs before taking in a fresh, clean breath. Humans breathe in first and then exhale, leaving a lot of stale air in their  lungs.

Here is where the chemistry kicks in.  Humans only absorb 5% of the oxygen in a single breath. Whales can absorb as much as 90% of the oxygen in each breath! 

The oxygen is taken up by hemoglobin in the whale's blood.  Whales have twice as much hemoglobin as humans.  The oxygen is stored in the myoglobin in the muscles.  Whales have 30% more myoglobin than humans.  Its the multiple smaller blows we saw the whales doing that are building up the oxygen in their system.

Right before diving, the whales exhale 90% of the air in their lungs (the big blows we mentioned above).  This reduces their buoyancy and makes it easier for them to dive.

In addition to all of those things. they have multiple ways to conserve oxygen while diving. They use less oxygen by shunting blood from their extremities to their brain, heart, and muscles, and they shut down their digestive system.  Finally, they lower their heart rate.  Humans do some of these things, but whales are much better at it.

Lots of different whales and maybe a baby.  I have no idea how many whales we saw, but there were clearly lots of them.   This area of Icy Strait, which is just outside of Glacier Bay, is part of the annual Humpback Whale Population study which has been going on every year since 1985.

 

During this survey, individual whales are identified from photographs of their flukes. The most recent survey (June 1 - August 31, 2021) documented 167 unique whales in Glacier Bay and Icy Strait (119 in GB, 101 in IS).  The overall number  is up slightly from the previous year, but down slightly when corrected for survey effort.  At least this number is rebounding somewhat from the catastrophic Northeast Pacific Marine Heatwave (PMH) or so-called "Blob" of 2014-2016. 

A possible mother and calf? The difference in size certainly made us think so.

We also saw at least one pair of whales of vastly different size that suggested they might be a mother and calf.  That would be hugely significant.  Before the Pacific Marine Heat Wave, one calf was born annually for about every three adult females. From 2015 - 2019, that dropped to one calf per 25 adult females.  

Humpback photo database.  I dug around and found the humpback photo database or so-called Fluke ID Catalog.  In addition to listing all of the identified humpbacks, it has suggestions for how to use it to id your own pictures. 

We have several pretty good pictures, but I could not immediately id them from the database.  This entire process begs for the use of articial intelligence, but maybe they don't have funding for that.  There is a mechanism for submitting photographs.  I have not spent enough time with this to know whether I want to do that or not, but I may look into it when I have more time.

One of our more unique sightings, but I could not identify it from the data base.

What a day, and it was only the first full day on the ship. Tomorrow is what I had been looking forward to since we began planning for this trip three years ago, Glacier Bay National Park.