Major Marine trip!

11 June, 2018, 3 min, 429 words

One awesome perk of working as a guide is that you can sometimes get discounted tours with other companies. I had last Saturday off, and I was able to get an open seat on a Major Marine tour out to Aialik Bay. It was a phenomenal trip, thanks to the hard work of people like Captain Sarah and all the amazing deckhands.

This is a little different from a typical post for me. Really I just want to dump some pictures and video here. Plus I'll geek out a bit about some of the awesome things we saw.

Wildlife

The wildlife was really out performing for us on this trip. Before we fully got under way, we encountered a lunge feeding humpback whale. Typically, lunge feeding is observed by groups of two to thirty whales that collaboratively blow bubbles to corral fish into a small area near the surface. Then one whale at a time will lunge out of the water and engulf as many of those trapped fish as possible. It's truly astonishing to watch.

https://youtu.be/_hj36zs2dws

Other than that, we were lucky enough to see a small pod of killer whales! These had a real charisma. It was amazing to see the whole boat go quiet when we saw them.

And finally, one of our funniest sightings coincided with those killer whales. I spotted a few of my fellow guides on a familiar water taxi near us, also getting a look. I got to practice my binocular picture taking skills, and I came up with this gem. It surprised these guides when I sent it to them, once we were back in cell service.

Glaciers

I've spent some time around glaciers in the last couple of months. But it was a real treat to visit a totally new glacier, Holgate. Holgate is a tidewater glacier, meaning it dumps ice straight into the sea as it churns through the landscape. It's a little smaller than Aialik, which we see more often. It also has a different calving pattern from Aialik. Alas, it wasn't particularly active when we were there – a fellow guide had said it was calving all over the place two days earlier. But such is life! It was still great to be there, and to feel the awe of people who'd never sat in front of a glacier before.