July 30 – A Few Photos

While breakfasting at a local waffle shop, I am taking advantage of its WiFi to upload a few photos of the trip since Petersburg.

The whale photos are courtesy of Dorothy Nagle.  I never seem to have our camera out and telephoto attached when the whales are nearby.

The sighting usually begins with seeing a whale “spout” at some distance. It looks more like a mist column above the water.

It next progresses to seeing the dorsal of the humpback whale. It is not as dramatic as orca whale dorsal fins but the name “humpback” is clearly appropriate. Humpbacks adults are usually in the 30-50 foot range.

The last image of a humpback is of the terminal dive. After catching its breath swimming near the surface, it makes a big arch with its back, begins its dive and flips its tail out of the water.

After our day of whales getting up to Tracy Cove Arm anchorage, we took our trip into Tracy Arm. The inlet is not particularly wide so we traveled pretty closely with the Nagle’s and their boat the DavidEllis and took many photos of each others boat.

The first photo (one of mine) is of the DavidEllis with one of the valleys that entered the inlet. The water has the cloudy turquoise appearance on account of the glacial silt in the water.

The ultimate goal of the journey was the terminus of the South Sawyer Glacier. We each took turns being the “cover girl” for the other. Since we were using telephoto lenses, it foreshortens the images and makes the glacier appear closer than the actual 3/4 mile we were from it.

Getting here involved dodging lots of ice chunks (bergie bits and growlers). While a local tourist boat got quite a bit closer to the glacier, to preserver our bottom paint and running gear, where we stopped was perfectly fine with us.

The left image is of us, Alpenglow, and the right image is the DavidEllis.