Thursday, July 17


We took two boat trips today .

The first was on the ferry Fairweather (pictured) from Juneau to Sitka. It is one of the new "fast ferries" in the fleet, a catamaran making this voyage that normally takes nine hours in half the time. We were lucky enough to get a table by a window, and so I could get satellite bearings on my little GPS and follow our course all the way, which was really fun. And at the end of it we were really at the Pacific, on the west coast of Baranof Island.


When we got on land, we checked in at our campground near the ferry terminal and then headed straight for the tourist information center in town, where we got some great advice: to hop right on the Sitka Wildlife Quest boat trip, which only happens Tuesday and Thursday evenings. This turned out to be especially fortunate, because it was not raining that evening.


Sitka Sound is studded with islands, and our goal was one quite far out, the St. Lazaria National Wildlife Refuge, home of the tufted puffin, among many other birds. Along the way we saw a raft of sea otters and two humpback whales (I didn't catch the fluke in my picture, but I did get the humpback!) As we approached St. Lazaria island, we saw many adorable puffins swimming about and learned that they hardly ever go on land. The island is volcanic in origin, and as we peered into one of its caves we saw a technicolor display of orange and purple starfish and green sea anenomes. A wonderful introduction to Sitka.