Our long awaited adventure is finally underway! 

Our group (Donna, Sharon, Pal, Kent, Pat, Adam, and I) had breakfast together and headed back to pack up an check out of the Scandia House.  We had to kill some time so ended up at Coastal Cold Storage again for a take out.  Had a great bouillabaisse and Sharon and Pal shared some halibut bits.  We were excited when Toni came to get us - we packed all of our luggage into the car and then walked to the dock since it's only a few blocks.  We met Kathleen for the first time as we headed down the dock to climb aboard our home for the next week. Quite a merry and excited group!

The Alaska Adventurer is amazing, a really beautiful ship.  The salon is great - big windows all around so wonderful views.  After the requisite briefing we pulled into the harbor and got some herring to use for bait for bottom fishing.  We also watched one of the boats offloading crab at the cannery. Then it was out of the harbor and off to find whales.  We were lucky to have some watery sunlight to see us off on the incoming tide.

We hadn't even made it out of the harbor when we spotted some sea lions on a buoy.  A couple of them seemed to be having a tiff so passed by them slowly to take some pictures.  Right after than we saw a singleton humpback doing some lunge feeding. This feeding behavior involves the animal swimming up through schools of small fish with the mouth open.  The throat pleats expand to allow a ton of seawater and fish in the mouth at one time.  The whale then uses the huge tongue to push the water though the baleen plates.

And we hadn't even made it out of the harbor yet!

Heading out toward Frederick Sound we saw several small icebergs from one of the nearby glaciers.  Since we needed ice, Captain Dennis backed up and we gaffed the iceberg and chipped off some chunks for our use.  We headed back out and cruised northwest when the rain caught up with us. It was eerily beautiful with the shoreline obscured by the rain so that the mountains were gone and we could only see shadows of the shoreline.

Had a fantastic dinner while on the move.  Halibut and asparagus and rice with strawberry shortcake for dinner.  Nikki is a great cook!  The scenery was amazing as we enjoyed our meal.

Found a feeding pod of humpbacks near Cape Fanshaw and I did my first recording today.  The whales were all over the place and the light was fading so the pictures were not very good.  But it was good practice for tomorrow. 

We passed by Five Finger Lighthouse tonight and arrived at Steamboat Bay where we set both shrimp pots and crab pots.  It's a beautiful bay, hoping to hear wolves.....

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We had a lovely spread awaiting us as we got aboard.	The crab boats offload at the cannery.	Dungeness crab
	Sea lions on a buoy in the harbor. The big guy hauling himself out was playing mouth games with the one on his left.	They both went into the water and the remaining animals were treated to a tippy buoy!
Sharon and Pal	A seal watches us approach the iceberg.	The icebergs are a beautiful blue color.
	Every view is spectacular.	A singleton humpback lunge feeding.
Incoming weather.	A glacier in the distance.
Getting the shrimp pots ready	Shrimp pots out!	Donna setting her crab pot.
Kurt setting his crab pot. There's a prize for the person who catches the most.	Pat and Kathleen practicing loon calls.