Star gate suplimental….OK cheesy I know but hey I caught your interest right? So back to wildlife viewing, glacier calving, and Ranger lectures with an all-you-can-eat prime rib and salmon buffet! Although we don’t have a capitain quite like Jean-Luke Picard, they are equally experianced only not bald.
So anywho, back to wildlife viewing, yesterday on our 5 hour Wildlife Cruise we saw a bit of everything, allowing this day to be our offical brochure day. Now when I say that I mean if you could replicate all that is provided in a brochure; serine blue skies, emerald seas, and wildlife ranging from puffins to whales, well, that’s what we saw! This time of year is when the Alaskan Animal kingdom is fruitful and multiplies i.e. lots of babies! The puffins are handsome in their contrasting black and white breeding plumage topped with a tangerine colored beak. The sea lion bulls are bulked up to perfection and the humpback whales are back up in Alaska after a period of fasting while giving birth to their calves in Hawaii. Now is the time to see the wilderness at work! I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings because the wildlife are putting up an extravigant show!

This could become the best year yet for Major Marine Tours. The season has kicked off with the sun shining, beautiful blue skies and calm seas. The wildlife has been no stranger to these waters either. A passenger on the “Star of the Northwest”  says, “ great wildlife viewing!”

The plethora of wildlife viewed on the tour this week includes: Bald Eagles, Mountain Goats, Dall’s Porpoise, Humpback Whales, Finn Whales, Black Bears, Seals, Sea Otters, Tufted Puffins and Orca Whales. With so much to see there is never a dull moment to be had. On Monday Captian GaryKirscheman said, “This is the most amount of Dall’s Porpoise I have ever seen on a single trip!” We could not escape them. Later in the week on Saturday our senior deckhand reported that Orcas were seen swimming with Humpbacks.

If adventure and excitement are apart of your vacation appetite, Major Marine Tours is the place to be. When sailing out into the deep blue seas on one of the boats, amazing moments are bound to follow. “My buddy has  allowed me only twelve awesomes for our Alaska trip. This part was awesome!”  a perfect way to describe the season thus far.

For the last few days we have seen Transient orcas, which is pretty cool, but you will never guess what we saw them do yesterday, August 16th. They stalked a small pod of Humpback whales, a cow, calf, and a large male escort. The humpbacks were going crazy being chased by the orcas, which made for an unforgetable show!

As the sun shone brightly all day, Wednesday, the animals came out to play! Puffins, Eagles, Sea Otters, Sea Lions, Dalls Porpise, and Orca Whales came out to enjoy Sewards’ summer day. Later in the evening, a Wolverine was spotted on the beach at Bear Glacier for almost 10 whole minuets! How many people can say that they have seen a wolverine?

Although we have not been seeing too many Orcas this past week, we have continuously had marvelous showings of Breaching Humpbacks! For those of you who do not know what breaching is, it is when a whale jumps out of the water and flops on its back/side. Although they do not always breach, we have been seeing quite a bit of them the past couple of weeks. Some of them are even courteous enough to wave their flippers and or tails at us.

In spite of the not so great weather, we were lucky enough to see a Super Pod of Orcas! Just out of no-where we ended up surrounded by 90+ Orcas! Unfortunately Super Pod’s are not seen all that often, but it is defiantly an experience that people do not forget! I mean it would defiantly be hard to forget 90+ Killer Whales surrounding your boat!

For almost the past week we have only been seeing Humpback whales. Although they have been putting on wonderful shows, we were glad when we saw the Orcas again today. They must have been glad too, because they were breaching and showing off for the people on our boats! Hopefully they will stick around and put on some more shows!

Yesterday, while we were out in the Chiswell Islands we saw a spectacular view of all the new baby Sea Lions. Although sometimes the pups stay with their mothers for a few years, the pups I am talking about are the NEW ones, not the ones that just don’t want to leave their mommas, but the cutie ones!! So if you want to see some cutie little baby’s, now is the time to come, because they grow fast!