Today we're hoping (again)to see bubble net feeding.  The day started out with several sea lions scooting by, foraging for herring as well as a large concentration of eagles doing the same.  Both are good signs!  But ultimately it's up to the whales.

As soon as we left the anchorage we came upon a pod consisting of an MC (mother/calf) plus another animal.  Got fluke shots of the adults and moved on as they did not seem to be forming up to do any bubble feeding at this point.  We did see a large herring ball on the sounder, however.

On the beach in a little bay we saw lots of activity. First there was little Sitka black-tailed deer in one open area and a bunch of eagles.  Then we spotted at black bear mom and three cubs, one of which was quite small.  We were watching Harlequin ducks near the beach when we spotted two whales scooting by.

One of the whales looked as though he was doing some lunge feeding but his mouth was out of the water which didn't make a lot of sense.  He did it twice and the second time he did it, something red popped out of his mouth!  We zoomed over to pick it up and it turned out to be a rock salmon which is red and quite spiny.  Poor whale had to cough up a hairball...um...fishball!  Since the humpback throat is about the side of a cantaloupe, that fish must have really felt pretty uncomfortable!  Ben filleted it and we may be the first recorded case of humans eating what a whale coughed up!  It was pretty ugly - the poor thing's eyes were bugging out and his stomach was protruding from his mouth due to the rapid decompression as the whale surfaced.

Under the tutelage of Ben, several folks tried fishing and Adam and Kathleen caught a nice halibut and Pat hooked something but it got away.  Donna didn't have any luck although she fed something her bait and part of her lure but he took off with it.  Donna did almost catch some whales as two humpbacks swam within about 15 feet of the boat.  Ben did a great job with the delicate task of carving up the halibut to eat and freeze.  The fishermen get to divide the spoils of what is caught but not eaten.  It's flash frozen on the boat and then packed in dry ice to take home.

The rain moved in so we moved out in search of a group of whales I saw pass by earlier when I was up on the flying bridge while the fishing derby was going on.

Lunch was sandwiches and wonderful pasta salad.

We came upon a number of mixed pods and worked all of them in hopes of finding a group involved in bubble feeding.  We had several interesting pictures on the sounder of what we are calling "krill lifts" where the whales go under the krill and blow, lifting the krill toward the surface, something we'd have no evidence of without the sounder.

We worked pods all around Cape Fanshaw until it was dusky - it never gets really dark here - before we decided to throw out the crab pots and shrimp pots.  We anchored in Cleveland Passage between Whitney Island and the mainland at the area of the the old Fanshaw town site. At one time several of the islands were used for farming of foxes for fur.

Dinner was just amazing - salmon grilled on alder planks cooked by the Captain on the back deck.  It was just phenomenal and the laughter of the group made the meal all the sweeter.  Nikki is just a wonderful chef - she made a salsa with the whale "hairball" which was incredible.  We snacked on that before dinner.

We worked on expanding the plot for our murder mystery. And Pal is going to form a "Save the Krill" foundation.  Big plans!!

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Mom bear	Mom caught site of us and called the kids.
Two of the three cubs join her.	The littlest cub - "Wait for me"!	Harlequin ducks
Donna jigging for halibut.	A humpback passes near the boat. Everyone is fishing!	Adam and Kathleen and their halibut catches.
The dark triangle is a dense cloud of hearing.		The "fishball" - a rock salmon coughed up by the humpback.
Eagles fishing for herring.
The Hawaiian researcher turned Alaskan cowboy.	Flukes at dusk