Another beautiful sun-shiney day dawned in Bishop Bay, and we had a little leftover whale luck from yesterday.  There was a humpback feeding in the bay as we left.  Our luck morphed into general marine mammal karma as we went, with Dall’s porpoises riding on the bows of several of our boats, the occasional Harbor porpoise, and even a couple of Elephant seals.

These latter creatures are the largest members of the seal family.  While the adult males weigh in at 2 tons, the picture of our Elephant seal showed it to be a svelte female weighing a mere 1800 pounds.  They are prodigiously deep divers and spend most of their time underwater, which makes spotting one a special event, and spotting two exceptionally rare.

Aaltanhash Inlet seemed like it was all ours when we came in to anchor, with not another boat in sight.  As we settled in, though, it was evident that we were not alone.  Two species of salmon, chum and silver, schooled at the mouth of the creek, leaping into the air.  Perhaps they were happy at returning to their home stream.  A couple of bald eagles perched on a branch over the creek, indifferent to the fishy goings-on below them.  No doubt they had already had their fill.

We had not had our fill, however, and several of our crews emulated the salmon and worked their way up the estuary at high tide.  We drew the line at jumping the dinghies over the rocks, though.  The salmon were on their own from there on, with their stream as private for them as our anchorage was private for us.  A good day for all of us!