Le Conte Bay

It sure seemed like a chilly perch to us, but this sub-adult bald eagle seemed quite comfortable perched atop a huge chunk of blue glacial ice. We were sitting in our Zodiac completely bundled up and hot chocolate in hands, marveling at the size, shapes and intense blueness of the ice around us. Some folks chose to board a floatplane for a bird's-eye view of the ice-filled bay, hundreds of harbor seals hauled out on the ice and the Le Conte glacier itself. All of us cruised the bay in our Zodiacs. A bald eagle nest, a moose on the beach, harlequin ducks flying by and a beaver on an iceberg were the highlights of the morning.

In the late afternoon we came across a small group of lunge-feeding humpbacks, and our after dinner entertainment was provided by a pod of approximately 30 killer whales. With the rosy peaks of Baranof Island in the distance, we spent the final hours of daylight watching and listening to these sleek cetaceans. Ho hum, just another incredible day in the wilds of Southeast Alaska.