Monday, April 2, 2012

Channelling Marian Ladenburg-McGlone

Pack of hungry Stellar Sea Lions
This post was almost the third in my “This is NOT my Life” series, but I thought Marian deserved a post in her honor. So here’s the scene: Saturday morning, 6am, I get up, really tired, and admittedly a little spent from a park service party the night before. The weather outside is my absolute unfavorite: the snow-rain mix. I’m suppose to go whale watching or whaling* in Craig (an hour away). I don’t want to go, but as I was staring out the window I thought of my dear cousin Marian and how much she loves whales and said, f-it, I’m going. So I drank some coffee put on all of my rain gear and made the lonesome journey to Craig (I borrowed a car from the nice lady whose apartment I live in). By the time I got to Craig it was sunny! The water was still pretty choppy but the group (about five of us) decided we were going whale hunting, I mean watching, whatever, in kayaks. Within about two minutes of being on the water I saw a whale breaching, it was F-ING awesome. We paddled for another three hours or so and I managed to have one of the most amazing Southeast Alaskan experiences. At one point we were paddling, there were whales in the distance, eagles soaring overheard (a lot of them), and I was dangerously close to a pack of sea lions. The sea lions were absolutely following or chasing our boats and barking at us. And let me tell you, they had terrible breath
 
Dead Seal

Other exciting happs included finding a dead seal. We couldn’t identify the cause of death but it was really cool to see a seal that close, it was simultaneously sad.

The whole experience made me even more excited about kayak guiding in Gustavus this summer! Have you guys checked this place our yet or what!?! http://www.seakayakalaska.com/guides.htm#gpm1_4

Okay, it’s exactly 20 days until Earth Day, GET EXCITED!

* The people that I was with didn’t really appreciate me referring to what we were doing as “whaling” apparently that has some negative connotations. They didn’t appreciate “whale hunting” either. Hippies, they’re everywhere.
 




1 comment:

  1. Love this blog post Ebs - thanks for the shoutout! I like those Stellar Sea Lions, even if they were all smelly, loud and obnoxious!

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