Kukak Bay - Katmai National Park

Heading for Kukak Bay in the Katmai National Park, we don’t arrive till late afternoon and the slot time for our excursion is not until 18:30 this evening. No landing today just a zodiac trip around the bay to look out for wildlife on the shore, the salmon are running which attracts animals for the food!
17 active volcanos in this park, the 1912 eruption of the Nova Erupta volcano was the largest in the last century, 30 times more powerful than Mount St Helen’s.
14:30, we have slowed and feels as if we are just drifting along the coast - presumably this is Kukak Bay (first picture). Everything looks grey with cloud touching the hills, but the shoreline is clear, the sea looks calm and no rain so I expect the conditions are ok for a trip.
Finally 18:30 and our time to go, the mist and drizzle are back, 2 minutes out and can no longer see the ship. Had to remove my glasses as they were too wet to see through. 5 minutes later the drizzle had stopped, we could see the ship again. I dried my glasses and put them back on. Two bears on the shoreline, the pilot drifted us in as close as possible to the first bear, then slowly moved back and further down the bay to the second bear, again drifted in as close as possible. Think you will probably just be able to see the bears in the pictures, clearer on the iPad. The plan was then to move carrots the bay to an island on the other side to view the birds, but part way across our pilot/guide spotted what he believed was an Ancient murrelet, ( was on maximum, but picture still very small). Back to ship, a small group of sea otters floated by on their backs whilst we ate a late dinner, we then slowly sailed out of the bay towards our next stop. Apparently not far estimated arrival time is our midnight.Read more