Jellyfish and spawning salmon

Location: Secret location, Baranoff Island, southeast Alaska We have been seeing returning and spawning salmon everywhere!!!   Salmon jumping out of the water as we cruise by.   Salmon fry schooling in thick black clouds.   Salmon swimming under the kayaks and salmon under the inflatable during shoreline tours.   So I decided to launch our divers in a […]

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Scuba diving in a mountain lake in Alaska!!

Location: Baranoff Warm Springs, Baranoff Island, southeast Alaska. Did a couple of great dives today on Baranoff Rock outside of Baranoff Warm Spring on – you guessed it – Baranoff Island in southeast Alaska.  This pinnacle always proves popular with our scuba diving guests as it is loaded with a huge variety of critters, interesting […]

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Guest Blog – July 22/09

My 100th dive no better place then alaska ! exhilarating experience awesome invertebrate life with incredibly long “dooky” trails from the seacucumbers !!! – Anne Die Nautilus Explorer ist immer wieder eine Empfehlung! Nur mit diesem Schiff ist ein solcher anspruchsvoller Tauchtrip in Alaska ein echter Genuss und keine Anstrengung. Wir haben in den ersten […]

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Guest Blog 9 July 2009

A huge sea of moon jellies in a gorgeous steep sided inlet in Alaska Oh yeah, it goes without saying that the scenery and weather has been  superb so far on this trip.  The highlight so far is a tie between swimming around the icebergs, watching bald eagles swoop down on unsuspecting salmon fry as we drifted past […]

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Amazing, incredible numbers of jellies (jelly fish) everywhere

Location: Baranoff Island, southeast Alaska Had a good start to this trip with nice diving at Meyers Chuck, a great iceberg day at Le Conte Bay and our first closeup grizzly bear sighting of the trip in an impossibly spectacular beautiful mountain fjord on the east side of Baranoff Island. Everything about this fjord was […]

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Guests Who Are Great Sports and 1 Darned Grizzly Bear

Why is he a darned grizzly bear? Because he chose to amble across the beach 150 yards away from the Nautilus Explorer in the middle of my morning briefing. Cheeezzzz, how am I supposed to do a briefing when all the guests are running for their cameras and binoculars?! Anchored up in beautiful and scenic Secret Bay today. I hesitate to publish the topographic name of this bay because (a) it is so beautiful (b) we have had really good luck with grizzly bears here (c) there is an amazing grotto of marble accessible up the stream (d) when the salmon return to this stream, it is a great place to snorkel with them and (e) we have a permit with the good graces of the U.S. Forest Service that allows our guests stroll, walk and hike through the rainforest here

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Nautilus Jeopardy (The Game)

It is always a pleasure and a good time having Captain Phil Sammet, his lovely wife, beautiful daughter and all his friends onboard the Nautilus Explorer. Through his many scuba diving charters on the Nautilus, Phil has steadfastly stuck to 2 traditions (a) he will paint the toenails of any anybody that he is able to sneak up on if they are having a nap on a couch in the main salon (b) every trip must conclude with a game of Nautilus Jeopardy with questions based on the many (interesting?) facts presented during my various dive and natural history briefings throughout the trip.

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