Basket Stars Stomping All Over Poor Old Gorgonian Coral

Just to make things more interesting, vast numbers of basket stars are all over the place, waving their tentacles around and clambering all over the poor old Gorgonian coral trying to get “first dib’s” on inbound nutrients. I kind of feel sorry for the coral!

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Exploratory Alaska Diving and 5 Grizzly Bears!

Today’s exploratory secret dive site is a spot that I have wanted to dive for some time and it does indeed have excellent potential. Divemaster/engineer A.J. trumped the scuba diving by taking a group of guests out in the inflatable for a shoreline exploration and discovering 5 grizzly bear in the process! We steamed back in the Nautilus Explorer later in the day and had a grand time watching a grizzly (coastal brown) bear rummaging around in the sedge grass on the beach. It was almost equally entertaining when a young fellow in a Boston Whaler zipped past us, beached his skiff beside a small glacier, and started shovelling ice from the glacier into the front of the Whaler. That’s truly ice cubes Alaskan style!!

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