Have you heard of yak and wak? It’s one of many fine terms we have learned on this trip.  A yak and wak is a combination trip, part kayaking (the yak) and part bushwhacking (the wak).  Instead of shorter morning and evening activities, today we had the option of an all-day yak and wak with a packed lunch.  The ship was shifting its anchorage in the middle of the day, so we were able to make a one-way voyage from the first anchorage to the second.

Our journey got off to a dramatic start when a big brown bear walked out of the woods onto the shoreline near where we were putting in.  (We found out later that members of our group had been on shore ready to start a hike, and had to retreat temporarily to the skiff until the bear moved along.)  We watched the bear for a good long time before setting off on our paddle.

We traveled by kayak for most of the morning, until it was time to make landfall for lunch.  Along the way we passed a group of curious seals, who kept popping their heads above the waves to stare at us, before ducking underwater and coming up again in a new position a few moments later.

We paused for our picnic lunch on a small shell beach, carrying all the kayaks up above the high water line since the tide was coming in.  Besides the sandwiches and sides we all carried, our guide had brought tomato soup for all of us, still hot in a thermos.  As we ate, we waved at the Wilderness Legacy as it sailed by on its way to the second anchorage.

After lunch it was bushwhacking time!  A bushwhack is nothing but a walk in the woods, except that there is no trail, and not really any solid ground either — the surface you are walking on is mostly sphagnum moss, laid on top of downed trees and branches in various states of decomposition.  At any given instant you might step into a deep hole, or perhaps in trying to maintain your balance you might grasp at a nearby plant — hopefully not a devils club, an exceptionally ornery piece of vegetation boasting sharp spines on every surface, even the leaves.  Oh, and you are still wearing your rubber boots, of course.  Fortunately we were forewarned about all these dangers and managed to avoid getting into trouble.  And of course, we were still wearing our trusty rubber boots, which one of the guides jokingly referred to as “Alaskan sneakers”.

At the farthest point of our bushwhack we reached a relatively open area, a sort of muskeg — a type of wetlands, except that the ubiquitous sphagnum moss holds much of the moisture to create a sort of spongy, squishy, yet mostly walkable surface.  It had several kinds of pretty flowers — four-lobed dwarf dogwoods, purple shooting stars, and some pretty pink flowers that our guide didn’t recognize.

At this time of year the spruce trees are sending out new greenery from the tips of their branches.  These spruce tips are edible, and a good source of vitamin C according to our guide.  Everyone tasted a sample, with varying degrees of satisfaction.  However, the flavoring would turn out to be a theme of the day — at happy hour later, the featured drink featured gin infused with spruce tips, and after dinner the dessert was panna cotta flavored with — you guessed it — spruce tips!

Our bushwhack made a circuit back to the boats, and we continued on our way to catch up with the Wilderness Legacy.  Once there, we met up with the rest of our party and shared photos from the day.  A couple highlights included a forest view from the shore meander, not to mention a pair of eagles nesting in their aerie high up in a tree.  

Coincidentally, the after-dinner lecture of the day focused on eagles and their parenting practices.  We thought that this would be the final event of the day.  Boy were we wrong!  Midway through the presentation, the speaker exclaimed that she had just seen a whale off the side of the ship.  Everyone rushed to see, and the one whale turned out to be part of a pod of humpbacks in the middle of foraging for dinner.  Several of them surfaced right next to our ship, blowing spray into the air several times before diving deep and showing us their tails.  Even the crew were entranced by the sight, and we idled in position for almost an hour watching the show — which just for good measure included a stunning sunset and a brief cameo appearance by some passing porpoises.  We counted more than 30 fin dives from all sides of the boat.