Our streak of sunny weather extended until early this morning, but was not to last much longer than that: by breakfast a layer of gray clouds had rolled in.  Most of us opted for a bushwhack tour this morning, and found something fairly different from either of our earlier such outings.  At our location on Halleck Harbor the woods are still crossed by the remains of old logging roads, so even though there are no formal trails it is not too hard to travel if you find and follow such a route.  One does still have to keep a sharp eye out for devil’s club, which seems to grow preferentially alongside these more open areas.  During our walk we saw a large number of banana slugs, in all three of the local varieties:  white, gray, and spotted.  (For those who haven’t seen one before, banana slugs are native to the west coast and can grow up to ten inches long.  The largest we saw were maybe six.)  We also came across a number of wildflowers and mushrooms, but no bears — unlike one of the skiff tour groups, who saw two!

After lunch we split up again.  Nick and Melissa were the only two from our group who opted for the snorkeling expedition.  Because the water temperature is only 42 degrees, all snorkelers were issued wetsuits, which we had tried on in advance two days before.  Today we once again wriggled our way into our 14-mm neoprene skins that covered every inch of our bodies except for a circle around the face, and made our way to the skiff for launch.  (As a bonus, because we already had our wetsuits on, for once we weren’t required to wear life preservers during the skiff ride.)

The snorkeling site was an underwater canyon whose sheer walls were teeming with aquatic life, including sea stars in more colors than you would believe (blue? really?), a bewildering variety of crabs, and something we think was a candy corn nudibranch.  There were bright orang hermit crabs the size of a fist walking around in spiral shells, and sea cucumbers extending delicate orange filaments that looked like flowers.  The trip had been planned for dead low tide so that there would be no currents to drag us around, and even above the water the rocks were dripping with sea stars still clinging to the cliffside waiting for the water to come back and cover them up again.  Although we had the option of ending early if we got too cold, we all stayed for the full allotted time of nearly an hour.  Sadly, pictures from this trip are limited because we didn’t have a camera with us, but we’ll add some taken by fellow travelers when we can get them.

Meanwhile the rest of the group went on a guided kayak tour of the Keku Islands.  After experiencing a triple launch from the Sea Dragon (three boats pushed off in parallel), we explored the intertidal zone, seeing multi-legged sea stars, whelks, anemone, and lots of kelp.  Plus, we spotted a friendly otter and several harbor seal pups likely less than 6 weeks old!

We haven’t said much about the food on this cruise, but it is incredible. Chef Rachel gives us the menu every morning at breakfast, and her delivery suggests she is a born comedian as well as a chef.  Today for lunch we all had poke bowls with either fresh salmon or chicken teriyaki, with key lime tart on a ginger crust for dessert.  So delicious!  At dinner our meals were accompanied by sourdough bread made from a starter over 100 years old named Janet.