“I’m on a boat, I’m on a boat, I’m on a…”

Here was our home for the next 4 days…

Anticipation was high for the Inside Passage, and I kept bouncing around the decks firing the shutter on my camera, finishing with almost 500 images by the time we docked in Bellingham.

Let me share a few of the good ones here…

The Tongass National Forest is the largest forest in the United States, covering over 5.7M acres, with 19 different designated wilderness areas. It’s simply immense, and traveling by boat is one of the best ways to appreciate it. We saw whales, sea otters, swimming deer, and orca. We saw no bear, but would steer people to a recent article in National Geographic magazine to read about the rare ‘spirit bear’, which is a black bear born with white fur. Fascinating stuff.

We also ran into some great people on the ferry…quick shout outs to Rich, Don, and Steve…

Here are a few composites for additional local color…

If anyone is interested in seeing more of the Inside Passage, MSNBC did a nice photo essay over the summer, worth a scan.

After landing in Bellingham, it was a quick scamper home, and we called it a wrap: 5100 miles, 50GB of media to wade through, and time to power scrub the bike. Again.