Woke up docked at the Icy Strait dock. Quick breakfast and we hit the gym to attempt to mitigate the endless food we have been eating. Icy Straight is a modern generated dedicated cruise ship stop complete with zip line and wilderness tours. It was built at the site of an old cannery. We walked around the area, toured the cannery museum, and saw a whale and some eagles. We had lunch back at the ship. At 2:30 we headed out for our sea raft wildlife tour. The guide, a young man with a wilderness raft sign, was at the pier to meet us. He mentioned he was from Michigan. We asked him where and we were surprise when he said Munising! His name was Paul LeVec and he graduated Munising High School the year before our youngest niece Lillian! The raft ride was great. After suiting up in what looked like a red snowmobile suits that are also floatation devices, we hopped, if you can call waddling around in a dry suit that’s 5 sizes too big hopping, into the 12 man raft. We had two guides, one piloted the raft while the other told us about the animals and the area. We speed across the strait to an island and there on the shore was a large coastal brown bear (what they call grizzly bears that live near the coast).
After watching the bear for a bit, the pilot took us over to an area where sea otters hang out. Sure enough one bobbed out of the water a little ways from the boat. The guide told us sea otters have a pouches under their arms where they keep a rock. They use the rock to crack open oysters. After the otter was done looking at us, we headed over to where the sea lions hang out and watched them watch us.
A humpback whale made an appearance too!!
We saw 3 bears, sea lions, sea otters, eagles and one humpback whale. A very successful tour! After the tour we showered and rest up a bit before meeting Tim and Chris for dinner. We first met them waiting for the shuttle, and yesterday Tim invited us to join them for dinner. We had a great time trading travel stories and visiting with them and enjoying the meal.
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