Sea Otters

[sanders]

How common is it to see sea otters if not on an excursion in Sitka, Haines, Juneau or Ketchikan? I've been to Juneau and Ketchikan numerous times but have never seen them. Thanks in advance. 

Edited December 2, 2022 by sanders

[Northern Aurora]

While I don't remember seeing a sea otter in Haines, we've spotted them in outside of Juneau, Ketchikan and Sitka.  Seward seems to be a particularly good area for spotting them.

[sanders]

Thanks. Appreciate that. BTW, your avatar reminded me of another question... have you ever seen the Northern Lights in the area of these 4 ports in May?

[cw2go]

If you're doing a north or south bound sailing. Phillips cruises out of Whittier will be a great opportunity for otters and the 26 glaciers tour is fantastic. Bring binoculars and sunglasses, you'll thank me later! 😎

 

Patty 

[sanders]

Doing a round trip this time so won’t be in Whittier. Thanks for the info though I will file it away for another time. 

[beluga_baby]

I saw two or three sea otters from the ship while we were sailing into Sitka right before we docked. From my understanding there is a lot in that area. I was actually surprised we saw them, we were on the 14th deck of the ship looking down. I would have thought they were too small to see from up there, but they are bigger than I expected, and with a zoomed in camera or binoculars it was easy to confirm it was them!

[sanders]

Thanks... I will keep watch for them.

[Ashland]

On 12/2/2022 at 2:01 PM, sanders said:

Thanks. Appreciate that. BTW, your avatar reminded me of another question... have you ever seen the Northern Lights in the area of these 4 ports in May?

Northern lights at these ports in May...no...But we have seen them once on an early September cruise.

[sanders]

Rats... thanks Ashland.

[sanders]

Would it be possible to see puffins somewhere if you don't take an excursion?

[Crew News]

4 hours ago, sanders said:

Would it be possible to see puffins somewhere if you don't take an excursion?

That is hard to say.  In all of my visits to Alaska, taking lots of bird photos, I was able to see puffins only on an excursion from Homer Alaska in May.

 

 

[sanders]

Nice photos... sigh... maybe one day.

[dfilpus]

We saw sea otters in Resurrection Bay, just outside of Seward harbor and puffins in Kenai Fjords National Park; both on an excursion.

[sanders]

Thanks… sorry for the late reply just saw this.

[Coral]

I always see them going to Glacier Bay from the ship.

[jdk4asu]

Sea otters generally hang out along the coastlines so that is why there have been comments about Seward and Sitka. I have read there are tons of them in Seward and along the Gulf of Alaska near there. 

 

I know it is a bit off topic, but if you REALLY want to see Sea Otters up close, and always know you will see them, go to Morro Bay in California. There is a whole family of them that move around the northern edge of the bay, as well as Monterey Bay and the coastline right off of Cannery Row in Monterey, next to the aquarium. 

 

Hope that helps!

[atobols]

On 12/9/2022 at 7:39 PM, sanders said:

Would it be possible to see puffins somewhere if you don't take an excursion?

 

We saw a puffin floating by the ship when we were in Glacier Bay. 

[atobols]

7 hours ago, jdk4asu said:

Sea otters generally hang out along the coastlines so that is why there have been comments about Seward and Sitka. I have read there are tons of them in Seward and along the Gulf of Alaska near there. 

 

I know it is a bit off topic, but if you REALLY want to see Sea Otters up close, and always know you will see them, go to Morro Bay in California. There is a whole family of them that move around the northern edge of the bay, as well as Monterey Bay and the coastline right off of Cannery Row in Monterey, next to the aquarium. 

 

Hope that helps!

 I was thinking the same thing.  We like to kayak in Morro Bay and we always have otters floating along next to us.  I've seen them lots of times in Monterey Bay from a scuba diving or whale watching boat but I've never kayaked there.

[Ferry_Watcher]

We saw a raft of otters while on a whale watching excursion at Icy Strait Point.

[eileeshb]

3 hours ago, atobols said:

 

We saw a puffin floating by the ship when we were in Glacier Bay. 

There’s a few places in Ireland with heaps of Puffins in the summer, the most popular would be the cliffs of moher (a stones throw from my home turf) and also the Skelligs down in Kerry. There were so many puffins around when Star Wars was being filmed on Skellig Michael that they created the porgs in order to hide them via cgi. 

[sanders]

Thanks everyone!

[islandchick]

Tons of otters and puffins on wildlife cruise out of Seward. Unfortunately haven't seen them along the regular Alaska cruise route. To late to see northern lights in general. 

[sanders]

Thx

[CynCyn]

We saw several otter on a whale watch from Victoria.  Sadly, we didn’t see any whales!

[Rothko1]

We went on a sea otter excursion cruise in Sitka that went out past the main harbor.  We saw some otters, and everyone was photographing them.  Then a few of us spotted a couple of humpback whales and our excursion quickly switched from sea otters to whale watching, which was fantastic.  We tracked the whales, and then actually saw a gray whale also.  So while the sea otters were interesting, they quickly lost out to the excitement of the whales.