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Playing hide & seek at Totem Bight State Park, Ketchikan, Alaska. “What do you do in the winter?” It’s one of the most common questions our guests ask us. Does life in Ketchikan end once the last cruise ship has set sail? Although the silence downtown is spooky for a couple of days fortunately, for those of us who live in Ketchikan year-round, there is a lot to do in the off season months and, because we are in the midst of the world’s largest temperate rainforest, our winters are not nearly as cold as most people imagine. We do have winter jobs too. I know, it’s unbelievable, but after finishing our ridiculously fun jobs for the season we don’t just kick back and relax or head to warmer climes. Greg often works the sea cucumber dive fishery in the fall…

In September 2004, there was a meeting of several of the Northern Resident pods at Orcas Cove. It was an amazing day on the water with more than 30 orcas sighted. Our lead guide, James, watches a male orca from his kayak at Orcas Cove. Photo by Brent Buckley – Thank you! Everyone loves whales, don’t they? Seeing whales in the wild here in Alaska is a dream for many people.  Except the idea of being in a small, human propelled kayak next to a whale makes some people very nervous. With the release of the documentary film Blackfish we’ve seen an increase in the number of people who are concerned about the possibility of being eaten or attacked by an orca while they are kayaking with us at Orcas Cove. Although Greg loves to joke that kayaks are an orcas…

Best Summer since 2004 or 1994… Almost everyone in Ketchikan agrees that 2013 was an amazing summer: beautiful weather, tons of visitors and record salmon catches, but not everyone can agree on when the last good weather summer actually occurred. 2004 was definitely a fair weather summer but some old timers say we haven’t had a really beautiful summer since 1994. Whichever one you go with, it’s been quite a while! At Southeast Sea Kayaks, we certainly got spoiled with kayaking in all the sunshine this year. Here is a celebration of our sunny summer in images. We had Orcas early this summer: this photo was taken in early May. Our photo contest winner, Bonnie captured this amazing photo of an acrobatic humpback whale putting on a show at Orcas Cove. Bearnardo, made frequent appearances at the salmon stream in Orcas Cove. We spent an amazing afternoon…