Creeping Tides and Our Last Goodbye

On September 8, we went out for our last two session day. We delayed our morning landing by half an hour because it was pouring rain. By the time we went out, the rain had stopped (at least for the moment). As it was low tide, we had a longer walk in. 

Our photo spot for the morning.

This morning wasn’t super eventful—probably our least active session so far. We saw some bears fishing but for the most part the bears were widely dispersed. 

Bears walk in the rain.

Bears walk downstream in search of salmon.

A gull eats leftovers from what the bears didn't eat.

A bear walks towards the water in the rain.

iPhone shot of a bear fishing in front of us.

Since I'm always photographing, I don't have many photos of me in the field when I travel. Since the action was low, I made it a point to take a few photos of me for once!

A bear searches for salmon less than 2 feet behind me.

A photographer in her natural environment. This day was cold, and I didn't have my gloves on me!

We came back for lunch, and we were going to go back out later in the afternoon around 4PM but in true expedition style, we changed the plans and went out right after lunch. That wasn’t supposed to be the best time to go but it was foggy outside (and we were hoping for some moody photos). 

Afternoon fog in Katmai.

Off we went with our buckets in tow!

Our group wades to shore.

This session ended up being one of our best so far. For not being the best time to go, we had SO much action... Once we passed the lazy bear crew, that is!

Mom keeps a watchful eye on her surroundings as her cubs relax.

A bear snoozes in the grass.

Like mother like cub? Mom and her baby take a nap on the beach.

And then, momma and her cub got up (slowly).

Mom and cub slowly wake up from a nap.

A cub watches its mother fish.

We had bears fishing all around us...

That's not lipstick you see... 

A blonde cub attempts to catch fish.

A sow with her catch.

A bear munches on its salmon.

Maybe the bears thought we were hungry, because they kept bringing their salmon right in front of us. Below is a video I took on my iPhone. Click the play icon to view it. You might have to click it twice!

A sow and her cub growled at another sow and its cub when they got too close... This little chubby cub just wanted to protect its fish!

A young cub rears up as mom keeps a watchful eye on a nearby sow and cub.

A chubby cub rears up, dragging its fish too.

We had at least five bears fishing in all directions...

A bear with its catch.

A bear patrols the water, searching for salmon.

Another successful catch.

... and a sow even walked by with her three cubs less than two feet away from us. It was a liiiiittle too close for comfort!!! Our captain/bear guide had to make some noise to discourage them from getting even closer. For those of you wondering how close is "close"... 

Bear selfie!

...And below is a video I took on my iPhone. Click the play icon to view it. You might have to click it twice!

One of the men happened to be positioned closer to the bear than one of the women on our trip so the joke of the day ended up being when he said, “you can’t throw someone in front of a bear and then have dinner with them!! That'd be awkward”. We were all holding our breaths during this encounter, and it amazes me that the cub probably would have kept creeping closer to us if it wasn’t for our captain who stepped into “papa bear mode.” Once the cubs walked passed us, they plopped down to watch mom fish. One was more interested in checking us out, though!

A curious cub watches us while the others wait for mom to catch a fish.

In this photography session alone, I took over 600 pictures because the action was nonstop in every direction. Every time we got up to leave, something else happened. We were planning to leave around 3PM but ended up staying until almost 4PM. Because the tide kept creeping closer and closer, we continually had to pick up our buckets and move further up the little island until we were standing on the only remaining sand bank left in sight. When it was time to leave, we were able to be picked up almost right at the island for the first time ever because the tide had come up so much since we left. It was nice not to have to hike back out to the zodiac for once.

Landon brings the zodiacs.

After our evening photo session, we had dinner of sockeye salmon complete with fresh apple pie.

Our dinner buffet station.

Dinner is served!

Immediately after dessert, we had yet another image review session. The days are starting to catch up with me (and I’m the youngest on the trip!!) so I ended up going to sleep at 8PM—and slept through the night… up and ready to go at 6:30AM! 

On September 9, our second to last full day here, we had a quiet morning in. Because the tide has shifted so dramatically since we landed, we were supposed to have only one landing today and one landing tomorrow. Initially, we were going to go out after our brunch of breakfast burritos. But, with the winds and heavy rains not many people wanted to venture out in the stormy weather. The wind was so strong that if you looked out the window, you could see our boat swaying from side to side. Even just sitting doing nothing, you felt like you were spinning. It would’ve been nice to be on land solely to get a break from the spinning—it made me slightly dizzy but it wasn't totally unbearable. The ginger cookies were a nice touch to get us through the day!

For obvious reasons, our captain had the final say on whether or not we'd go out and it was determined that due to the strong gusts of wind, we wouldn't be because he wasn’t comfortable having the zodiacs towed back to our boat. So, we had an entire day to go through our hundreds of pictures.

Editing on a rainy day.

Honestly, it was much needed. Many of you don’t realize how intensive photography workshops like this are. Yes, I’m technically on vacation but whenever we aren’t shooting, we’re spending hours on end editing our photos and critiquing images. We basically have “homework” with the image reviews. We each select three or four images almost daily and have in-depth critiques talking about how to improve as well as going over any other technical skills that we want to learn. As I write this, it’s nearly 3:30PM in the afternoon. I’ve been awake since 6:30AM and have pretty much been editing since then with breaks for meals, walking around, asking/giving feedback to fellow workshop participants, and resting my eyes. There’s a reason it’s called a workshop and not vacation. We definitely “play”, but we work really hard too. Even now that I'm home, I'm still sorting images, editing and posting these blogs, and working on an end-of-trip video/photo slideshow. But back to the boat... During our image review session, the wind picked up. You could hear the wind howling against the bow right at the theater’s walls where we were having our image review and later, downstairs, you could hear the waves slapping the windows. After more editing, we had dinner and then a show and tell. For the show and tell, we grabbed something that we travel with that we thought would be useful to other people on the trip. It’s a fun way to see what accessories you’re missing and what other people have in their bags when they go on these workshops. 

September 10 certainly made up for our rainy day yesterday. The weather this morning was gorgeous. We put on our waders while admiring the pink clouds as the sun started to rise and then headed towards the beach. 

Morning sunrise.

Wading to shore, buckets in tow.

Our photo location for the morning.

We initially followed a sow with her three cubs and eventually we made our way up the beach to our favorite shooting location. 

A photographer in her natural environment!!

A sow sits on the shore. 

A bear yawns in the early morning.

Cub cuddle puddle! 

Brown bears are great in black and white.

Wolf or bear?? It looked like this cub was howling, ha!

The sow and her cubs all came right towards us and stayed with us for hours. We observed the little ones playing, wrestling, fishing with mom, bugging mom to nurse, and eating salmon. 

A cub with its catch. We were so excited for it, until the cub dropped the salmon and went to take a bite of mom's fish.

A sow chases salmon upstream.

A cub asks mom to nurse. Mom was not having it!

The three amigos munch on salmon.

Playtime!

Cubs being goofballs.

Two cubs wrestle in Geographic Harbor.

One of the three cubs sat down right in front of us and was lying belly up while playing with a chewed off salmon tail. 

If you look in between the two paws, you can see the salmon tail!

When the bears got super close, we were forced to be creative. I zoomed in on the details... 

A sow and her cub come to the water for a drink.

When the telephoto was too long, I focused in on the details.

Up close and personal.

A different cub used some dead branches as a jungle gym (which gave me the chance to try a panorama image with wildlife)...

The bear playground.

I also attempted to play with motion, though these aren't exactly what I was picturing.

A sow takes a break from fishing to drink.

A cub splashes around, trying to catch fish.

A sow chases salmon at full speed upstream.

...and at one point the three cubs walked straight past us allowing for some great chances to photographing backlit subjects (today was the first truly sunny day we’ve had). 

A backlit sow.

A cub walks upstream.

Two cubs walk upstream.

Because the sun was out and the water was fairly still, after our two-hour long photo session we decided to head further up the bay to photograph some reflected landscapes. Since we all had our telephotos on us (and most of us only hike with one lens… we choose our lenses carefully!!), we ran back to the boat to grab different lenses. We kept our waders on, hosing sand and rocks off our waders on the loading dock, and ran inside still dressed. We were back outside in less than five minutes and what was supposed to be a 20-minute photography session via zodiac ended up being over an hour. We began with photographing the cliffs reflecting in the water and the surrounding landscape until our captain spotted a juvenile bald eagle behind us. 

iPhone shot of the reflections.

To the left of the reflected landscape we were photographing, we noticed this waterfall.

We headed there to observe and then a second juvenile bald eagle, the other one’s sibling, swooped in for a landing. 

Panorama of the bald eagle's perch.

Coming in for a landing.

The juvenile bald eagle's sibling was not amused.

We spent some time with the pair before one flew off and then the other. 

A juvenile bald eagle takes flight.

For once, a bald eagle flew the way we wanted it to fly!

A juvenile bald eagle takes flight.

Next up on our quest? Trying to photograph otters. The sea otters here are more skittish than ones I remember seeing as a child and watching all of us trying to photograph otters was comical. Our captain told us that if the zodiac stopped moving, the otters would dive down. Trusting his experience, we bumped up our shutter speeds significantly and began aiming wildly, swinging our cameras like crazy people, trying to get their heads in focus as he drove the zodiac around in circles... we basically just did doughnuts with the zodiacs!

The men's zodiac zooms around.

I wish you could have seen it… we must have looked like idiots holding our telephotos up and trying not to fall over as the zodiacs zoomed around! Giving up on our quest, the zodiac with the men of the trip turned back towards the boat for lunch while our zodiac (all the women!) got distracted by more birds. The captain took us towards a rock with cormorants so we could try to photograph them but, on the way, we came across more otters. 

Otters glance at us, curious.

A sea otter prepares to dive under the water.

A sea otter with her pup.

Because this sea otter had a pup, the pair was much more photogenic. When sea otters have pups, they’re less likely to dive (pups need constant attention since they can’t swim, feed or clean themselves), and that was the case with this sweet duo. We eventually did make it to the rock where the cormorants are, though they ended up flying away shortly after. We raced back in the sunshine (yet bitter cold wind) to the boat for lunch. 

Cruising back to our boat.

Because our group had such great luck the other day with the tide pushing in (even though that’s not supposed to be optimal shooting conditions), the group headed back out to photograph. Having shot over 1,000 photos this morning and with the nonstop action of the days catching up to me, I decided to skip out on this session. I remained onboard to edit and sort through photos. I sat in the kitchen, looking out at the clear skies.

Editing images in the dining room.

I chatted up our lovely chef and swapped recipes with her, too. The group returned (they weren’t gone very long) and I apparently didn’t miss any action, so I didn't have FOMO after all—fear of missing out. Once everyone was onboard, the captain had to reposition our boat because apparently, we were drifting too close to shore and the wind was starting to pick up again—you could see white caps forming outside. After our very long, last full day in Katmai it was time to sit in our favorite editing spots once more to prepare for our final image review session. When our final image review session came around, you could tell how much everyone improved photographically. On my previous photo workshops and even on this one, some people didn’t love image reviews (to each their own!) but I personally benefit a lot from them. If nothing else, I love seeing other people’s images. The amazing thing, actually one of many from this trip, is that here in Katmai you can have a group of six photographers (seven with our photo guide), and you can still capture different images because so much is happening in every direction. After our last image review, we had one final dessert of strawberry shortcake (yikes, I’m going to need to Peloton extra hard when I get home!) and then it was off to our rooms for final packing. 

Our lovely strawberry shortcake.

On the morning of September 11, we were able to squeeze in one last photography session with the bears before our seaplane came to get us. I rose early, making my way upstairs to the kitchen. Everyone seemed extremely tired today—after one week of excitement, we were tired! After a light continental breakfast, I went outside to watch the sunrise one more time. 

This morning, the sky was bright orange.

I proceeded to take everything out of my bucket except for my camera’s rain cover just in case it happened to rain on us during our morning excursion. We headed ashore one final time.

This iPhone shot was taken as we floated closer to shore. In this picture alone, you can see seven bears but when we landed we counted at least 15.

We first came across a sow with two really little cubs, which was the first time we saw this bear family. 

Two young cubs, probably first years, with mom.

We spent the morning with a sow and her three cubs… probably my favorite bear family at Geo. We soaked in every last possible second, watching as the "three amigos" came right up to us once again. 

A sow and her three cubs walk single file right towards us.

Soaking in every second. Photo taken by our photo leader.

We watched mom fishing, giving her cubs a "lecture", and the cubs being goofballs. 

Chasing salmon, per usual.

We were cracking up at this scene because it looked like mom was giving a lecture to her cubs, only the cubs weren't paying any attention to her!

Cubs watch mom fish from the grass.

A cub shakes off the water.

While I took some photos this morning, I mainly observed. Never in my life did I think I’d be so close to a brown bear! Here, nothing separates you from the bear—no platform, no railing, nothing. You’re completely eye level with these gorgeous creatures (unless you sit on a bucket or stand).

This was what we looked like most of the time... We sat on padded buckets with a rope handle and stored our camera gear inside.

You’re close enough to hear them groan at one another when a cub wants mom’s fish. You’re close enough to stare into their relatively tiny eyes with your own naked eye. You’re close enough to see steam rising off their back as the sun rises. The experience here is absolutely unreal. It is so unbelievably special that I’m already yearning to return. When it was time to say goodbye to the bears, we made our way back to the zodiacs. As if to say, “don’t go”, a huge boar decided to cut us off. He strolled lazily through the water—right in front of our incoming zodiac. We backed up to give him additional space. When he was far enough away, we continued onward. Our last zodiac ride was nothing short of peaceful—with the clear skies, everything around us was reflected into the water. 

Our boat, the M/V Dream Catcher, reflected in the water.

iPhone panorama of the reflections on the way back to the zodiac.

Back on board, we had a fabulous brunch of homemade cinnamon rolls, a frittata, bacon, and fresh fruit. Our chef gave us doggy bags of freshly baked cookies to take with us to Kodiak, too! 

Because the men returned to shore to look for a lost handheld radio, we lugged our suitcases up the stairs to save them some time. We formed a human conveyer belt on the stairs—one of us at the bottom, me in the middle, and two up top—and tossed suitcases upwards so we could stack them on the aft loading dock to prepare for our departure. We headed up to the top deck to take in the views and take a few last pictures and when we heard the seaplanes approaching, headed back downstairs. 

Who said photographers travel light??

Photographing on the top deck.

The seaplanes pulled right up to our boat, one after the other.

The first seaplane comes in.

I was on the first seaplane to depart. We stepped onto the floaters, ducked under the wings, and loaded into the seaplane one by one. Thank goodness the pilot had loaded our bags and camera gear for us, because the floaters are pretty narrow. It’s a balancing act! I had the back row to myself and took photos out the window for our entire one-hour flight back to Kodiak. 

Party in the back with the luggage!

The crew and the other half of our group wait to load up on the other seaplane as ours prepares for depature.

As we got ready for take off, I put on the headset because the propeller is so noisy.

Ready for takeoff.

On our flight out, we flew over the ranger cabin.

The ranger cabin at Geographic Harbor.

Flying out of Geographic Harbor.

Compared to when we left, there was a lot more fall color coming in and the ground beneath us was saturated with orange hues. 

Fall color near Kodiak.

Flying near Kodiak.

When both seaplanes had landed and everyone’s luggage was accounted for, we shuttled to the hotel. Later in the evening, we met for a final group dinner at a local Asian restaurant, Hana, which we walked to in the crisp evening air. Unfortunately, they were out of black cod, so I ended up ordering a shrimp dish which wasn’t bad. After dinner, we walked ¾ mile back to the hotel and I called it an early night. I didn’t even have the energy to edit more pictures!! 

September 12 was my travel day—three flights, more than 11 hours. We took the hotel’s shuttle to the airport, arriving even before the security checkpoint was opened in the one terminal gate airport. About an hour after arriving at the airport, the security line opened, and we proceeded through. As we sat in the waiting area by the gate, I downloaded all my images from our final morning in Katmai. By the time I was done, it was almost time to board. I slipped my rain cover on my camera backpack because it was raining heavily and the airport in Kodiak is so small there’s not even a covered ramp to get to the plane—you walk outside and climb the staircase. The flight was short, less than an hour, and we landed in Anchorage with no delays. In Anchorage, a group of us headed to the airport lounge before most of us flew to Seattle together. As we landed in Seattle, I caught a glimpse of the Space Needle. 

View from flying into Seattle... if you look closely, you can see the Space Needle.

Here, the group split up and said final goodbyes. Two people spent the night in Seattle and our photo leader and I continued on one final flight—her to San Diego and me to Los Angeles. Our gates were supposed to be close to one another, so we walked around the airport trying to find a Starbucks in our terminal (how was there no Starbucks???). When it was time for me to board, she went to her gate. By the time I landed in Los Angeles, it was nearly 11PM. I got home close to midnight and didn’t end up getting to sleep until almost 2AM because I was telling my mom stories and making amends with my dog who just wanted belly rubs. 

Being home is different. I always get reverse culture shock. The air isn’t crisp, there are tons of people honking their horns, and there certainly aren’t any bears around. I thought I’d be more nervous flying (it was my first time flying since the pandemic, after all) but honestly I feel more anxious in the markets here. At least on airplanes people are relatively good about wearing their masks properly and being considerate of others!

Now that I’ve traveled within the US, I’m ready to go abroad again and I have some exciting things in the works… Stay tuned for what’s to come and as always follow my Instagram @elissatitle for more pics! See you soon!