A friend and I are enjoying another morning cruising Tenakee Inlet. Rich, almost Mediterranean light ramps up the beauty level of simple things. A spit covered with living and dead spruce trees looks like the work of a Tuscan master. Silver salmon in transit from the Pacific Ocean to their spawning streams swim though schools of herring, making the smaller fish leap into the air. Gulls swim over the herring schools and try to pluck the flying fish from the air.

We temporarily leave Tenakee Inlet for Fresh Water Bay, rounding a point guarded by two bald eagles.

A brace of swans is swimming along the edge of Pavlov Bay when we enter it. Passengers from a high end cruise ship in a bright orange kayak flush the swans to flight. The birds fly over our boat and then circle the bay, apparently looking for a place to land away from tourists and us. My friend slowly drives his boat out of Pavlov and heads back to Tenakee Inlet, where the other night we saw whales.