Killer whale for lunch, tide-water glacier for afternoon snack, and black bears for dinner. All I have to do is look out of the window from deck 11 as I eat my meals and I get to see all kinds of wildlife. It’s a good life. I’ve seen moose, black bear, brown bear, humpback whale, killer whale, seal, sea lion, bald eagle, mountain goat, 5 different species of salmon, otter, and dozens of glaciers of all sorts. I have had to go on a few excursions to see some of these, but most of them I saw from the ship. The moose was probably the coolest. Once when we were in Glacier Bay National Park and there happened to be a female moose swimming across the channel. That is very rare so it was sure cool to see.

Besides all the obvious wildlife and scenery benefits from the trip I’ve been making friends and connections like there’s no tomorrow. I have probably mentioned before how great it is to make friends from all over the world, but I just want to mention it again.

In other news, I have recently purchased a Leica M8 along with a Carl Zeiss 35mm lens. I’ve never used a rangefinder but I am about to start. The M8 is coming from California and the lens from Australia. I’m going to have to wait a couple weeks before getting them because they are being shipped to Ketchikan and I’m going to just miss them this coming week. I’m excited to start my journey in exploring this new kind of photography. In the future I will probably move more and more into rangefinder photography and away from SLRs simply because rangefinders are made more for street photography. Once I’m done with ship life I’ll be doing a lot of traveling around the world on my own for street photography and documentation. An unobtrusive camera that is quick, nearly silent and reliable is what I will want for that.