Kodiak Island: Fossil Beach & Gray Whales
If you drive all the way south in Kodiak, you end up at Fossil Beach. It’s a very pretty beach, framed at both ends by high cliffs and a beautiful strip of yellow sand in the middle. Very scenic and picturesque (despite having to navigate a rough gravel road at the end). The beach was desolate except for a few people sitting on shore and looking at windsurfers just a few feet off the beach in the water….. Except…. it wasn’t windsurfers!!! Those were whales! Yep, two grey whales, mother and calf most likely, swimming and rolling and flopping flippers just about a dozen feet offshore. Absolutely insane! They would swim on their back with flippers in the air, turn around and puff a fountain, dive and then reappear and spyhop (head coming up above water – a very rare behavior). I even climbed a near vertical cliff to get a better view. Absolutely surreal! And another whale species – check (you can tell grey whales by their spotted coloration).
