Friday Funny 10-12/2021 (Otters, Moose, and Bears, Oh My!)

 Our next anchorage was the no name cove at the head of Tracy Arm. Many boats use this small cove as a jumping off point to the Sawyer Glacier. Here's a vessel we shared it with.

Check out the line of "toys" tied in behind, jet skis, and kayaks for guests. When underway, all the toys are stowed inside a garage in the aft section of the boat.

Note the size of the 50ft boat in the distance, and the float plane that is bringing a new set of guests. Even though this was a large charter vessel, they were very respectful of others, their genset was super quiet, and their guests left the cove to zoom around on the jet skis.

We cruised to Juneau, so I could fly to Anchorage for a week of family, and fun. We stayed at my brother's cabin on Big Lake, (an hour north of Anchorage), and enjoyed popcorn, margaritas, and good company.

An incredible rainbow one evening, it circled all around, and reflected in the water.

A side story. My earliest memory is falling off of a dock at Big Lake when I was two years old, my two older brothers hauled me out of the water. I can still see the weed covered pilings in my memory, and you can imagine how this event has colored my reaction/interactions with bodies of water ever since. Believe it or not, I'm not really a "water person". This is the dock.

I returned back to Denali Rose, and we left Auke Bay headed towards Glacier Bay. The weather started out calm, and then we rounded Mansfield Peninsula on Admiralty Island. 

This is the area where Lynn Canal, Icy Strait, and North Chatham meet. Wind, waves, chop... we were taking waves over the top of the dodger, and bimini, and we were estimating 5-7 foot waves on very short intervals. Gus was very seasick while I held him in the cockpit. Poor kitty.

Bill duct taped the cabinets in the galley closed so they wouldn't bang open, and shut. We took refuge in Swanson Harbor on a state float, and that was the end of the rocking and rolling.

Gus was a much happier kitty on our way to Glacier Bay the next day.

Gus is comfy in Bill's fleece.

At the entrance to Glacier Bay, we were surprised by a major migration of sandhill cranes.

We saw flock after flock of cranes overhead, it was thrilling. If I were to estimate how many birds flew by, I'd say over 500. So cool. 

We love going to Glacier Bay in September/October. Most of the restrictive rules have ended, and almost all of the tourist, and cruise ships are gone. 

Otters are always cute.

We knew there was another storm coming, so we found a good bight at the then of Geikie Inlet, and set the anchor well. This isn't a well used anchorage, but we saw wildlife everyday, and even with the storm, we enjoyed our time. 

The glacier across the bay.

Black bear fishing

FAT brown bear

Getting ready for a nap on the beach

We saw bears everyday, sometimes multiple bears, at a time. 

And moose, we had two bulls come down to the waterline to forage. That's kind of unusual, moose typically eat willow, aspen, leaves, bark, and twigs. I didn't think they would eat kelp. We also had the usual company of porpoise, and otter.

My new favorite Glacier Bay hat. 😀

As always, we enjoy hearing from you, either here in comments or on our Facebook Denali Rose Sailboat page.

Friday Funny 10-29/2021 (Lions, Tigers, and Bears... No, just Bears, oh my)

 

Pack Creek is a bear viewing area managed by both the US Forest Service, and Alaska Dept of Fish, and Game. Each organization has a ranger on duty during the viewing season. 

Most boaters anchor inside that small island during the stay of their permit period. We had arrived a day early, so we meandered around the other small islands before going over to anchor next to the creek area the day of our permit. Small story: I was at the helm while Bill was forward deploying the anchor, and he signaled to back down on the anchor. I had just revved the rpms in reverse to set the anchor, and I heard a voice behind me say, "good morning". Whaaat, and TF?!? I turned around and a small inflatable with some people in it, were RIGHT at the transom of the boat. They must have seen my startled expression at almost running them over, and they zoomed off pretty quick. Then, this is the next thing they did.

Um, no, waaaay too close to a momma brown bear with two cubs. The rangers were very unhappy with them. 

They eventually returned to their home ship, and motored off. We chalked it up to tourists who were inexperienced, I'm sure that the driver of the inflatable was not the captain of the ship, he would have known better. 

We were pretty excited though, wow, we saw three bears already. After anchoring, we put our dinghy in the water, and motored over to the mainland for our turn. The park provides a long "clothesline" into the water to tie up your conveyance, then they rotate it out, so that your dinghy isn't accessible to land. This helps to make sure that a bear doesn't tear it up while investigating new smells. The ranger gave us our bear speech, gave us a pamphlet on the area, and said we could take the trail to the overlook shed, or walk the beach to the creek.  She advised us that there was a bear sleeping on the beach, and to be aware. We choose to walk the beach.

Our first encounter was with a deer grazing, and I thought he was pretty close to us. Around the corner from the beach to the creek, is the sitting log for people, and another ranger to manage the area. They weren't kidding when they said there was a bear sleeping on the beach. 

The ranger knew this bear, and she's a cubless sow who visits this area frequently, and is very human habituated. Her fur was so thick, and luxurious that I almost wanted to reach out and pet her. She would wake up every once in a while, dig her hole a bit deeper, readjust her position and flop back down to nap.

Check out what's behind her across Pack Creek. Another sow with what looked like 3 year old cubs. 

We were making up conversations about this family. The mom got in the water to fish, and the cubs just sat down on the bank and waited for mom to throw them some food. We called those two, the lazy teenagers who expected mom to wait on them. It wasn't happening, obviously they were old enough to fish for their own food. "Mooooom, we're hungry, hurry up, and get us something to eat!" "Get off your lazy duffs, and get your own fish, it's about time you were more independent, the den is getting a bit crowded!"

Give it to me, Mom!

Eventually, everyone finally got their own fish.

Further up the creek, we watched a sow, with smaller cubs get their fish. These cubs were getting good at securing their meal.

When the seagulls started to congregate at the mouth of the creek, all the bears took the hint, and went to fish the school of salmon that were entering.

Soon, the tide was coming in, and everyone lumbered off to take naps. 

We also had deer so close, you could almost touch them. They were used to the humans hanging around, and may have felt safe around us. The bears didn't seem interested in them though, probably because they were so full of salmon.

Bill had to take his long lens off of his camera, they were too close to photograph, I just use my Lumix point and shoot. No complications.

This was a very successful excursion, bear wise anyway.

PS, our friends on Adventures have adventures, 😁, and she's a fabulous photographer, loves bears. Check out her blog in the list to the right in Boating Blogs we enjoy. 

PPS, to get you in the Halloween mood, local decorations.

As always, we enjoy hearing from you, either here in comments or on our Facebook Denali Rose Sailboat page.