Icebergs and eagles
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Pybus Bay, Admiralty Island, AK,
Alaska,
United States
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Monday, June 22
8:30 AM We're glad to be leaving Petersburg. It was kind of noisy last night, fishing boats coming and going all night. We woke up this morning to see the back end of a large aluminum landing craft tall enough to look down on us. Apparently it arrived in the wee hours of the morning. We see boats like this from time to time, they’re used to haul a variety of cargo from propane tank trucks to pallets of material from island to island. Today we’re headed to LaConte Bay to check out LaConte Glacier and the ice bergs.
LaConte Bay
As we neared the bay we started seeing car sized ice bergs in the channel. They were being moved around by a strong current. As we got closer to the bay there were more and bigger ice bergs plus lots of smaller chunks. We got as close as we could to the entrance to the bay and took tons of pictures of ice bergs, some of them still and many of them moving in the current. At one point we were idling and discovered we were still moving at over 9 knots because we were in the strong flood current. We were moving towards the mouth of the bay and the converging ice. We decided not to chance going further into the bay, because we might get trapped if the fast moving ice closed off the entrance. Or we could get crunched between two icebergs. We bumped a small piece of clear ice about the size of a large pizza and it sounded like we hit a chunk of concrete. It was beautiful and amazing to watch as the blue and white burgs and bergie bits swirled around our boat. On the way out we snagged a perfectly clear hunk of ice in our fish landing net. Tim wanted glacier ice for his Jack Daniels and we now have an ample supply in our freezer. We talked to Paul from Pear-adise (our friend from Scappoose) and arranged to meet him and his friend Lee in Thomas Bay. We got to Thomas Bay and heard Paul calling on the VHF radio but he couldn’t hear us. We anchored in a one boat cove well into the bay and finally talked to Paul an hour or so later. He was anchored near the entrance to Thomas Bay. Neither one of us wanted to up anchor and move so we decided to get together in the morning.
Tuesday, June 23
We left our anchorage at 6:45 and found Pear-adise. We rafted with them and had a really nice visit with Paul and Lee for a couple of hours. It was great to share stories about where we all have been and what we’ve learned. After our visit we went to Sandborn Canal in Houghton Bay. During the afternoon and evening we FINALLY saw a bear and watched him wander around and eat grass on the shore. Later we saw 3 moose. There was a male, a female and one appeared to be the "teenager" and was splashing in the water and just generally bugging the other two. Tim tried to fish but there were small flying, biting bugs so he gave up. There was a minus 4.8 tide early in the morning, a difference of 20 feet in depth from when we anchored. It was really amazing how much the landscape changed as the tide went out.
Wednesday, June 24 Henry’s Arm
Jill went outside to bring up the anchor and was swarmed by the same tiny biting bugs that got Tim when he was fishing last night. They were in her hair and all over her jacket and she couldn’t get the anchor up fast enough. There was a sailboat anchored near us and they were planning to go kayaking on the stream at the end of the cove. Hope they experience the nasty little buggers before they get in their kayaks. We were glad we decided not to go kayaking.
We are anchored in Henry’s Arm in Pybus Bay, about a three hour trip. Along the way we saw orcas, humpbacks and porpoise playing in our wake. The whales are very cool, but always too far away to get a good picture. The weather report is for strong winds for the next couple of days and we wanted to be someplace protected from the winds. Our first choice was Cannery Cove, the spot recommended by our boating guide, but there were already two boats anchored there and we didn’t want to crowd them. Later we decided our snug spot in Henry’s Arm was a more protected anchorage and we were soon joined by a boat that had been in Cannery Cove. We saw a grizzly bear as we came into this cove but he ran off when he saw us. There are huge flies and bees here and Tim tried to fish off the boat, but spent more time with the fly swatter, killing the flies swarming around him. The flies were gone in an hour and we were able to enjoy sitting on our top deck. In the evening we watched a spectacular show of eagles feeding on the small fish in the cove. At one point there were 7 adults and 2 juveniles all taking turns diving for small fish. When we went to bed around 10:00 the waters in Henry’s Arm were calm but at 2:30 in the morning the wind came up and at one point hit 15 knots. We decided to let out more anchor chain for safety sake and went back to bed.
Thursday, June 25-27 Henry’s Arm
The weather report is still forecasting strong winds (20-30 knots) and high seas (3-5ft) for today and tomorrow and Saturday. Today we ventured out from our protected cove so Tim could fish in some deeper water. We fished behind some islands which protected us from some of the wind, but it was still cold outside. We drifted for about an hour, fishing, but no luck. On the way back we checked out Cannery Cove again, but it was windier there so we headed back to Henry’s Arm. This time when we anchored we let over 200 feet of chain in so we won’t have to get up during the night. Another boat came in during the afternoon and we chatted with them on the radio a bit. There is plenty of swinging room for both of us and other boaters always respect your space. We watched for feeding eagles all evening. Finally, about 9:00 they showed up, 5 adults and one juvenile. We enjoyed watching them for an hour or more, took pictures and movies. Way better than watching TV. We’re going to stay in Henry’s Arm until the weather clears. Hopefully it will get better in the next couple of days. We get marine weather reports on our VHF radio that are undated every four hours or so.
P.S. I tried to upload some pictures but it wasn't working. Will try again later.
