Glacier Bay

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  Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska, United States
Sunday, July 26, 2009

Wednesday, July 15

Got up at 6AM to get to the fuel dock and out of Auke Bay.  Fueling went fine, but the fuel dock was having an issue with their credit card machine.  We hung around for about an hour, waiting.  They finally wrote down our credit card info and gave us a receipt and we were on our way.  About half an hour out of Auke Bay Tim went to the engine room to check on Pearl's transmission.  It was leaking fluid!  He called Ben (mechanic) and described where it was leaking and Ben had no clue why it would leak in that spot.  So, we turned around and went back to Auke Bay where Ben met us at the dock.  The leak was due to a cut in the gasket, which apparently happened when Ben put the transmission back together. He replaced the gasket (no charge, since it was his fault) and we headed out again.  Tim checked for leaks every 30 minutes and everything was fine

Sea otter in Glacier Bay

.  We decided to head for Swanson harbor and tied to one of the handy public floats. We’re now at 58 12. 789N  135 06. 617 W.  Swanson Harbor is a beautiful, protected, small bay where Lynn Canal, Chatham Strait and Icy Strait all come together, it’s also about 5 hours from Glacier Bay, our next stop.  We sat on the upper deck and had popcorn and an eagle show for dinner. Apparently the local eagles have learned that when boats tie up at the floating dock in the evening there’s a good chance they can get fish scraps for dinner. Indeed, two eagles sat in the grass or on a rock waiting for their opportunity. We watched as one of the eagles swooped down and snatched fish scraps off the dock rail (Bull rail) that had been placed there by some newly arrived fishing guys on the other dock.  This is a really nice harbor.  There are places to anchor in addition to the two free public floats.  When we went to bed the floats were almost full with six boats and there was a fishing boat and a big sail boat named Zig Zag, anchored. 

Thursday, July 16  

 We have decided to stay here another night because our permit for Glacier Bay is effective on Friday, for 3 days.  They said we can’t come any earlier or they’d have to kill us.  There are only two other boats at the docks now and the anchored boats have left

Tufted Puffins

.  It is a nice day, cloud and calm, no rain.  We did a lot of relaxing and fishing.  Tim caught a salmon.  By evening the docks were full again.

Friday, July 17

We got up early this morning and left Swanson Harbor before 5 AM.  The wind and sea were calm and we had a comfortable ride to Glacier Bay.  On the way we saw a few whales, and for the first time we saw sea otters.  They were so cute…floating on their backs, paddling with their back feet.  We were "required" to check in at the visitor center in Bartlett Cove for a mandatory boater orientation before we could go into Glacier Bay.  They have some very detailed whale areas near the entrance to Glacier Bay.  We were early for the orientation so we walked on the nature trail.  After our 20 minute orientation (there are lots of rules to follow) we went to the Glacier Bay Lodge for lunch.  We waved to John and Susan on the sailboat “Susan Marie” as we left Bartlett Cove.  We have crossed their path several times this summer.  We anchored for the night in Fingers Bay and talked about where we want to go tomorrow.  We watched a sea otter paddle around the cove.  They just make you smile, they are so cute!

Saturday, July 18

 We left Fingers Bay around 7:30 AM and rode right into thick fog on the rest of Glacier Bay

Reid Glacier

.  It was slow going, with radar, for about four hours before the fog lifted.  We were on the 2nd day of our 3 day pass for Glacier Bay and were concerned we wouldn’t get to see everything  because of the fog. We called Bartlett Cove on VHF and asked to extend our permit by a couple of days.  By noon, we arrived at the first huge glacier which is in Reid Inlet. It was dead calm so entered the inlet and stopped in front of the glacier for a 45 minute lunch.  After lunch we headed towards John Hopkins Glacier.  There were quite a lot of medium sized ice bergs in the water and a lot of smaller bergie bits that we had to zig zag through. When we rounded the corner to the John Hopkins inlet, we were surprised by how close we were to Lamplugh Glacier. It appeared to have recently lost a large section into the water and was the source of most of the ice in the water.  We were so close that if the ice face had fallen it could have been a bit dangerous.  There was a  Princess cruise ship that towered above us but it couldn’t get as close as we did.  We got some great up close pictures of the face of the glacier.  From Lamplugh we picked our way through the ice in John Hopkins Inlet towards the big glacierat the end.  We were able to get what seemed to be fairly close to the glacier before the ice choked water stopped us.  Everything is so huge it’s really had to tell how far away or high the mountains and glaciers really are. The sun was peaking out so we spent at about an hour, just drifting in the ice, taking pictures, being in awe of nature and glaciers

Lamplugh Glacier

.  Then we headed south back through the floating ice to Shag Cove, Geikie Inlet we anchored in 80 ft. using 300 ft of our 400 ft. chain, we usually do 4 to1 scope for safety.  Most of the anchorages in Alaska are deep, which is a good thing considering the 20 ft. tides.

 We left Shag cove around 9:00 and wandered through some small islands checking out the birds and seals.  There are limits on how close we could get because the USFS didn’t want us to disturb the seals.  The seals were doing a good job of disturbing themselves.  Two huge males were crashing around in the seal group trying to establish who gets the girls.  We slowed and were deciding where to go next.  We saw a humpback several hundred yards in front of us which wasn’t unusual because there are lots of whales in Glacier Bay.  Then off to Starboard about a mile away we saw two whales coming towards us.  Every 30 seconds or so one of them would jump all the way out of the water.  They were coming towards us so we stopped our engines and drifted in the calm water to watch the show.  As they passed we were so close that when they surfaced and blew it sounded like a lions roar, the sound was really loud and wild, it sent a chill down our backs.  Sometimes one of them would jump totally clearing the water and do a complete barrel roll. Their fin, like a giant white arm, would slap against the water as they re-entered

Cruise West at Lamplugh Glacier

.  It sounded like a tremendous rifle shot and the splash was huge.  At one point they stopped moving  and one of them would smack his fin back and forth against the surface making loud slapping noises.  It was quite a show.  After the whale show we anchored in North Sandy cove.  A large Brown bear was wandering down the beach until a noisy little boat came into the cove and the bear moved back into the trees.

Monday, July 20

 We left Glacier Bay in the morning and headed out into Icy Strait.  The wind was blowing and the water was rough.  It wasn’t a fun ride.  We stopped about noon in Flynn Cove and had lunch, showered and waited for the winds to die down, as forecast.  We took off again, but as soon as we rounded the point into Chatham Strait it got rough again.  There was nowhere to go to get out of the wind at this point, so we kept heading south.  We finally ducked into Pavlof Harbor to find there were already four boats anchored there.  We went farther into Freshwater Bay and anchored in Cedar Cove, happy to be out of the weather and safely anchored.  

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John Hopkins Glacier	Humpback whale breaching	Humpback whale	splash from humpback

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