Day 43 - Bergie Bits; Rod

I just discovered this post failed to upload because of too many photos, so it will appear out of sequence.

We jousted with icebergs today.  We left Snug Harbor at 5am to make it to the Tracy Arm bar at an early slack and started seeing icebergs well before Tracy Arm.  A lone berg was rolling along out in Stephens Passage with a dozen birds perched on top.  There was also a cluster of bergs grounded on the bar, but thankfully none that impeded our progress into Tracy Arm.

The first several miles of the arm were dotted with occasional icebergs and the wind was wandering along with us.  The further we proceeded, the stronger the winds got (making me want to put the sails up), and the more closely packed the icebergs became (making me want to leave them furled).  At times the bergs were so closely spaced that we were forced to reduce our speed to a crawl to avoid hitting them.  They ranged in size from typewriters to city blocks.  Some were dark and dirty, some were blue and etherial. Some were snow white and some were clear and nearly transparent.  It was the latter class that were the most difficult to spot and forced us to put lookouts on the bow to guide us through the ever more crowded obstacle course.  By the time we were twelve miles up the arm with that much left to go, the wind was snorting along behind us at 24 knots.  We rounded a corner and the field became a chaos of bergs too dense to penetrate.

With some regret we turned around.  Another small motor-cruiser arrived at about the same time we did and turned around when we did, but a steel tour boat plowed right on by.

Turning around, we suddenly found the 24 knots in our faces; the apparent wind went from 18 to 30 knots - a tough slog.  Adding insult to injury, the carefully timed flood current that was to carry us all the way up the arm, was now pushing against us.

While we didn’t get to see the glaciers calving, it was a lot of fun navigating through the icebergs, even if it demanded a great deal of attention.  And the passage was stunningly beautiful with cascading waterfalls and steep cliff faces all around us.  It was a whole other world.  Aside from the occasional boater, we had only birds and a group of seal pups to share it with.

After setting the anchor in Tracy Arm Cove for the night, Frederic paddled the dinghy out to a small berg in the anchorage and chiseled some pieces off and into the cooler: fresh water!  With that and a little more water in the tanks than we thought, we think we have enough for one more night out before heading into Juneau.  Taku Harbor here we come!

Day 46 - Score! ; Rod

We secured our permit for entry into Glacier Bay today!  It was a rather tortuous process getting one. After telling us they never received our application, they eventually gave us a short notice permit and then admitted to using the information off the "application submitted in May..."  That would be the one they say they never got.  Who knows what goes on in the halls of Montezuma. Whatever the case, we have our green light.  Kay, Vi and I will be entering Glacier Bay on June 30.  That's a day ahead of our master plan with permission to stay until July 5th.  We get to spend the Fourth of July in Glacier Bay!  I suppose fireworks would be frowned upon.

Lavanya and Jason just left the boat in a flurry of hugs and handshakes; Frederic and Marta will soon be following in their wake, taking the same flight out of Juneau.  What a terrific couple of weeks it has been with them all.

Day 45 - Changing Crew; Rod

This marks the half way point - in time at least. We will be going a little farther north between here and Glacier Bay. The park has a process for entry permits that, like many trail permit systems, awards them to people who apply early, while leaving some for people who arrive without them. Leaving nothing to chance, I filled out our permit application several months ahead of time and then hit the send key to email it ten seconds after it was eligible to be submitted. Then I waited. I expected to hear at least an acknowledgement that they had received the permit, but when a couple of weeks went by without hearing anything, I sent them another email with a copy of the application and asked them if I should have heard a response. They said yes, but that they didn't get the first one and now the permits are all taken. Sigh.

Call me cynical, but I have to wonder if something is amiss at their end. Did they really not get it or did they just not want to use up a permit on a boat coming from Seattle with any number of things that could delay our arrival. We'll never know. Whatever the case, we now find ourselves having to get one on arrival and we have no idea how that's going to go.

In any case, I'm glad we saw Tracy Arm and navigated through all the ice bergs there. Talking to other boaters along the way we found out that the end of the arm is essentially frozen over. No one but steel hulled tour boats are getting much further in and very few are going as far as we did. It will be interesting to talk to the park rangers and find out what kind of a state Glacier Bay is in. With so much ice in the bays, we might find ourselves looking for an alternative itinerary, even if we can get a permit.

This is the end of the line for Marta, Frederic, Lavanya and Jason. It has been such a pleasure having them on board these last couple of weeks. We have really eaten well with their combined culinary prowess. Marta and Frederic are so outgoing, they seem to meet everyone on every boat and pass along their stories afterward. It's really a gift. Yesterday, Marta met a fisherman - a very hansom fisherman, she noted. He passed her his phone number as they parted ways. Wow! Making connections in Juneau the old fashioned way. She and Frederic had a good laugh over that.

Vi will be joining us for the last two weeks before we take a short break in Petersburg to fly home for ten days. We're looking forward to the next chapter and are already reminiscing on our time enjoyed so far. Six weeks down and six weeks to go.

Photos by Frederic

Day 44 - Barely There; Rod

Taku Harbor is a favorite anchorage for boaters from Juneau that want to get away for a weekend. It has a free public dock with walking paths to a small shelter, an old decaying cannery site, and some abandoned coast guard housing - things to explore while stretching our legs. It's late June, so I'm surprised there aren't more boats in here. We tied up to the dock for the night and talked to some of the other boaters. One couple from Juneau said this place gets crazy on a three day Memorial Day weekend. Motor-cruisers tie up three deep to a floating dock on the other side of the harbor and get drunk, discharging firearms haphazardly. Lovely. It's nice to be here with a little more sanity.

We spotted a young bear while we were under way today. It was foraging along the shoreline. This is big news only because we were becoming convinced that in spite of all the information claiming the forest is thick with them, we hadn't seen one bear since leaving Canada. Now we can happily report that Alaska has at least one bear.

We arrive in Juneau tomorrow a day early. We still have the three gallons of bottled drinking water, so we've been able to get by with what we have by washing dishes in sea water and drinking the iceberg melt that Frederic corralled, but it will be nice to get into town and fill the tanks.

Day 42 - The Best Laid Plans; Rod

We so appreciated those showers and laundry a couple of days ago, but water is running low with three days remaining until we reach Juneau. We're beginning to regret the lavish showers. But only a little.

It's hard to know how quickly six people will go through 110 gallons of water unless you learn from direct experience. I think I could have done a better job of emphasizing how limited our water resource is, but that's all water under the bridge, so to speak.

We have three gallons of bottled drinking water, a gallon or so of ice that will melt into clean water, and an unknown quantity of water in the tank with a gauge that says it has none. I'm not sure what is up with that water gauge. It works, sort of, but it doesn't reflect the linear water usage. It says full until the tank is empty and then it says empty. I'm going to have to have a look at that after I return. It's kind of important to know how much water you have before you run out.

Now we have an abbreviated cruising plan for getting us to Juneau. Instead of going across Stevens Passage on day one, up Tracy Arm on day two, up to Taku Harbor on day three, and into Juneau on day four; we will cross Stephens Passage and go up Tracy Arm on (a long) day one, then skip Taku Harbor and go into Juneau on day two. That should get us there with what little water we have left. There was some discussion and support for going all the way into Juneau tomorrow to fill the tanks and head back out, but that kind of slog doesn't appeal to everyone.

The weather may have something to say about our plans as well. The seas this morning are calm but we can see weather moving in from a distance. Winter is coming.

Day 41 - Snug for the Night; Rod

We're in Snug Harbor tonight, our last evening of blue skies for a while if the weather forecast is accurate. Rain is on the way they say. Tomorrow we make our way across Stephens Passage toward Tracy Arm Cove and we'll cruise up the arm the following day. We expect to see calving glaciers and ice bergs if all goes according to plan.

Day 40 - Best of days; Rod

Ahhh!  A shower day! Shower days are the best days (there are many best days for a variety of reasons).  Shower days are best for the obvious reason that the hair and body gets a scrub, but also because we only feel compelled to shower on warm, sunny days.  And today is gorgeous.

There's a hot water heater in the engine room that's connected to shore power in a marina or gets heated by the engine while under way.  So we get hot showers now and then on the aft deck, which involves washing hair and sudsing the bod from a bucket, rinsing off from the shower hose, and then using the remaining sudsy water to clean a few articles of clothing. We hang the wet laundry on the life lines with clothes pins, which gives Quijote a back yard look for half a day, but it's nice to have a clean start every few days.

We left Read Island Cove early this morning to take advantage of the placid sea state.  It was a perfectly spectacular morning with clouds shrouding the surrounding mountain peaks while giving us good visibility across the water.

Almost immediately after re-entering Frederick Sound we found ourselves surrounded by humpback whales blowing geysers of spray and rolling their tails out of the water.  We cut the engine and drifted, reveling in the sights and sounds of their feeding rituals.  We spotted and photographed whales throughout most of the day and opted to drift among a pod while we ate lunch late in the afternoon.

After lunch we motored over to investigate a rock loaded with seals and sea lions that we heard (and smelled) from miles away.  The seals were in full frolic in the shallows just off the rock, while the stately sea lions lorded over them from the rocks above.

We proceeded on to Cannery Cove, lush and green, surrounded by a mountain basin.  There's a small fishing lodge at the entrance to the bay that used to be a cannery.  The cannery depleted the salmon stocks and put itself out of business.  So far the bugs are behaving, the sun is shining and the shower was superb - definitely a best day.

Photos by Frederic