Day 50 - Hiding Grizzlies; Rod

Today was a lazy day after two long days. We slept in, Vi made blueberry pancakes, we took a walk on the beach, and moseyed out of Blue Mouse Cove around mid-day. For a change we had nothing driving our departure: neither tides, nor distance, nor weather cared when we left. We even toyed with the idea of staying where we were for another night. Then I remembered the trails, showers and wifi at Bartlett Cove and decided that we should spend one night there and one night en route. So tonight we're in N. Sandy Cove (still in Glacier Bay), tomorrow Bartlett Cove (Independence Day), and we'll depart Glacier Bay, on schedule, July 5th. If this gets posted on the 4th, all will have gone according to plan.

I think I've mentioned before that it's been a running joke on the boat that there are no bears in SE Alaska. OK, maybe the one we saw on our way to Taku Harbor, but that's probably the only one and he could very well have been a ranger dressed up in a bear suit to make people think there are bears around here.

Then Vi comes on board and spots four of them in one night. First she notices a dark shape on the shore that appears to be moving. Kay and I have been looking for the elusive moving dark shape for weeks without success. The dark shape walks into the water, swims across the entrance channel and lumbers up into the trees. Cool.

A few minutes later Vi is thinking of taking pictures of the landscape. She's a picture taking machine. I sometimes think she's Jim Clinton in disguise (inside joke). So she's composing a picture in her mind and wondering about taking it from the dinghy, when she notices a Grizzly and two cubs in her composition. Soon the black bear is heading down the beach toward the grizzlies and we're wondering if the fur will fly right in front of our boat. But mama and cubs have no interest in duking it out with a large black male, so they hide in the grass and wait for the bear to pass, then mama stands up tall to get a better view of the departing bear, just to be sure it he's gone and both parties go on their way.

It makes me wonder if humans could be less violent by hiding more often. And it makes me wonder how many similar scenes have played out on this trip that we could have seen, but didn't. We do a lot of looking, but we can't be looking all the time. It just takes looking at the right time. Vi apparently has that talent, and we are beneficiaries.

Photo by Rod

Bear photos by Vi