After a very hard rain early this morning, we woke to this:
Just as we were pulling our anchor we noticed a black bear at the head of the bay, beyond Ithaka…
…and then realized there were two!
And on our way out through the narrow exit, one more on shore there munching on some grass, watching us as we puttered past.
Those three, plus the two seen yesterday on the dinghy outing makes five — the most bears we’ve ever seen here on one visit!
We had a gorgeous calm cruise from Foggy Bay to Ketchikan today. Dalls Porpoises, some humpbacks, and lots of birds.
Near Reef Point we spotted a very large pod of orcas…one of the whale-watching boats reported 16 of them! They were separated most of the time into smaller podlets, so I could only really zoom in on a handful at a time, but it was an impressive group!
We even got a little tail-slapper at the end!
Today in Ketchikan is a five cruise ship day! When we arrived this morning around 10:30am, still only four.
At first this one looked like it was med moored, but it’s actually anchored, just in med moor position!
Ketchikan right now is crowded, but we all got slips in Bar Harbor (north and south). Only one with power, but that’s fine. Since we’ll just be here one night, the rest of the day was spent picking up packages, stocking up on groceries, and whirlwind tours of town. We got together for group dinner at Ocean View Restaurant (the Mexican/Italian place on the waterfront, not too far from the marina)…the food and service is always great!
Tomorrow…onward north! The weather for the next week looks crazy, and like we’ll need to have several backup plans and will probably have to deviate from our original plan more than once, but we’ll roll with it. Ithaka’s crew changed here and we don’t have anyone else flying in or out until Sitka, so we have some days to play with with no schedule constraints. (Honestly, even with constraints, this group is super chill…flights have already had to be changed, maybe a couple times, and everyone just flowed with it). We’re gearing up for a week or so of rain though, so we’ll see how well we all flow with that! 🙂