We enjoyed two full days of bears (the ones I posted in the last post), warm weather and sun, jellyfish, two keeper crabs, and one nice silver salmon while in Pavlof Harbor. (I believe these orange jellies are Lion’s Mane jellyfish.)
The first night there were only three boats, but the second night–ten. It was quite crowded, and people anchored too close and had to move, and there was a group of folks up at the bear viewing spot most of the day from two small local fishing boats trying to snag salmon…at one point we heard a gunshot and have to assume one of the bears was too close and warranted (?!?!?) a warning shot, but it seems to us that the groups of bear-watching people with guides we normally see at Pavlof never have needed to do that, so I’m gonna guess it was an issue on the part of the humans not paying attention to where they and their stuff (quite a few coolers and other things) were, and where the bears were, but I don’t really know. I just know I’m glad we weren’t up there while all the casting and snagging and shooting was going on.
This morning we left around 6:30am and headed south for Ell Cove on Baranof Island. Right out in Freshwater Bay there were two humpbacks cruising along the surface.
Chatham was mostly calm and the weather was perfect. As we neared Ell Cove, there was one humpback fin-slapping and breaching over and over again out in the strait.
We’re the only ones in Ell Cove at the moment, and it’s calm, calm, calm. And warm.
Definitely a spot for some aerials, but it’s a little late for the best light, so we’ll probably try again tomorrow. Friends Tom and Tish on Alaska Quest came in between when I said we were the only ones here and when we flew the drone, so yay! We’re finally in the same anchorage together so here they are in this shot too!
We may stay two nights here, or we may head down to Red Bluff. It’s so nice not to have a schedule for a week or so!