A leisurely morning in Petersburg today! Our cruise over to Thomas Bay this morning was barely 20nm, so some of us opted to leave between 10:30 and noon. Ron and Jean on Sound Waves left early and made a detour over to see Le Conte Glacier and they’re so glad they did! On a day like today, the water was flat calm and the ice was plentiful, but they got to see the face of the glacier (after dodging bergie bits for 6nm or so on their way in).
Here we are leaving Petersburg and heading for Frederick Sound:
Sara’s husband David (from Kali) had to fly out this morning, but sent us these great shots from his flight back to Seattle…a great bird’s eye view of Thomas Bay! In that second shot, you can even see the glacial lake we hope to get into tomorrow at high tide, at the foot of Baird Glacier! Thanks for the photos, David!
We continued back toward Scenery Cove, without knowing if there’d be room for us…Airship left a bit earlier so we could let the others know whether to continue in, or detour back out to the Ruth Island anchorage.
There were a couple boats on AIS back here, but they were just sightseeing and came back out, so we continued in and found no one else in Scenery Cove.
We’ve never brought a flotilla back here before, but the weather is settled, and our boats have had enough experience anchoring in deeper water, and they all wanted to give it a shot. Scenery Cove is deep and narrow, so there’s not a lot of wiggle room. We dropped in 90 feet or so and put out just over 200ft of chain and got a great set (backing to about 60ft from the sheer wall of granite) — Airship had Turnagain raft to us to save a bit of room, and the others all anchored with no issues.
Folks pretty quickly got kayaks out to go explore, and Ralph and his daughter Sara (from Kali) plus Kevin headed the 6nm by dinghy back to hike the trail at Cascade Creek.
What a gorgeous day! Kevin took the drone up for some aerials (after another AK boat came in and anchored closest to the shoal, as locals do).
We all did dinner on our own tonight, and in the morning just before high tide we’ll head for the glacial lake in front of Baird Glacier. The weather isn’t supposed to be as nice tomorrow, but hopefully it won’t be too rainy. And if it is, oh well…we have good gear!
Here’s a video Kevin put together from his drone flight this afternoon: