Everyone was anchors up by 6am today for the long run up to Red Bluff Bay (60nm). Julie from Dog Star snapped this beautiful pic of the sunrise this morning.
Airship was the last one out! The water in the bay was flat, but turned to lazy swells as we got out into the open. A little beamy and rolly, but not too bad.
We transited closer to Kuiu Island on our way north, hoping to come across more whales. Definitely more whales, and the boats who went closest to shore over near Tebenkoff Bay were treated with a LOT more whales, and more bubblenet feeding. Such a fantastic experience!
Adrianne got some nice shots of this one breaching:
And one of the breach with Scott’s boat Impulse in the shot. So great!
A few more of a mama and calf passing in front of Airship:
We eventually (somewhat reluctantly) peeled off and aimed for Red Bluff Bay…another favorite anchorage.
Strangely, there’s only one other boat in here besides ours, and it’s Liseron, one of the small vintage charter cruises. We’ve seen almost no other pleasure boats up here so far. Even so, we doubled up and rafted several of the boats so we’re only taking up four spots…to be considerate, just in case.
The tide was going down as we arrived, so we decided to wait until after dinner to try to dinghy up river to look for bears. Just as we were getting ready to head out, we binoc’d the grassy area and saw two bears, so off we went!
Turns out that was a good choice. The light was perfect, and we saw four bears total, including a swimmy bear and a standy bear!
The third bear was back a ways in the bushes and we didn’t get a very good pic of that one.
We went around and up the mouth of the river, and just as we were getting too shallow and planning to turn around, a fourth bear popped out of the meadow and was heading for the water.
And as if that’s not enough, check out these amazing drone photos (and a video) from our anchorage here at Red Bluff that Kevin took a bit earlier:
Tomorrow we’ll head north to Takatz Bay, with a stop at Baranof Warm Springs for whoever wants to stop!