Sometimes the forecast doesn’t cooperate with the plan. Today we’d intended to go from Elfin Cove to Dundas Bay, a large, scenic bay in Glacier Bay National Park (but outside the permit-required area). The weather today wasn’t the problem, but tomorrow looked a bit worse. Not bad, just a bit rolly when we would be leaving Dundas Bay, where the westerly was predicted to be blowing around 20 knots. Instead of Dundas Bay, we set a course for Excursion Inlet.
Getting from Cross Sound to Icy Strait requires transiting North Inian Pass or South Inian Pass. Currents run to 9 knots, and when an ebb meets the ocean swell, conditions can stack up and can become hazardous. Slack, turn to flood, was predicted for 8:55 this morning, so we left Elfin Cove about 8:25. By the time we arrived at South Inian Pass 20 minutes later, the flood had already begun and was giving us a couple of knots of free boat speed.
Icy Strait was calm and we saw very few other boats, but we did spot some puffins from Airship:
As we rounded Point Adolphus, things got much busier! This area is a common feeding ground for humpbacks in the summer, and the whale watching boats were out in force today. Airship stopped for a few minutes and watched two mother humpbacks with calves hanging out on the surface, but Jester and Safe Harbour continued on, deterred by the traffic.
When in Excursion Inlet, we like anchoring in Sawmill Bay, which is the western arm of the inlet. Like Dundas Bay, this area is inside Glacier Bay National Park, but it’s outside the permit area.
After anchoring (and carefully avoiding a large uncharted shoal) we dinghied back to “town.” The dock had been rather primitive in past years (will those cleats really hold the boat?!?), but it’s been redone. Kind of. It’s now much shorter than before, and some sections are held together with mooring lines. But it was filled with big fish boats, so it must be solid…
We wandered the aisles of the small store, which still had quite a few empty shelves and no refrigerated items (we must be early in their season still), and then took a look at the Excursion Inlet Cannery Museum.
Before heading back to the raft, we cruised the dinghies up river a ways looking for wildlife. We didn’t see any, but the scenery wasn’t bad and we even had a little blue sky!
Today’s total: 38.5nm, 5 hours 7 minutes underway
Flotilla total: 154.7nm, 21 hours 32 minutes underway
