We spent a few days in Juneau seeing Kevin’s brother off and reprovisioning before heading out. First night (last night) we stopped in Funter Bay…anchored way back in Crab Cove. We didn’t get any crab, and still had a bit of a rolly night from whatever wind and waves were making their way in. We thought this might be more protected than Coot Cove, and maybe it was, but it still wasn’t all that calm.
This morning we headed south for Pavlof Harbor (29nm)…the sun was shining and Chatham was flat calm…VERY welcome weather after all the rain we’ve had.
We anchored in Pavlof with a view of the waterfall (where the bears hang out) and when the tide was high enough we dinghied back in. Salmon jumping all around us! There was just one bear, walking in the water along the south shore…but being super silly. It kind of looked like he was messing with some algae/kelp…he kept bringing his feet up out of the water, and came up once with a mouthful it. Maybe there were fish down there and he wasn’t very good at getting any…in any case it was entertaining to watch!
This one has a bit of motion blur, but check the funny body position:
Next he chewed on some branches covered in moss and seaweed:
We waited a while to see if any more bears showed up, but none did so we returned to Airship. We weren’t onboard two minutes before we spotted more bears in front of the waterfall, so back we went.
A sow and two older cubs were now on the south shore, keeping an eye on a big male who had staked out a spot on a rock in front of the waterfall. The position of the sun was terrible for photographing here, but with a bit of work in Adobe Lightroom I pulled out a few okay photos! The light should be much better in the morning…maybe the bears show up for better lighting!
In just a few minutes though, mama had another fish:
This guy, guarding his spot on the rock in front of the waterfall. We never saw him with any fish, so his lazy fishing method didn’t appear to be very productive.
I took this with the zoom lens from the cockpit of Airship when we got back. Nice view!
Here’s a video Kevin put together…you can see better now what that silly bear was doing!
Not sure yet if we’ll stay here another day, or move on south tomorrow.