Yesterday afternoon in Red Bluff Bay, we dinghied up river to look for bears, but saw only salmon…but SO MANY salmon.
A little hard to tell in the photo, but this is what the water looked like on either side of us as we ventured up the river.
We met last night on Brian and Allie’s boat Knot to Worry (along with two friends traveling with them, and another boat called Make Ready — Curt and Tanya from Whitehorse, Yukon, and their two friends) and had a very fun and delicious potluck dinner. Allie made pulled pork and beans and slaw, we grilled up the rest of our spot prawns and brought those over with a bowl of guacamole and tortillas, and Curt and Tanya and their friends made several pizzas (on homemade sourdough crust) that were so good!
After dinner, someone spotted a brown bear on shore at the head of the bay, so we all went up to the bow of Knot to Worry with binocs to watch it. This was a very active bear! Several times it stood up on two legs, then swam across from one shore to the other, stood up a few more times, walked around….pretty sure it was looking for fish. I do wish I’d had my long lens with me, but still we were happy to just watch.
Such a fun evening, and so many great stories! We ended up dinghying back to Airship (~2 miles from where Knot to Worry was anchored at the head of the bay) in the dark! It was a nice warm evening though, so we just went slow and watched the fish swish out of our way.
We pulled another 48 spot prawns this morning before heading east from Red Bluff Bay. Woohoo!
Out in the strait, we saw a couple of humpbacks in the distance, a mama and a calf, and the calf kept breaching and twisting out of the water, but I kept missing it, so here’s this nice splash instead:
Here’s the calf’s little fluke:
And here’s mama:
As we got nearer to Kuiu Island, we saw quite a few humpback spouts in the distance just outside Security Bay, so we diverted…in case they were bubblenet feeding, which they were. That makes five times we’ve been lucky enough this summer to watch humpbacks bubblenet feeding! Amazing.
I’ve sent a bunch of fluke photos to HappyWhale.com for identification and will add names/IDs as I get them.
They weren’t the most dramatic of the bubblenet feeding groups we’ve seen this summer (kinda low in the water), but that’s okay.
Maganda on the left, Chippy on the right:
As we approached Keku Strait, there were several more humpbacks around us so we slowed up to keep track of where they were as we made our way through the Keku Islands.
We’re now anchored just SE of Payne Island in what seems to be called Lord’s Pocket. There was one other boat in here when we arrived, so we anchored a ways from them. I’m sure they were probably feeling pretty psyched that they had the place to themselves, but it’s plenty big enough for a couple boats, and we’re very quiet. 🙂
Here’s a video Kevin made with the Mavic:
It’s beautiful in here. We’ve stayed across the way at the Honeydew anchorages before — it’s always fun to try a new place.
I made a delicious sauce for pasta and spot prawns tonight: butter, garlic, roasted tomatoes, lemon, white wine, and capers…it turned out SO GOOD. With brussels sprouts on the side. Cheers!
