Day 30 | Flotilla to Alaska | Red Bluff Bay to Takatz Bay

Red Bluff Bay was stunning to wake up to this morning. No more bears, just blue skies and warm sun.

Kevin and David took the dinghies out to pull the shrimp pots (dropped near the entrance) while Julie and I cruised Dog Star and Airship slowly out to pick them up. David: zero shrimp. Kevin: one shrimp (to add to the three he brought in last night). A ridiculously bad haul. The last couple years have been really poor in the way of shrimp yield here, so perhaps it’s been overfished and needs a few years to catch up.

Dog Star exiting Red Bluff Bay

Conditions in Chatham were nice…a little chop, maybe 15kts of wind… beautiful.

The red bluffs of Red Bluff Bay
Gorgeous snowy mountains of Baranof Island as we head north Takatz Bay

We gave folks the option to stop in Warm Springs Bay, and several did…space on the dock is often hard to come by, but today there was some room. Evenstar 55 was in first and headed up to the hot springs and the lake, and True Grit got another spot and walked the trail a bit as well. Evenstar 42 did a drive-by and made plans to stop on their next time past.

Entering Takatz Bay
Impulse anchored in Takatz Bay
Airship and Dog Star rafted…the scale!!

The tide was high when we arrived, so we opted to hop in the dinghies immediately to go look for bears and get up to the waterfall…Scott from Impulse saw a bear just before we arrived, but it was gone by the time we arrived. Still, the landscape is gorgeous.

Alicia and Gregg from Evenstar 42, dinghying up river
Clear clear water! No bears.
Gregg and Alicia in their dinghy

We made a plan to have grill night on Airship tonight. With weather like today, it seemed the obvious choice. Brian and Adrianne on Evenstar 55 were really enjoying Warm Springs and decided to stay the night on the dock there and meet up with us tomorrow. We totally get it…plus, Warm Springs was offering live music (a couple singing and playing guitar and violin from the cockpit of their fishing boat! Hot springs happy hour! How great, right??)

We had a fun dinner in another beautiful location, and tomorrow we head around into Peril Strait and will meet up in Appleton Cove for the night before heading into Sitka on Sunday.