**Note: There are no non-whale photos in this post. Not one.** We left our beautiful spot this morning and headed out into Frederick Sound assuming we’d see more whales, which we did. I got this cool shot of a nice white fluke, and our friend Andrea had an ID super quick for me (see photo caption). The further we went, the more whales we saw…HUGE groups of them together! We … Read more
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 … Read more
We exited Ell Cove Wednesday morning onto a flat calm Chatham Strait, but we could see fog in our future. We watched two different humpbacks breaching and fin-slapping in the distance as we cruised south down Chatham Strait, but they were too far for decent photos. Eventually, we were in thick fog with very little visibility, and for a while I regretted leaving our perfectly clear spot at Ell Cove. … Read more
What an incredible day! The sun was shining, we are surrounded by incredible beauty, and we don’t have to go anywhere or look after anyone right now besides ourselves. We took our coffee up on the flybridge (see above re: soaking it all in) and after a while, we spotted a mama bear and two tiny cubs meandering the edge of the cove. At first, from a distance, I thought … Read more
We enjoyed two full days of bears (the ones I posted in the last post), warm weather and sun, jellyfish, two keeper crabs, and one nice silver salmon while in Pavlof Harbor. (I believe these orange jellies are Lion’s Mane jellyfish.) The first night there were only three boats, but the second night–ten. It was quite crowded, and people anchored too close and had to move, and there was a … Read more
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 … Read more
Friday: We entered Ford’s Terror about 25 minutes after Juneau high tide with about 3kts of current still flooding, pushing us in a little faster through as we dodged small icebergs that had entered with the flood. We anchored near where we usually do and started on dinner. We skewered and grilled up the spot prawns we’d caught that morning at Windham Bay and served them with a side of … Read more
Our cruise yesterday from Thomas Bay to Windham Bay was whale-filled, including another (or the same?) group bubblenet feeding right around Cape Fanshaw. I took photos of a few more flukes to identify…uploaded to happywhale.com and will add captions once I have names. (Thanks to Andrea for turning me onto this site…I wish I’d have been doing this every year up here!) This one was identified as humpback whale Launaana … Read more