Costco Kayaking!

Day 44 – June 23 Auke Bay / Juneau

This was a day for re-provisioning. We started at the marine store, and then on to Costco. On the way into the marine store Tom got the call from Chris that Iola had passed and that he needed to fly home. When we came out of the store Maryann (our family travel agent) called the airlines and arranged for Tom on the 8:30pm flight. We all continued on to Costco and loaded up. Yep I mean loaded up. Five people, food, a supply of Kirkland Vodka, and two new kayaks don’t fit into one van/taxi. A second taxi was called and 4 people and the liquor got back to the boats.

The afternoon was spent helping Tom get things settled, the boat secured, the dog and her supplies transferred to Magic, etc… We said goodbye to Tom and headed back into town for Nicole to spend more of her dad’s money. But the new Ulu knife and bowl are pretty. We had dinner in town at the Red Dog Saloon and then the 1 hr bus ride back to Auke Bay. Shawn’s plane came in as we got on the bus and he still made it back to the boat before we did. Taxis are faster than buses; but the bus was $1.50 and taxi was about $15.

We caught up with Shawn on our adventures and his. He came to Alaska basically directly from Atlanta and his National Whirlyball Tournament. His team came in second in their division, missing by one point during double overtime. What’s Whirlyball you ask …. We are asking too. It’s a combination of basketball, hockey, and jai-alai played while driving Whirlybugs (aka bumper-cars). Check out www.whirlyball.com or www.whirlyball.net for more information on the sport. Between his Fencing and Whirlyball we’ve decided he selects exotic (odd) sports.

Tom sure went to extremes to get out of doing laundry. We saved his reputation of beginning a laundry virgin, and did 4 loads for him. Tom if you read this your laundry is clean, folded and delivered. No we did not make the beds, clean the bathrooms, do the windows, or re-fill the fuel tank. Blog comment removal service available for a negotiable fee.

We are head two Skagway tomorrow with our own boat as we determined that the airfare for five was about the same as the fuel for Magic. This will also give us more time to explore.

P.S. for those of you looking for a new boat, there are some nicely priced ones in Juneau.

Auke Bay

Day 43 – June 22 Auke Bay

Yesterday on the way to Auke Bay the Miner’s got the phone call to send Chris home for her mom. Tom pushed the throttles forward and rushed to town to get her on a plane.

We started out slowly this morning with getting fuel (it takes a while to load 520 gallons). $4.43 plus tax. Moved the boat to another slip, we had been on the inside of the breakwater with the mega boats the night before. We were small out there but not the smallest, there was a 28 footer out there too. We are now closer to Miner’s Debt.

Tom and his kids went to town early and started their looking around. After we got fuel and re-docked we headed to town ourselves. The bus ride from Auke Bay to downtown Juneau takes about 45 minutes. We did the tourist thing for a few hours, had a light snack, and headed back to Auke Bay (other long bus ride).

There were 4 cruise ships in town and lots of people walking around but it did not seem like enough people for 4 cruise ships. But then many of them were probably off on guided tours of the Mendenhall glacier, going up the tram for an aerial view of the harbor etc…

Bill Moffet and his buddy Frank met us down at the dock and we visited a bit and then they drove Becky and Mike to the airport for their trip home. It’s been fun having them along on the adventure. Frank also did a quick dive on Tom’s boat to double check the bottom after his incident (question of if he really hit something the other day or not …. It looks like not). Frank and Bill came back and the group went out to dinner at the pub near the marina. The pub’s kitchen was closed as they don’t cook on Sunday so we call for Pizza delivery. We had a fun evening visiting and then headed back to the boat for our nightly movie.

Oliver Bay

Day 42 - June 21 Oliver Bay

It was rainy and wet most of the day. We went for a hike on a boardwalk from the end of Oliver Bay across to Seymour Inlet where there is a public cabin. At the start of the hike we met a man who works for the Parks department. They were working on renovations to the cabin. We chatted with him and then he led our group on the hike. He was ‘armed’ and ready for bear.

Chris asked if there were bear in the area and he said only about 1 per sq mile. I noticed several animal trails and bear droppings along the boardwalk. Paul; our hike leader pointed out various flowers and trees along the way. There are lodge pole pines, many dwarfed by the weather. Flowers included the normal Skunk cabbage, and buttercups, to wild sweet peas, wild iris, and chocolate lilies. The lilies are also called wild rice due to the bunch of rice around their roots. This rice is edible, but we did not try any. I did take a couple photos however.

The boardwalk also had rails (mini railroad rails) and a cart which could be used to haul gear. It is available for the public to use. The rail system is also used by hunters and fisherman to get their small boats over to the other side. It is much faster than motoring all the way around. The cabin is at the side of a large meadow along the shoreline with a creek in front of it. Paul stated that this is a very popular place to hunt bear. He also explained that after hibernation the bear come down to this meadow to eat grass, then as the grass grows and the snow level goes up, they move up into the hills, coming back down when the salmon come in. Then he added that at this time of year they are basically all over the place.

The cabin is quite nice and they are definitely doing quality work on the renovations. It is getting new flooring, bunks, cabinets, and tongue and grove type wall boards. They had a small wood stove on the cart which will likely be installed in the cabin. We are quite impressed with the cabins that the state has around Alaska. There are apparently 150 of these cabins in Alaska for the public to use for a small fee per night. Paul indicated that this cabin is generally booked most of the year.

After the hike we went back to the boats to relax for the afternoon and wait for high tide so we can get out of the bay. Not many people bring their big boats into this bay as the entrance can be quite shallow and tricky. That does not seem to bother either Glen or Tom.

We will be heading into Juneau this afternoon. Maryann (Glen’s sister) arrives tonight and Becky and Mike (Miner’s kids) leave tomorrow night. Shawn (our son) arrives Monday night, he always likes to be the odd one. Juneau will also be a place for re-provisioning.

Taku and Oliver Bays

Day 41 – June 20 Taku and Oliver Bays

It’s a sunny warm day. Forecast says it’s going to be 67 degrees today. Most of us are wearing shorts today. Yippee. We walked around the Taku area a bit. There used to be a fish cannery here and some of the housing buildings while in fairly sad shape are still here. The cannery buildings and docks are long gone, as are most of the piling. The waterfront looks kind of like a piling grave yard.

I chatted with the owner of the Delta briefly and found out that it is a brand new yacht just picked it up in Seattle in May and this is their first cruise. They went from Seattle to Ketchikan in 3 days, up the outside. He said it was a pretty rough trip, but that they wanted to test the boat in open rough water. He is from Florida but the boat is registered and will be kept in New Zealand; where he spends 6 months per year. His crew is from Australia and New Zealand. After this trip it goes back into the yard in Seattle for the post shakedown adjustments and then they will be taking it to its home port.

The kids went fishing in the dinghy, and Nicole caught a baby Halibut (which went back to grow up) and Becky caught a small Cod which got filleted for a meal. No crab or prawns found their way into the pots, darn it anyway. Well actually we don’t really know about the prawns as Glen’s pot, line, etc… were nowhere to be found. It is probably floating down stream somewhere or else someone else has a nice new pot.

We made our way to Oliver Inlet and dropped Anchor for the afternoon and night. It is indeed a warm sunny day. Everyone relaxed in the sun for the afternoon and then had dinner on Magic’s back deck.

Note it was still quite light out at 3:00 am.

Endicott Arm and Fords Terror

Day 40 – June 19 Endicott Arm and Fords Terror

It was a sunny morning. We (Glen, Liz, and Nicole) headed out in the dinghy on an adventure while the Miner’s stayed to go fishing.

We went up Endicott Arm all the way to the Dawes Glacier. We could get right up next to the glacier (if we’d wanted to) this time. We watched as the glacier calved small to medium chunks, but no really big ones. Wish we could have gotten some of it on video. We did get some great glacier photos. There were a couple small cruise boats in there at the same time. They had passengers in small boats as well as in kayaks going up fairly close. The sun was shining and made this a spectacular sight. We could also see the glacier to the north which no longer reaches the water. Very near the beginning of Endicott Arm is another glacier high above the water called Sumdum glacier, it was very visible today and beautiful.

The side hills only had a few clouds which only added to the beauty. Virgin snowfields, large cornices, evidence of recent avalanches, smaller slide paths, and lots of waterfalls; all backed by sunny skies. Endicott Arm is a bit wider than Tracy Arm and its walls are not as steep.

Again there were lots of seals with pups. Not as many as in Tracy arm, but these pups seemed to be smaller/younger.

I highly recommend this place!

Fords Terror is amazingly beautiful. Steep side walls, with large cracks from top to bottom, some narrow and some quite wide. There were lots of waterfalls. The narrow sections had rapids for Glen to play in. In a couple places there were rows of bubbles coming to the surface. Not sure what those were from but the water temp was not different and there was no noticeable smell.

Came back out and found the Miner’s still fishing, stopped to see how they were doing. They reported, one Halibut on board and “another on the hook” being reeled in. That one turned out to be a small cod rather than a Halibut. Continued back to Magic anchored in Tracy Cove. Saw that the Reed’s and there two traveling companions anchored in the same bay, so we ventured over to say hello and catch up. They were going to do at least one of the ‘Arms’ tomorrow. Gave them all the info we could and then back to Magic. Made lunch, pulled anchor and headed for Juneau.

A group of 2-3 Humpbacks just around the corner but they were shy and would not cooperate for photos.

Tomorrow was going to be the day of fishing with a commercial guide (Nick Newbury’s brother in law Louis), but when we talked to him yesterday he said that they had been out for the last two days and no one got even a bite in 6 hours. The salmon just weren’t there or weren’t biting. He wasn’t sure that we really wanted to go with that kind of fishing. So after talking it over we all decided to cancel the fishing trip for now. We might try again later in the trip. So instead of going into Juneau we went to Taku Bay and tied to a public dock. There were 3 other boats on the dock so including us there were 5. One of them was a brand new 90’ Delta.

Icebergs and Waterfalls - Tracy Arm

Day 39 – June 18 Tracy Arm - Icebergs and Waterfalls!

We woke up to another rainy fall like morning. Hey it’s supposed to be summer. Oh yeah it’s an Alaskan summer; damp. Pulled anchor and headed for Tracy Arm - glacier hunting. Saw a few whales (Humpback and one Orca) in route. There was another whale just outside the entrance to Tracy Arm.

Icebergs and waterfalls; lots of them, and snow down to the waters edge in many places. Beautiful is an understatement. It rained or ‘heavy misted’ most of the day.

We went up Tracy Arm dodging icebergs big and small along the way. When the ice chunks got thicker than we wanted to take Magic through we lowered the dinghy and let Magic float solo, while we headed on. The Miner’s did not follow. We went approximately 2 miles in the dinghy winding our way through the ice. We stopped about ½ mile from the South Sawyer Glacier as the ice got thicker than we wanted to deal with. But we were close enough to see the glacier, beautiful. We did not see it doing any calving, but there were both big and small chunks of ice everywhere. What seemed odd was that there were sections almost clear of ice and other sections full of small chunks and yet other sections with large chunks.

Way up in the channel there were lots and lots of seal with pups, some fairly small. Yes we did get some photos.

On the way back out Glen must have thought he was in the Everglades because he was buzzing through the ice. We came around the final corner before getting back to Magic and there was a Carnival Cruise Ship – The Norwegian Sun. They were headed up to see the glacier. I am sure that we are now in quite a few vacation photos. ‘There were these crazy people in a dinghy zipping around the ice.’

Nicole and I discovered the maximum number of photos that a 2 gig chip can hold – 611 photos. Yep we took a lot of pictures today, and that was just with one of the two cameras we were using and only part of the day. Yes, we will be deleting some I’m sure.

Tracy Arm is somewhat narrow and has very steep rock walls on both sides.

Anchored in the cove just outside of Tracy Arm.

What a great day! We were all exhausted by the end of the day. It’s hard to tell when the end of the day is because it stays light so late. At 10:30pm tonight it looked more like 7:00pm.

Walking on Ice

Day 38 – June 17

It’s a sunny morning.

We all went for hike up to a waterfall, which was very pretty. There was another boardwalk of sorts here; much of this one made from logs across the trail with chain saw hash marks to make them less slippery. Went back to Magic, pulled anchor to head over to look at the local glacier – Baird Glacier. You can see the North Baird Glacier from the bay but the larger South Baird Glacier isn’t visible until you get up into the inner bay/river area. Miner’s Debt went on but we stopped to look around and take another hike.

Water level was fairly shallow in the inner bay, but we wound our way around and up stream until we found a back eddy in which to leave the dinghy. Had to plan ahead as the tide was going out and we needed enough water to get back out over the sandbar. It’s very interesting to see rocks sorted by size along the shoreline. Climbed up the bank of loose rock and ended up on a plateau of sorts. At this point the ground was fairly flat with dry or fairly dry moss which looked kind of like a slightly lumpy carpet. There were small flowers which looked like they might be distant relatives of Fuchsia in clumps every so often. Moving on, the ground was like clay, and then more sand like. In the clay section we saw one sinkhole which was about 5 feet across and about 3 feet deep. The sandy stuff was really just a layer covering the ice. There was running water under the ice.

Back to the boat and heading up the channel to rejoin the Miner’s. Whale, Whale!!! Twice we stopped to watch Humpbacks heading our way. One came pretty close, Nicole got some good shots.

We anchored in Gambier Bay for the night. Nicole and I baked bread (Sesame Wheat Braid) this afternoon for the group dinner, it turned out perfect. Two loaves were eaten at dinner.