Leaving Alaska

The dawn sky marked a waypoint in our summer this morning.  Though we have been traveling southward for the past week, today is the day that we will actually leave Alaska and cross into Canadian waters.  Our current anchorage is about 12 hours away from Prince Rupert Harbor, where we will check in with the Canadian Customs office. This will be an open ocean crossing, and we are grateful to be making the voyage on a very good weather day.  Alaska holds such a place in our hearts that it’s hard to leave.  On the other hand, home and family are even dearer to us, and we look forward to being back.  How fortunate we are to have two places to call home!

On our way out of the bay this morning, I think we woke up a snoozing humpback whale. Our first indication was a glistening mass of whale back, moving away from the bow of the boat, followed by a magnificent display of flukes as he took a deep dive right in front of us! We gave thanks for the gift, and found ourselves fully awake.

As we proceeded, we saw some porpoises splashing in the distance, and wished that they would come escort us. And guess what? A couple of them broke from the group to come swim in our bow wake. Whales and porpoises all in the first hour! A good day ahead…

We have been out of cell coverage areas for much of the last three weeks, which prohibits us from posting on the blog. I’ll update with a few highlights, and Mike will cover others: Glacier Bay is a place we wanted to return to, because we had such a fabulous time there in 2021. We had to stage up for a timed entrance to the park, to receive our mandatory park briefing. The day before, we had cruised to an anchorage a couple of hours from the entrance. On the way, I pointed out a patch of seaweed in the water to Mike, who was driving. Sometimes rocks and shallow patches are covered with seaweed, and we’ve learned that Alaska is so vast that the navigational charts aren’t always complete, so we are always on the lookout for uncharted hazards.

As we drew closer, the seaweed started moving, and we realized we were looking at a huge group of sea otters and their young! They often raft up together, presumably for safety. These otters wanted to know what in the world was going on, and all over the patch, they started poking their heads way up to look at us quizzically, before taking a leaping dive into the water. They looked for all the world like a child’s Whak-a-mole game. They were curious, but not taking any chances. We gave them plenty of room, and so we have no pictures to share other than little blobs in the distance. But these have to be some of the cutest mammals to watch as they carry their babies on their stomachs, or tumble over and over in the water, taking turns breathing. It was great to see such large numbers of them, and we weren’t even to the park yet. On top of that, while at our anchorage we accidentally caught a halibut!

OK, here’s the story. In our big boat, we have no means of trolling effectively. To stay at a proper speed when trolling for salmon, we wear our headsets. Mike fishes from the stern, breathing in the diesel fumes, while I am in the pilot house maintaining the slow trolling speed by putting the engine in and out of gear, to maintain speed and keep us off the rocks. Meanwhile, Mike is offering helpful instruction through the headset. This method hasn’t been very effective, I’m afraid. But while at anchor on this day, the current was running past us at 2 knots (about trolling speed). Mike thought he’d just throw out a salmon lure and fish the lazy-man way, without the aroma of diesel. Almost immediately, he had a bite, and reeled in our halibut surprise! You see, halibut are bottom fish, but we were in shallow water, so the lure got close to the bottom, and BAM, halibut for dinner!

But to get back to Glacier Bay, one fond memory from our first trip there, was sharing our anchorage with a group of whales who were so close to our boat that we could hear them breathing – all night long! It was like being a part of their family, and we hoped to see “our” whales again. Sadly, it seems they were hanging out somewhere else this year. Rather than being disappointed, we told ourselves that each visit is different, and has its own special moments. This turned out to be true. We enjoyed another of our favorites: Puffins. These sporty little birds are very colorful, but very shy, so again no pictures. With our binoculars, we searched the cliffs and found a mother mountain goat with her kid, comfortably perched right on the edge of a steep rocky crag. We’ll spare you the pictures of little white blobs on the faraway cliff. We saw bears a couple of times, and we had a whale or two in some of our anchorages, but they didn’t come near us.

One amazing feature of Glacier Bay is the array of snow-covered mountain peaks, and the variety of glaciers. This gorgeous scenery is often obscured by clouds or fog. We were fortunate to have some clear days, so we saw sights that were hidden from us on our first trip. Reid Glacier was one of these places. We were able to stay right in Reid Bay (it’s unusual to anchor near the glaciers because the water is many hundreds of feet deep, but we found a shallower cove). As we were anchoring, I was wondering what all that color was on the distant shore. The binoculars revealed a mass of gorgeous wildflowers. Being a flower lover, I could hardly wait to get the kayak down and go to shore to check them out. I couldn’t believe the variety and sizes of the flowers. Fireweed, giant lupine and Paintbrush in a variety of colors, with blossoms that were almost the size of tennis balls! There were other flowers that were new to me. It was an amazing garden! Also amazing was the bear scat I came across here and there in the garden. Armed with only a kayak paddle, prudence won out, and I reluctantly decided to return to the boat.

Reid Glacier and the mountains surrounding it were magically beautiful. This glacier featured some ice caves right at the water’s edge. They were deep turquoise and mysterious, causing us to want to see more. At low tide, we took our kayaks to the head of the bay, and trekked up the alluvial glacial deposits (another name for very fine, stick-to-everything, boot-sucking, mucky mud), and tried to get close to the caves. We weren’t quite able to cross the stream between us and the cave, so we didn’t get to shine a light inside, but we got to hear the creaking, cracking and gunshot-like bangs of the glacier compressing on its slow move down the mountain. On our way back to the boat, we fished out some small ice bergs to chip up and use in beverages. A whale was swimming in our cove when we returned. It just boggles the mind to think that we could experience a day like this – an ordinary day in Glacier Bay.

Will we ever return here, to Glacier Bay and to Alaska? These are the thoughts I have as I leave. Time will tell, but I sure hope so. If not, we will forever count ourselves blessed to have had this “up close and personal” experience.

-beth