Tuesday July 6, 2021

Having an early morning coffee in Kalinin Bay at the top of Kruzof Island. Salisbury Sound is to the North and we will join Chichagof Island later today along the Khaz Peninsula.

Yesterday we departed our anchorage in Shultze Cove in Fish Bay at the east end of Peril Strait and made Sitka by 0900. Refueled, topped off the water and hit the marine and grocery store. The sun came out and it was nice walking around Sitka. Louise was able to catch up with a couple friends and I found most everything I needed for the next leg of the journey. Hopefully the spotty internet connection at the coffee shop allowed me to send some notes and pictures to Caleb for posting. The little towns in southeast definitely have a more lively flair than when Jim and I visited last year in the midst of Covid. The boating traffic in Olga and Neva straits between here and Sitka was quite heavy with commercial fishermen, charters, and some pleasure craft. We won’t be seeing that kind of traffic for awhile now.

… What a Day! A gentle swell afforded an easy passage across Salisbury Sound and we were able to travel inside Klokachef Island up the Khaz Peninsula. It would take too numerous amount of words to describe the passages and shores we saw today, but among the highlights were:

• Going into Anna Lake through Elbow Passage and then taking the narrow river passage into Sister Lake and surveying its whole perimeter.
• Many deer
• Exploring Klag Bay and imagining stories from those who occupied the decaying buildings and used the mining artifacts left behind.
• Ogden Passage to the cliff sides of Didrikson Bay was our first option for dropping the hook but the holding ground was poor and another boat occupied the only other good mud bottom which we favor
• So we came on to Baker Cove in Goulding Harbor and knew we found our place when we saw Two Tone, the name we gave the brown bear who was our company for a couple hours eating grass, lazing, drinking, meandering about only a hundred yards away. What a gift to not only sight a bear, but to be able to see it as it is, in it’s own territory, behaving naturally, doing what it does.

White Sulphur Hot Springs

Bears have been doing more trail work than the forest service on the path from West Arm to the Hot Springs on Bertha Bay. Many piles of grassy scat and holes from routed out ground from bears seeking tubers were evident. Only a couple hundred meters from where we tied up the dingy we saw mom coming along with her two cubs. She did not tend to acknowledge our suggestion that there was plenty of room for all of us. In fact she was most decidedly coming our way so we obliged and retreated back to the dingy and put off shore. Sure enough she pops out at the trail head with the two in tow and walks along the shore pausing to tear off some grass tops with her teeth while using a paw to hold down the stalks. A loose stone under foot clacks and you can hear her chewing. Once they moved beyond the trail a safe distance we returned and resumed our hike, this time carrying a flare with us since we forgot the bear spray.

The hot springs are stunning and i will leave it to pictures to relate their beauty. We got back to the boat at the top portion of high tide which was good since it is quite a meander through shallow water ringed by boulders to get into the anchorage near the trail.

We came on to the charming harbor at Pelican with its broad boardwalk where we were able to fuel up with diesel and food. The nice little library had internet but there was no cell reception. Slept well there and got underway by 0630 this morning.

Yakutat

We entered Cross Sound at high slack and rode the swells along with shearwaters and other little petrels. We passed Cape Spencer Light House, saw a couple boats off Icy Point, then no others until reaching Yakutat Bay. We passed La Perouse glacier, looked into Lituya Bay, passed Cape Fairweather (aptly named on this day), Grand Plateau glacier, Dry Bay off in the distance where the Alsek River comes in from Canada. Past Ocean Cape and rounding Cape Carew into Yakutat Bay we saw the long clean green breakers meeting the land.

Travelled 155 miles from Pelican in a little over 8 hours burning 75 gallons diesel according to the gauge.