Stephens Passage – Riveted

No More Boatyards. Humpbacks.

Laura Domela — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 23:44:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

This morning we headed out of Snettisham in some light fog, weaving our way through only a dozen or so gill netters. The weather forecast for Stephens Passage was “Wind SE 20kt diminishing in the morning, then becoming N 10kt in the afternoon. Seas 4ft subsiding to 2 ft in the afternoon.” The fog lifted and the blue spots in the sky got larger, and by the time we reached Stephens (about 9:30am) it was flat and as smooth as glass.

We immediately found ourselves stuck in the middle of a bunch of humpbacks so we slowed up (and eventually stopped) to let them do their thing while we tried to be invisible (well, invisible, but with cameras).

There were maybe 20 in this particular group that was hanging together and they were amazing to watch. It’s hard up here not to be “too close” to the humpbacks, because they’re everywhere. Every. Where. All you can really do is just stop and wait, and we had to do that several times over the course of our trip down Stephens Passage on the way to Hobart Bay today.

One curious guy came over to check us out…um, too close too close too close too close WAY too close. Not much to be done but just sit there, shut down, and make sure you’re not bugging ‘em. I don’t think we were bugging ‘em. I think they kinda liked us.

Here are a bunch of photos, and some video….to give you an idea of what it’s like up here:

I was about to get the coolest photo of this whale's tail as it came up out the water (above) and this other whale totally photobombed my shot:

I think the photobomber (the one below with the bumps) is the curious humpback who came over VERY close to our boat later (you'll see…and you'll see in the video):

So many humpbacks:

And here was the curious guy coming over to check us out (eeeeeek!!):

Here's some video Kevin took with his iPhone (seriously, watch this video):

Oh yeah, and in the distance, a few breaches:

We continued on and near the entrance to Tracy Arm we had to slow down again for more:

Glacier with humpback:

Finally, a clear path:

We continued on down Stephens Passage toward Hobart Bay, and at no time were there ever not humpback blows in several spots on the horizon.

We tied up on the public float in the cove on Entrance Island, and then since it was still so gorgeous out, we decided to go for a little spin in the dinghy to explore.

Marker, marking the shallow reef:

Oh, and hey look, more humpbacks.

Wow, and not just humpbacks, humpbacks bubble feeding! I felt the need to keep reminding Kevin to stay way the heck back because did I mention we were in the DINGHY??

Also, we saw a couple breaches that I did not get photos of because…DINGHY!!

It was spectacular. The light was beautiful out and other than a few moments when we thought we were shut out of our little harbor by more humpbacks, it was a lovely evening ride in Hobart Bay.

Sea lions on their way out to dinner:

Another incredible day in SE Alaska.

Here's today's route, from the sockeye hatchery in Snettisham (which we'll be posting about next) to Entrance Island in Hobart Bay (about 50 nautical miles):

Baranof Island to Admiralty Island

Laura Domela — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 03:32:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

We left Warm Springs Bay this morning around 8am and I made breakfast underway: a bed of wilted spinach, fresh Dungeness crab, an over easy egg, topped with hollandaise sauce and chives. As I was putting stuff on the table for Christy and Mijonet and Kevin was at the helm on a business call, all of a sudden out the dinette window appeared a giant whale tail…diving…pretty much under the boat. I gasped in shock and Christy knew from my face to look behind her so she got to see it too, but Mij missed it. It was insane (and huge, and too close too close too close). Kevin missed it completely.

No big deal. Just boating along eating fresh crab and eggs with hollandaise and a GIANT WHALE TAIL RIGHT THERE!!!

We got further across Chatham Strait and the seas were about 2-3 feet and a little choppy, so we tacked a bit toward Kake before heading back on course toward Pybus Bay on Admiralty Island. We got ourselves into a GIANT pod (or MANY giant pods) of humpbacks. We’ve never seen so many humpbacks. Not even on that one cruise up Stephens Passage, or that one other time with Tiffani and Deke when we left Kake headed toward Baranof. We saw EIGHTEEN humpback breaches today. EIGHTEEN! (I only got one photo, because, well…it’s a bit of a surprise when it happens!) Okay, I’ll shut up. Here are photos. (For some of these photos, picture me on the bow, with my camera, looking back at Kevin saying “Too close too close too close!” It was hard to figure out which way to go NOT to be too close. They were everywhere. None of the photos (not even all of these photos together) can even come close to describing how it was to be surrounded for miles by humpback spouts, breaches, tails…the SOUND of them all around us was CRAZY. Spectacular.

Oh yeah, photos:

Oops, almost! I got a nice sharp shot of the splash though:

I took a few photos of this boat that was hanging out watching the whales near us. In every photo the guy on the flybridge with his long lens was not looking at the whales diving so close between his boat and ours, and any other time I’d think this was a funny shot, but trust me, he was not missing a thing:

These two surprised us and slid right past the boat as we quietly watched in awe (and felt the spray on our skin as they passed):

We are in Sheldon Cove now, a little cove in Donkey Bay in Pybus Bay on Admiralty Island. We’ve got two crab traps in the water and we’re looking for bears. The kayak is out, and everyone is having a blast.

Pybus Bay to Taku Harbor

Laura Domela — Wed, 17 Jun 2015 23:27:00 +0000

Today was another 50+ mile day, so we left Pybus Bay at 6am (after pulling in one more Dungeness crab). Kevin pulling up crab traps at 5:30am:

I'm glad it was clear when we arrived, or we'd have missed those beautiful mountains back there, covered by the misty gray this morning.

One of the rocky islets in the entrance to Pybus Bay:

We cruised up Stephens Passage (forecast for seas 3 feet but this morning changed to less than 2 feet) and it looked like this pretty much the whole way:

We saw humpbacks ALL ALONG OUR CRUISE. All. Along. We probably saw 40 or 50 humpbacks. Here are a few (too many) photos:

Humpback at 2 o'clock!

Humpback in the foreground, with two more behind him:

I'll chill out on the humpback photos, but it was super cool.

Oh yeah, we also saw a seal tossing a salmon about before he ate ‘im. It was raining and pretty gray, but I managed to get a few long lens shots:

We were the third boat to show up at Taku Harbor (two other Nordic Tugs were already there, a 37 and an older 32) and we opted for the north dock rather than anchoring out near all the crab pots. The north dock has land access and some hiking trails that we wanted to take advantage of.

Facing into the harbor:

Facing back toward shore:

(There’s also a floating dock in the south of the harbor with no land access, but I think it’s got a courtesy dinghy on it if you wanted to go to shore and didn’t have your own. Either that, or someone left without their dinghy.)

By 6pm there were five more boats in here, but it still didn't feel crowded, and everyone is very friendly. Kevin went out and dropped our crab traps out in the sea of commercial crab traps with little expectation.

We went on a nice hike among the old cannery buildings and deserted cabins:

Totally good horror movie set:

There’s a forest service cabin and a nice waterfront fire pit if you head to the right after you get to shore, and a ways past that, the trail opens into a clearing in the woods with a giant rope swing. Fun!!

Picnic table and fire pit in front of the cabin:

Rope swing!

New trees growing on old trees:

Another fish boat in the harbor putting out a TON of traps. Now there’s really no hope for more crab for us. We went out on a dinghy excursion around the shore looking for bears (there are both brown bears and black bears here, but we haven’t seen any yet.)

We decided to check our traps before coming in from our dinghy ride because it’d been two hours already and why not? We had 6 large male Dungeness and one female (she went back in). Six large keepers! We left the traps down (since, if we’re cooking and freezing a bunch of crab, why not go big?)

Think there are enough crab pots out here?? (All of those on the back of that boat went down here after I took this photo.)

Our haul after 2 hours in Taku Harbor:

One of the boats put down a couple crab pots right by the dock in maybe 5 feet of water. After a short time, most of the boaters were gathered over there watching Dungeness after Dungeness make its way into the pot. Crazy! (And probably in a few weeks there will be no crab at all in this bay by the looks of how many crab pots there are here now at the very start of the commercial season.) We lucked out!

We were still really psyched about how good last nights crab enchiladas were, so I made them again! This time I added a little bit of light cream cheese along with some light sour cream and milk, and they were EVEN BETTER.

Today’s track (55.5 nautical miles, 7 hours 14 minutes):

Tomorrow: Juneau!