humpbacks – Riveted

Codville Lagoon to Fury Cove (and Humpbacks!) | BC

Laura Domela — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 19:24:45 +0000

Today’s plan was to meet up with our friends on Dawnbreaker down at the Koeye River inlet. The Koeye River is a very good place to watch grizzlies, and the anchorage there is decent for a temporary stop in relatively calm conditions. It was beautiful in Codville Lagoon this morning, but the further south we went, the more fog we encountered.

Entering the bay at the Koeye River Inlet:

Dawnbreaker was already anchored and their dinghy was gone, so we assumed they were already up river. We launched our dinghy and headed out to meet them (and hopefully spot some brown bears!)

Long house on shore:

Airship, anchored:

Our Torqeedo had other plans for us, however. It quit abruptly as we were headed into the river and gave us an error message. E23. Kevin messed with it for a few minutes as we were pushed around by the waves coming in from Fitz Hugh Sound. I turned us around and started rowing back toward Airship while he worked to see if he could recalibrate and clear the error, but to no avail. We got back to Airship and brought the electronic tiller part in and did some troubleshooting and determined that somehow, water had gotten in where it shouldn’t be. We messed with it for about an hour, and decided to bag it on the river trip. Being stuck up river with grizzlies and only oars didn’t sound awesome and it was 2pm already. Our plan was to get to Fury Cove so we could do our Cape Caution crossing tomorrow…and we still had about 3 hours to go. We tried radioing our friends to let them know the deal, but didn’t get ahold of them. (We figured we’d just get them on the radio once they were back.)

Back out in Fitz Hugh Sound the fog cleared a bit and once we were past Hakai Pass the seas calmed to rippled for the rest of our cruise down to Fury Cove. We’d seen the occasional humpback in Fitz Hugh, but mostly too far for much detail. Just outside of Fury Cove as we were about to turn in…humpbacks! Several of them were directly in our path.

We watched them for about 10 minutes and then just as we decided we could get past them easily and go into Fury Cove….they started bubble net feeding. This is the very first bubble feeding we’ve seen all summer, and happens right here in front of our anchorage! I took way too many photos. Hopefully that’s what you want to see right now:

The bubble circle just before the whales come up through it:

This close to Airship:

You never know where they’re going to come up. (Actually, you do if you watch the birds.)

We watched them for over an hour. The light was so great…bubble feeding at golden hour! We watched across the channel as another boat (Bonaventure, heading to Seattle) made its way toward us (with spouts and breaching and tail-slapping humpbacks between us and them…busy whale day today!) They stopped when they got close and we both watched the bubble feeding for a while before heading into the cove to anchor.

We’re the only two boats in here, and it’s just gorgeous.

Oh and…guess what? We can hear whales from our boat!

Tomorrow is supposed to be pretty chill, so we’re planning to leave just before sunrise (6:30am or so) for what will likely be a foggy crossing of Cape Caution.

Misty Fjords with Mijonet | Part 1

Laura Domela — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 23:54:10 +0000

Kevin and Mijonet (granddaughter, 8, on her first solo trip!) arrived from Seattle on time in Ketchikan on Wednesday afternoon. We got Mij all unpacked and then headed up to the Bar Harbor Restaurant to have some dinner (Mij had a pound of clams to celebrate her arrival into the Land of Seafood). After dinner, Kevin and Mij got out their matching (telescoping) fishing rods and Kevin taught Mij how to cast. She caught on really fast!

By morning the wind had died down considerably. We left the dock around 7am and headed for Misty Fjords. Just as we were about to enter Behm Canal we found a humpback breaching like crazy. This guy was so active! We counted about 15 breaches in a row, then fin slaps, then about a dozen more breaches….so much energy! The first breach was usually a full one and the subsequent breaches were not quite full…but still seriously splashy.

We watched for a while and then continued on, since our cruise today was a long one. In Behm Canal we came upon some more Pacific White Sided Dolphins, but they didn’t come swim with us…must have been too busy eating fish.

We arrived in Walker Cove just after 5pm. There was no one else here, so we grabbed the one mooring ball and then went out to set crab traps. While we were setting the second trap we saw a black bear sow and two cubs on shore, so we followed them up the river a bit (from a distance). The sow was combing the shore for fish, as her two little ones followed along. It was so cool (except for the insane amount of bugs flying around us).

Up river a bit (it was just about high tide) we saw several seals, and then something weird floating/swimming in front of us a ways. It was kind of long, and didn’t really look like a seal head. I said “What IS that?” as we slowed down…it was alive, but didn’t look like a seal OR an otter. I picked up the camera and zoomed in…it WAS a seal, but with just its snout sticking out of the water…and it was swimming upside down! Silly seal!

I made a shrimp boil for dinner in the pressure cooker. This is a pretty cool recipe, actually. Beer, spices, potatoes, corn, sausage, and shrimp…5 minutes on high in the pressure cooker and boom! Super fast!

Takatz Bay, Kake, Rocky Pass

Laura Domela — Tue, 16 Aug 2016 00:37:40 +0000

The weather was supposed to be not bad in Chatham, so we poked our head out and things looked pretty calm. Foggy, but calm.

The forecast was for 15 knot winds and 3 foot seas, but it wasn’t even that. Until we got about mid channel, and then the wind picked up considerably. I think we saw 24 knots. The waves were on our bow and about 3-4 feet but not too bad. As we neared Point Gardener at the bottom of Admiralty Island we opted to go for the rougher water and cross over there rather than stay out longer in Chatham, because sooner or later we’d need to turn east, and the later we did that, the more on our beam these 3-4 (5?) foot waves would be. Having abeam seas sucks quite a bit. The boat rolls side to side and stuff you forgot to put away falls on the floor. So instead, we had about 45 minutes (felt like WAY longer) of pretty steep 5ish foot waves on our bow. Crash, crash, blam, blam. Kevin took some video while I was working through the worst part of it (I know, nice bedhead, hush.)

Ahhhh, nice and calm here in Frederick Sound, finally:

We saw a few humpbacks in Keku Strait, on our way into Kake:

We got to Kake and headed for the harbor where we could get some water, some calm, and walk to the market to get more eggs and few other things. Some photos from our walk to the store:

And sunset from the back of Airship:

In the morning we got a little bit of fuel in Kake (just enough to make sure we had plenty to get to Wrangell, since it’s about a dollar more per gallon in Kake) and then headed for Rocky Pass. We haven’t done Rocky Pass before, and are looking forward to it! Most of it isn’t a big deal…we’re timing it to get to the “Summit” just before high slack tide. The shallowest, trickiest parts are The Summit and Devil’s Elbow (a super kelpy, narrow, shallow turn to port that also happens to be missing three of its navigational aids at the moment). We had some time to kill so we hung out and drifted with some halibut lines in the water out near Pup Island, but all we caught was this shark (a spiny dogfish). We put him back:

Here are a couple of photos from Rocky Pass (more like “Kelpy Pass”…so much kelp!!):

After we were through Rocky Pass but not quite yet into Sumner Strait, I noticed some splashing up ahead. Turned out to be a humpback doing a whole lot of tail slapping (and then some fin slapping). We detoured slightly to watch the fun:

Awwww, humpback floating on his back with fins up….so cute.

We saw several more humpbacks as we entered Sumner Strait, but this lively one was the only one we photographed.

Next stop: Totem Bay!

The Ditch and The Payoff (Spoiler: More Humpbacks!)

Laura Domela — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 22:16:27 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska (and BC)

Prince Rupert (AK) — Lowe Inlet (BC) — Khutze Inlet (BC) — Jackson Passage (BC) — Shearwater (BC)

Sunday was a 58 mile day and a good chunk of it was in Grenville Channel. Grenville Channel is a 42-mile long narrow channel that locals call “The Ditch”. It can be rather boring. On our way up to Alaska it was not boring (even though it kinda was) because “Hey! We’re going to Alaska!!” but on Sunday, it was a bit boring. It was rainy and foggy and so there was not much scenery. The scenery in the first place is pretty much just trees and waterfalls which, yes, I know, is nice…there’s just not that much variety. Anyway, I didn’t take many photos because it was kind of a boring cruise day.

Here’s a container ship being loaded (or offloaded, I couldn’t tell) as we left Prince Rupert. Needs a little off the starboard side, or more on port.

There were three other boats in Lowe Inlet where we anchored for the night…all boats we’d seen before this summer (some a few times): a big yachty-yacht called Serengeti, a Nordhavn called Arcadia II, and a super cute wooden boat called Poplar:

We got underway first thing and headed the rest of the way down Grenville Channel and toward a spot we picked that we hadn’t been before (therefore skipping Bishop Hot Springs…awwwww): Khutze Inlet. It sounded really pretty and was about 50 miles, so another day of making miles.

Leaving Lowe Inlet on Monday morning:

The weather was again rainy and gray and often foggy, and so there was even less scenery than the day before, and a few times we just looked at each other and shrugged. We haven’t had many (if any) boring cruise days, but we were feeling the boredom of The Ditch, for sure.

As we neared a little cove toward the south end of Grenville, Kevin spotted a few humpbacks. Yay! Wildlife! Then, he said “Hey, what is that bubbling? Is it just whales hanging out on the surface?”

Nope.

And so began the HOURS of humpbacks bubble feeding that we happily added on to our long day of making miles, as we slowly paralleled three (maybe four?) separate groups of humpbacks, bubble net feeding. This was the best yet.

Bubble net feeding is a really cool cooperative feeding thing that humpbacks do, where a group of whales swim in a shrinking circle blowing bubbles beneath a school of fish. This shrinking column of bubbles surrounds the school of fish and forces them up to the surface where the humpbacks then eat 'em all up.

We could SEE the circles of bubbles long before the whale mouths punched through the surface…over and over and over and OVER again. It was insane. And for a total change up, Kevin took stills with my (sad, disabled) Nikon (and then I processed them and made ‘em all shiny), and I shot video with my iPhone (and Kevin edited the video together and made IT all shiny). First, here’s the video:

And here are some stills (circle forming, the first whale's fin punches through the water's surface on the right):

I'd trade 42 miles of boring fog and limited scenery for a couple of hours of that, wouldn't you?

Well, we finally had had enough of all this bubble feeding nonsense (not at all) and broke away (after about 23 “okay just one more”s) so we could get to our next anchorage before dark.

We turned into Graham Reach and about 20 minutes later noticed some humpbacks up ahead breaching! Good, because we were getting a little bored. We saw probably a dozen breaches from a distance but didn’t get any photos. We did get a few shots of a pretty active fin-slapper though:

This one would hang out and slap fins on the surface for a while (while two or three others swam nearby) and then twice, just as I thought “okay let’s move on…this is cool but we’ve seen it” the fin slapper would come up and breach RIGHT. THERE. Twice I missed the shot (but saw it with my eyeballs, so that’s cool).

We continued on to Khutze Inlet and anchored on Monday night near the head by the river, then made some sockeye tacos and a salad for dinner. The fog and rain continued, but it cleared enough to get this shot of our neighbor and the giant waterfall:

Whoa! A little bit of (short-lived) blue sky on Tuesday morning:

We left Khutze Inlet and our plan was to head to Rescue Bay, or an anchorage in a little bight in Jackson Passage just before the narrows (before Rescue Bay).

We ended up anchoring on Tuesday night in the little bight (room for about one boat) and it was nice. The wind picked up significantly sometime in the middle of the night, but we were secure and slept well. (Thanks, Rocna!)

This morning we headed for Shearwater. Jackson Narrows was no big deal, then we made our way down Mathieson Channel, through Perceval Narrows (arriving right around slack), then took the Reid Passage shortcut down to Seaforth Channel (where we briefly encountered some 6-8 foot ocean swells making their way in…woohoo!). The rest of the route to Shearwater was fairly calm and just gray and drizzly.

Here are our maps:

Sunday — Prince Rupert to Lowe Inlet (58.5 nautical miles)

Monday — Lowe Inlet to Khutze Inlet (56.5 nautical miles):

Tuesday — Khutze Inlet to unnamed anchorage in Jackson Passage (42.5 nautical miles):

Wednesday/today — Unnamed anchorage in Jackson Passage to Shearwater, BC (34 nautical miles):

From Shearwater we'll continue checking weather and decide when and where to stage for our Cape Caution/Queen Charlotte Sound crossing. We may go to Pruth Bay and wait (where there is also internet) instead of further (closer to the crossing) to Fury Cove (where there is no internet, and where that mean eagle took down Kevin's quadcopter). We'll play it by ear (and by weather) for now.

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):

Hoonah, Elfin Cove, and Bubble Net Feeding Humpbacks

Laura Domela — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 21:26:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

Before we left Hoonah this morning, we went up to Chipper Fish and had breakfast. A local recommended it to us, and specifically, she recommended that we try the “Right On” which was biscuits, covered with mega tots (tater tots kicked up with bacon and green onion), covered with sausage gravy, and topped with a fried egg. We ordered half an order to split, and it was STILL too much. But it was darn good. (One-quarter serving shown in photo below.)

Our cappuccinos came with a nice message, too:

We got back to Airship and waved goodbye to Hoonah (and the internet sucking cruise ship anchored out by the cannery. Seriously, each morning we had great internet until the cruise ship came in, then basically no internet again until the cruise ship left.)

The seas in Icy Strait were relatively smooth and we were cruising along happily when we heard someone talking on the radio about humpbacks bubble net feeding at Pt. Adolphus. We were not far from Pt. Adolphus and could see boats over there, so I upped our RPM to 3200 and we headed for the point. I watched with the binocs and could see the action from afar…super exciting!! Bubble net feeding is something we were really hoping to see while we were up here, and today we spent about two hours watching it.

Bubble net feeding is a cooperative way of feeding where the whales dive down and form a circle, exhaling to create a cylinder of bubbles to trap the fish. The whales then rise up through the circle of bubbles with their mouths wide open catching thousands of fish on the way up, emerging at the surface like a bunch of gigantic baby birds. It’s dramatic and incredible to watch! Here are some photos:

We spent two hours hanging out near Pt. Adolphus with a few other boats coming and going, and then eventually headed on our way toward Elfin Cove. Once while I was sitting out on the bow with my camera, we were just drifting and waiting for the next group of mouths to pop up somewhere, and a humpback came very close to the boat as I watched it pass by. Kevin leaned out and said something like “So, there’s a whale 10 feet from the boat and doesn’t even rate a photo anymore??” Ooops.

This boat got a good view of this one:

We saw quite a few porpoises today, too. Also, otters:

Kevin put a couple lines in the water and fished for about an hour but didn’t catch anything, but we did come upon another feeding humpback (just one this time):

It was off and on cloudy, sunny, rainy today, and made for some beautiful skies:

As we got closer to North Inian Pass at the Inian Islands, we started getting some smooth ocean swells coming in from the Gulf and Cross Sound. We went through Middle Pass and Mosquito Pass…super scenic! And tons of sea lions on ALL of the rocks:

We heard the small cruise ship Wilderness Explorer telling the AK State Ferry that was heading west through South Inian Pass that there was a pod of orcas near Dad Rock, and we happened to be really close to Dad Rock, so guess what? We finally saw Orcas in Alaska:

The passengers on the ferry got a good view as well:

Near South Inian Pass:

Arriving in Elfin Cove:

The outer public float at Elfin Cove was filled (and boats were rafted three deep…there were maybe only 9 boats…it’s a small float) so we headed into the inner harbor to try our luck. To get to the inner harbor, you go through a narrow, shallow channel. You can kinda see the corner of it here…heading around the boardwalk and then turning to the left.

This is the far end of the inner harbor (where apparently the locals don’t like you to anchor unless the docks are completely full, and really not even then):

We found a spot on one of the floats and asked the local guys working on the boat behind us if it was okay for us to tie up there (they said it was). I’m pretty sure the inner harbor is a “locals only” operation most of the time. I read one review on Active Captain from a cruiser who said they came from Hoonah to Elfin Cove and there was no room for them, so they made the 5 hour trek back to Hoonah.

It’s a little hard to navigate where to go in Elfin Cove because the harbor (in the summer) is super busy with fishing boats and locals and there’s no harbormaster to tell you what you can and can’t do, and there are no signs. But all was cool. We walked up to wander around the boardwalk village and ended up grabbing a beer and some pizza at the only restaurant in town (Coho Bar & Grill). The whole village is connected by boardwalks heading every which way, so we explored a bit more after dinner.

Arriving in Elfin Cove feels like being dropped into a place that was never meant for you. It’s adorable and quirky, but really feels like it exists in a little bubble. The people we’ve run into are nice but a little distant…not at all like that “please, spend money here, we need it” feeling you get in the more tourist-welcoming towns. (They do have a gift shop though, and it’s open until 9pm, so there’s that bit of contradiction.)

Looking toward the inner harbor floats from the boardwalk:

Photos from around ‘town” (which has about 50 residents in the winter):

Not much data or cell service inside the cove here, so we’ll probably do the online part of our work on the way to Pelican tomorrow.

More Humpbacks Breaching

Laura Domela — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 04:34:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

Today we left Pybus Bay and headed over to anchor in the Tracy Arm anchorage so we'd be ready to head for the glaciers in the morning. The weather was gray and rainy, and just outside of Windham Bay we noticed some dark vertical things and splashes in the distance. More breaching humpbacks? Let's head over there!

As we got a little closer we realized that only some of what we were seeing were breaches. The other vertical dark things sticking out of the water were the enormous pectoral fins of a humpback before big splashy fin slaps:

And, more breaches. This time I was ready(ish):

Pretty freaking cool, right?

We got to our little cove and this intensely blue iceberg greeted us near the entrance.

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!

Day 10 – Fury Cove to Ocean Falls

Laura Domela — Tue, 26 May 2015 18:18:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska – Day 10

We never saw the grizzlies at Fury Cove (dangit), and we departed at 7am for another long cruise to Ocean Falls (58 nautical miles). We saw humpback whales in Fitz Hugh Sound three different times (Airship seems to be the whale-spotting boat).

The first time was right off our starboard side, and it was the tail as the whale dove. Kevin was in the shower and no one in the fleet but me saw it, and I didn’t get a photo.

The second time was 20 minutes or so later, two of them on my starboard side again, also heading south. I don’t think anyone else saw these either.

But the third time, we saw a few huge spouts right off our bow (and behind Mark’s boat).

Kevin told the fleet, and we slowed up as I booked it out onto the bow to get a few photos.

I zoomed in just as the whale was preparing to dive, and we got quite a nice tail wave…maybe three times up and down before diving. Here's a whale tail wave flip book:

I may or may not have been one of those people who cheered at the whale tail from the bow of our boat.

Approaching the entrance to Ocean Falls:

We made a quick detour over to the right of the falls to put our crab traps out. There's known good crabbing here at Ocean Falls, and now that it's been a few days since the "all you can eat crab and prawn dinner" at Pierre's Echo Bay, we're ready for some more crab.

This mermaid (created by local resident Herb Carpenter) greets arriving boaters:

Getting settled on the long dock:

Our new spot:

More in the next post about Ocean Falls!