Learning our ABCs in Alaska

While pandemic changed many plans dramatically over the course of 2020, we were luckily able to keep one long-awaited trip mostly intact. (We’d planned an adjoining trip to Denali, but we didn’t think that jumping in a camping jeep and driving hundreds of miles across the state really counted as ‘quarantine’ – so that got canceled.) The boat-half of our trip, a multi-day floating adventure with Mike, Ingrid, Stefan, Keith, and Julia, succeeded in grand fashion.

First step, actually getting to Alaska. With N95 masks (at least, the ones that protect from inwards air but vent air out rather… freely) doubled up with disposable ones, we arrived at the Denver airport not quite knowing what to expect. It ended up not being as bad or scary as we thought. We kept our masks on all the way til Seattle. Then after a brief respite for some food & drink, again kept them on all the way to Juneau. After getting through the state of Alaska ‘welcome please show us your negative test result’ checkpoint, we were free to roam about the city… which didn’t take long.

While it’s the capital of Alaska, Juneau is a town of ~30k people. Apparently in the summer when cruise ships dock, that number can almost double on a busy day. Even with the space needed to handle that extra capacity, the ‘downtown’ area is only about 6-8 blocks square, much of it residential. There are a few restaurants and bars, some interesting art galleries, a number of touristy shops, plus grocery stores, hardware stores, etc. We headed straight for food – finding an outdoor food truck area and enjoying fish tacos and beer. Not being at home felt exciting in/of itself, even given the drizzle and fatigue from the couple plane flights. Eventually we met up with the rest of the group as the various flights arrived, and the trip officially started!

The next day we met Captain Cameron, Liz, Tyler, and Katie, then boarded the Wild Dawn. In a short while, we were off!

Our first day was primarily a travel day, from Juneau down to Sanford Cove. Unknown to us, this was to be perhaps the sunniest day of the trip overall. We took advantage of it, with Cameron & crew quickly learning that there were many photographers aboard. We saw our first iceberg of the trip (… of all time, for some of us), saw glaciers, and tons of beautiful South Eastern Alaska coastline & mountains.

We also took our first trip out on the tender (the small boat that the crew plopped into the water via crane whenever the big boat was anchored) and wandered around on the shore. It was a challenging shore visit for Cameron – he was trying to simultaneously keep the group together so that he could use his bear spray effectively if required, as well as keep an eye on the boat to make sure the boat (with Ingrid in it) didn’t float away with the rising tide. We saw a gigantic blue heron and tons of plants, including the plant of the trip, the Devil’s Club.

Next up: tidewater glacier day! Because of pandemic, all large cruise ships were canceled for the entire summer in SE Alaska (and, probably, everywhere). This turned out to be quite the boon for our little group – we got to travel up the Endicott arm of Holkham Bay to see Dawes Glacier. It’s a huge ice flow that extends into the bay year-round. As we got closer to the ice wall (after dodging increasingly more minor to moderately sided bergs … “bergie bits”), we could actually feel the boat rock as it encountered successive, infrequent waves from huge pieces of ice calving off the glacier into the water.

The glacial carving was impressive to say the least – the walls weren’t quite as vertical as at Preikestolen in Norway – but they were close. Apparently descending hundreds of vertical feet below the water’s surface in just a handful of horizontal feet. We saw a ton of seals hanging out on chunks of ice – apparently just napping, because they definitely weren’t getting warm from the sun out there.

Liz, our crew member / tour guide, told us about her time out in the area as a Forest Service Ranger. She would kayak out here, camp (somehow), count the wildlife, take air quality measurements to understand the impact of tourism on the local environment. Sounded like quite the peaceful, if cold and sometimes stressful, job.

Dad and I took a moment before we exited the land of icebergs to dive into the almost-literally freezing water. We took a few strokes away from the boat and quickly returned – looking back we should have tried to summit an iceberg.  : )

We spent the afternoon kayaking near (but not in) Ford’s Terror. Apparently there’s a line of rocks crossing a narrow arm of the bay that are pleasantly underwater at high tide, but turn into a half mile of terrifying whitewater rapids as the tide turns and the bay empties out. Hence the name. We enjoyed the serene high water experience.

After getting going fairly early, we made a quick stop by Sail Island. We could hear it before we could really see it – hundreds of sea lions were hanging out chatting away. Some looked to be napping, some where playing above and below the water, and some where running around – to the extent sea lions can effectively run.

We spent the afternoon kayking near Admiralty Island. It was quickly becoming apparent that kayaking in these bays, though technically attached to the ocean, was almost always a serene, smooth-water experience. We paddled up to the mouth of a river, got out to explore a bit, but were almost immediately repelled by the thick Alaska foliage. I quickly learned why most folks prefer boating to camping out there. On the way back, we picked up an apple, an orange, and what looked like a slice of watermelon but ended up being just a piece of an old buoy. They were just floating in the water – left overs from some other expedition’s wild fruit party.

After waking up in Security Bay, we headed back into the kayaks for a paddle around Cleft Island. We saw oysters shooting water up into the air, a very nimble & fast mink scrambling around, as well as an otter that was curious enough to watch us as we got closer, but not quite brave enough to really say hi. We also had our first bear sighting of the trip – a dark looking bear wandering across the shoreline.

That afternoon we traveled to Red Bluff Bay. After throwing some shrimp and crab traps into the water, we tried our hand at fishing. We ended up catching a few rockfish for a later dinner, as well as some alien-looking sea stars and a few other fish that Cameron quickly, adeptly identified as poisonous/don’t touch. We appreciated his fishing expertise. : )

The bay itself was absolutely beautiful – fairly small radius but tucked in almost 360 degrees of steep forest walls. There was a gigantic water fall that Cameron nosed the boat up to for a great photo op. We also took the tender up to the mouth of the nearby creek. Folks on the boat got some great bear photos. (I was fishing – someone’s gotta bring home the food!) We also saw a ton of eagles, both fully grown and adolescent.

Next up, a relaxing hot springs visit at the town of Baranof. After docking, we walked past the entire town of about 25 homes (one of which was for sale! 135 sqft for $100k!) and up a 1/4 mile wooden plank walkway to the springs.

There was a touch of manmade optimization to help create the hot springs experience – a bit of rock was buttressed with cement to keep the hot water in, and a couple permanent hoses looked to be helping funnel water around. But overall, the entire area looked mostly the same as it likely did hundreds of years ago. We had the whole area to ourselves for quite a while – moving between the two ‘pools’, checking out the raging river slightly to the side and below, and enjoying the warmth of the water.

After drying off, we went a bit further up the trail to Baranof Lake. It was pretty socked in and drizzly, so we didn’t see as much as we might have. But we enjoyed the stillness, the quiet – literally pierced only by a loon call that echoed around the area.

That afternoon we headed north to Takatz Bay, and took the tender up to the mouth of the creek. We struck out a bit on this trip – missing out on both bear sighting as well as any luck catching salmon (even though we could see them there under the water). A seal followed us for a while, eventually losing interest and heading back to wherever he usually hangs out. The waterfall (perhaps more of a ‘cascade’ at the mouth of the creek was beautiful.

(Fyi, the first few photos below are more particular to yesterday’s blurb than this one. But we took those photos in the morning, and this story is going day by day. Rules are rules.)

We were prepped for a fair amount of motoring time this day. We had about two days to make it up and around the bulk of Admiralty island so we could make it back to Juneau at the scheduled time.

So we spent most of the morning watching the coastline go by. Cameron would occasionally stop to call out a whale sighting, and we’d all excitedly get out on the bow and see what we could see. We did stop in at Waterfall cove, where we saw a beautiful waterfall (typical at this point : P ).

Little did we know though that this would end up being one of the most exciting days of the trip.

As we got up near Point Lull, we encountered a pod of whales bubble feeding near some shoals that extended out from shore. We hung out for at least an hour – watching for bubbles, and watching the gulls watching for bubbles, attempting to guess where the whales would surface next. They weren’t super predictable, but after a couple rounds we were getting better at it. One moment all would be calm – the next, 5-9 gigantic whales shooting up out the water vertically. Incredibly impressive to watch. I even got lucky and happened to take perfectly framed photos of the entire pod the one & only time they happened to surface right next to the boat.

That afternoon, we anchored in Pavlof Harbor for a bear watching adventure. Apparently many bears are known to frequent the mouth of the creek in this area – and enough folks go to watch them that they’re pretty good at ignoring people. There’s even a bench sitting on the shoreline, a fairly far (i.e. safe) distance away from the salmon-rich creek water. But, close enough that with the right camera you can take really impressive photos.

We sat there for at least an hour, watching two groups of bears – parents and cubs – catching fish and eating them. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the adult bears were pretty talented at watching the water, waiting, and suddenly swiping a big paw into it and coming up with a fish. The gulls hanging around liked it too – after the cubs were done, they’d swoop in and snack on the leftovers.

Cameron was again on bear spray duty. He kept looking behind us while we were sitting near the bench. Which we all at first though was because there was something to see back there. But then after asking, learned that it was because he was just checking that no bears were accidentally sneaking up on us from behind. (Eek.)

We spent our penultimate day on another kayaking outing, seeing bears, eagles, whales, and more seals. Dad also learned how to crack a crab, and turned out to be pretty good at it! Ultimately, a fitting and relaxing way to end the trip of a lifetime.

On our flight out of Juneau, we ended up with eastward-facing window seats. As we watched the countless glaciers go bay, we actually managed to pick out the Endicott Arm in the landscape below. We enjoyed one more view of this super impressive area before sitting back for the rest of the ride.

Extra! Stefan made a beautiful video of the trip. Keeping it here so it doesn’t get lost.

Also, ABC = Admiralty, Baranof, Catherine.