59 Degrees North Latitude

July 7th, we motor into Barlett Cove inside Glacier Bay National Park for our 11:00 Park Service Orientation Lecture. The day is beautiful, and the bay is peaceful with distant mountain views. It’s hard to believe that the land of glaciers is just a few miles away.



As we head north into Glacier Bay, something, however, changes for me. Maybe it was that lecture, but I begin to feel a jumpy uneasiness. As we motor deeper into Glacier Bay, the scenery takes on another character. The white snow-covered fortresses that distantly drew us north are being replaced by rocky, jagged, snow-crusted behemoths, coldly menacing and forbidding. There’s Mt. Fairweather at a formidable 15,700’ above us. Where sailing in Desolation Sound had reminded us of Telluride’s San Juan Mountains, these mountains here are the San Juans on steroids. There’s a Himalayan upthrust about them. I did not feel this anxiety in Misty Fiords and Tracy Arm. What is bothering me about this area? Though also glacier carved, vegetation had taken over Misty Fiords and Tracy Arm in abundance. The areas were choked with tall standing pine. The snowy peaks were off high in the distance. Here in Glacier Bay, the forests are not grand or abundant. Much of it is scrubby, just barely hanging on. There are vast areas of exposed, rough scraped glacial rock and the snow comes right down to the sea. The very starkness gives a feeling of life hanging in the balance. One missed step, and you’re history. It is a colder, more brutal and unforgiving wilderness up here, and I am not comfortable with it.

However, unbelievable as it certainly is, after several dreary, rainy days, we are treated to a “Chamber of Commerce” picture perfect day. With a day like this, how can I make my case that I was uneasy with it all? But I was, and poor Bill will miserably confirm it. Until we reached 59 degrees north latitude at the northern end of Glacier Bay where Bill declared he had seen enough glaciers and we were heading south, I was nervously irritable. Once he announced that we had gone as far north as we were going and it was south from now on, I felt an uncontrollable, spontaneous surge of relief, and, if not true happiness, at least the inkling of it.

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Halfway up the bay, we pass Marble Rock with its aquatic bird and seal rookeries.








Near the northern end of Glacier Bay, we head down Reid Inlet and anchor for the night below Reid Glacier in a barren, cold glacier-carved bowl. It was magnificent in its starkness, but overbearing and ominous, too. It felt a thousand miles from civilization.









There was unexpected beauty, too. We look out at 10:30 before heading to bed and are treated to a gorgeous sight.












The next morning the weather is misty and overcast. Bill did not need to add to my discomfort by telling me the water is a bone-freezing 39 degrees, but he does.












An uneasy First Mate at the helm.







The approach to Johns Hopkins Glacier has the First Mate on squawk alert. Bill can’t imagine what for. It’s so deep that the depth meter can’t even find the bottom for a measurement. We can drive almost up to the glacier and still have plenty of water below us. Bill appears to be piloting forward to do just that, but remembering how quickly these depths can shore up, the crazy squawk meter sounds off to Bill’s irritation. Fortunately, a ¼-mile stand off from all glaciers is advised due to possible calving of icebergs and the tidal waves ensuing.






Tortured rock, formidable landscape. Need I say more?












Grand Pacific Glacier straight ahead with Margerie Glacier on left. The day is beginning to clear with blue skies threatening.





Two kayaks below Margerie Glacier. See those small dots on either side of center? We stop the boat and drift with the ice. You can hear the glacier cracking and groaning. The pressure building up must be tremendous. Every once in a while, a large junk resoundingly cracks off and falls into the water. How long had that ice been there? Unbelieveable.










Ice sentinels march forward. Margerie Glacier is an active glacier with frequent calvings. It is also at 59 degrees north latitude. About face, Avante! Go South, my boat, go South!










Bill watches the ice slide by Avante’s hull.









With impending rain, we head into Blue Mouse Cove to anchor on our last night in this land of glaciers, rock and ice. After dinner I peak out to make sure all is still right with my world. I hear a rooshing sound and follow the sound to a whale’s fin just going below surface. It’s dinner time for the whale, and she’s making her way around the perimeter of the bay inhaling krill and coming up regularly for a breath of air. It’s a Minke Whale -- one of the smaller ones weighing in at a mere 7 tons or so. We watch her for quite a while and are amazed to see her swim and dive just a few yards from shore. She’s so close to the surface that we can easily follow her progress by watching the bubbles. What a treat for our last night in Glacier Bay!

July 9th dawns with rain, and the weather forecast is of a stalled low front giving rise to 4 or more days of rain. We had hoped to head down the west side of Chichagof Island where we would be open to the ocean and might find enough wind to sail again, but it’s a rugged coastline requiring exacting navigation and is no fun in poor weather. Instead we will stick to the Inside Passage and know we’ve got 3 days of dismal motoring ahead of us to get to Sitka. But, oh, you Weather Gods out there – I’m not complaining. Every time we have really needed blue skies and sun, they’ve been there for us.

Juneau

Bill and I are on our own with a few days leisure before our permit to enter Glacier Bay National Park on July 8th. We decide to stay in Auke Bay 15 miles north of Juneau for 2 or 3 days to catch up on things and then head up Lynn Canal to Skagway. We rent a car and drive to Mendenhall Glacier. The glacier is impressive, but our real surprise was how attractively planned and built the tourist center and walking paths are. Definitely a lot of forethought had gone into planning this setting. Even though there was the usual crowd of cruise ship tourists, it was still pleasant walking around the area.

This picture gives a good idea of how much the glacier has receded. It was taken from the tourist center. Fifty years ago when the tourist center was built, it was constructed at the base of the glacier. Now the glacier is a mile away. The plants in the foreground have established themselves in the time interval, and the mud flats below the glacier will gradually do the same.

We drive into Juneau to look around and have dinner. The “look around” consists of a drive-by. When we see the crowds of cruise ship tourists milling around the few short blocks of down town and the “come hither” stores, we figure we have seen enough of down town. We head up into the residential area which is quite interesting with its zigzag streets winding every which way and steep staircases connecting all else. Up here, on a clear day, the views across the channel must be phenomenal. We slowly wind our way back down marveling at the guardrails strategically anchored in to keep cars from careening around curves into the living rooms of the houses built below the grade of the street. How do they drive up here in the winter?

We park the car and head out looking for a restaurant which, to our surprise, proves to be difficult. This is Juneau, one of Alaska’s major cities. It’s their government seat, for goodness sake! There are plenty of bars, but no restaurants. I wonder out loud where people eat around here. A security guard interrupts my wonderings and gives us the name of 3 places. Two are in hotels and one is a fish and chips place down by the harbor where the cruise boats are. He’s stumped for another place, but we thank him. As I have already said, Alaskans are friendly and talkative. Most seem to like or at least tolerate their befuddled tourists.

While on our restaurant search, I recall friends mentioning that fur coats are good items to buy in Alaska. So I ask Bill if we couldn’t find a fur store and take a look. I have had in mind that a mink vest would be of benefit in Telluride. To my utter surprise, he says to go ahead if that’s what I want. “Whatever my Suzie wants,” are his words. Off we go in search of a fur store which proves easier to find than a restaurant. We walk in and are immediately assaulted by this saleswoman with a southern accent. Sure she grew up around here! When I tell her that I’m looking for a mink vest, she promptly pulls out this bright pink one. I tell her that’s not quite what I had in mind. She leads me over to a rack, and it all looks like Filene’s Basement with mark down prices. Get me out of here, I think, and look around to see that Bill has already bolted. I now realize that the reason he had agreed so easily to my quest was he foresaw no threat of success for the venture. So much for my mink vest. I am informed later that our friends go to a furrier in Anchorage where they chose their pelts and work with the shop to design their coats. That’s what I want, but I wouldn’t find that in the tourist shops of Juneau, and we’re not going to Anchorage.

We end up at the Zen Restaurant in the Goldbelt Hotel. For all the tourists we saw in town, this place is almost empty. We are one of three occupied tables in the restaurant, but we do have a rather nice dinner served by a totally inattentive waitress. A nice sideline to an occasional dinner on land up here in Alaska is that it reminds the Captain of the appreciation that should be accorded his First Mate.

We return to the marina at Auke Bay glad now that Avante’s mast could not fit under the bridge into Juneau’s harbor. All those mega cruise ships and the crowds would have driven us crazy. Auke Bay is a quiet marina, more of a local’s and fishermen’s marina. They do have a few tourist excursion boats around, but the crowds, never numbering more than 40 at a time, are whisked away quickly. They do not have any tourist shops, and, though of marginal quality, they do have the minimum necessities we need (ie: showers, laundry, propane, convenience store and free Wi Fi at The Waffle House). They also have Bald Eagles flying around the harbor and landing on boat masts. Bill takes a picture of one on Avante’s mast, and then promptly shoos him away with a halyard. In horror, I tell him that doing so is bad luck. It has to be. That’s our National Bird. You don’t just shoo him away. You let him be. “Not to poop all over my deck”, says Bill. “Well, don’t do it again”, I respond and am immediately ignored. This isn’t The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and we’re not dealing with an albatross, but still bad luck is bad luck.

The harbor also has salmon, and you can fish for them right off the dock or off your boat. The rod we have on our boat is a heavy-duty deep-sea fishing rod with minimal flexibility. It’s all I can do to hold it, and the only way I can crank the handle while holding it is to have its end secure in the bracket on the boat. On the docks, the rods being used are light and flexible, similar to fly fishing rods. Bill will not buy me such a rod. Fortunately for him, I’m busy cleaning the boat, provisioning the boat, organizing stuff again which is a constant activity on a boat and doing other sundry things. I really don’t have time to fish, but, if I had that rod, I would. He knows I’m not pleased with this pig-headed decision so one afternoon he “bags” me a salmon. Bought it right off the dock he did! Gave it to me in a white plastic garbage bag he did! Local fisherman was selling his day’s catch. So now I have a salmon, a rather big one, too, and what I haven’t mentioned is that I really don’t know what to do with a salmon or a halibut or any fish once it’s out of the water. The closest I’ve come to preparing a whole fish is a trout. They’re only 8 – 10” long, but this guy is almost 30” and a bit much to handle. It’s too big to cook whole because it wouldn’t fit in any pan I have unless it’s cut in half. I get out my 2 cruising cuisine cookbooks and read their descriptions on cutting up your catch. Pretty much the same technique I use on trout. We prefer fillets to steaks, and the books say that you use one long stroke to cut the fillet from the bones. Short strokes tend to mess up the flesh. Well, I try long strokes, but it must be a technique that improves with practice because for me bones get in the way or my fingers do and I end up with those short strokes that make a mess of the flesh. So I just cut off the really jagged pieces and clean up areas near the bones that I missed. All that will go into a fish stew, and no one will know the difference. And the not very pretty fillets will look just fine when poached, baked or sautéed. That fish will give us four meals plus the stew. Not bad for a day’s “bagging”!

We’re ready to leave Auke Bay and Juneau, but our enthusiasm to continue north to Haines and Skagway has dimmed. We’ve had enough of tourists, crowded harbors and marginal facilities. The descriptions of the marinas in Haines and Skagway don’t give us any hope of improvement. We find out that we may be able to get into Glacier Bay a day or so earlier. One must call at 7:00 in the morning to find out if any slots are available since only 24 boats are allowed in at any one time. Bill calls on the 3rd. The line is continuously busy. When he finally gets thru, all available slots for that day have been filled by earlier lucky callers. He tries again on the 4th. Same thing. There’s only so much patience this guy has, and he wasn’t given much to begin with. We decide to leave Auke Bay and head in a general northerly direction maybe to go to Haines and then just do a motor by of Skagway to say we’ve been there. The weather, which the day before had been tee-shirt and shorts warm, has turned cold and dismal as luck would have it (See, it’s the revenge of the Bald Eagle) Intermittent showers become constant rain. The scenery, what we can see of it thru rain and fog, is uninspiring. Instead of continuing on 4 more hours to an anchorage that will allow us time to get to Haines and Skagway, we anchor early with the hope to still be able to get into Glacier Bay a day earlier; If not, we’ll just gunkhole around for a few days, happily dropping anchor in coves as we meander our way to Glacier Bay by July 8th. Even with the rain and chill, it’s nice to be out of harbor and anchoring in quiet, lonely coves again.

July 5th, Bill calls Glacier Bay by satellite phone and gets thru on the first dial. Must have been all the $$ cajinking across the airwaves. We’re told we can get in on the 7th. Only one day earlier, but that’s a help. Rain continues, and it’s getting colder. We’re hoping for a good weather window when we get to Glacier Bay. If not, we’ll see what we can see and maybe leave a day early from there giving ourselves more time to get to Sitka.

Last night we dropped our crab trap in the midst of a lot of traps. The head of that salmon, the one that Bill had “bagged” for me on the docks in Auke Bay, was in the bait trap. We knew for sure we were going to have crab for dinner tonight, but no such luck. (I’d blame that on the Bald Eagle again except that we’ve had this kind of luck since Day One.) The trap was disgustingly empty! Tonight, Bill baits it the old-fashioned way, he says. He runs a cord thru the mouth and gills of the salmon head and leaves it tied and floating in the trap. For good measure, I chop up some herring for the bait trap itself. Again, there are a lot of other traps in this bay. Tomorrow will be the day! We go to sleep with rain pattering on the roof.

July 6th – We wake up to silence. No rain! But the low, heavy, grey cloud cover tells us more rain is on the way, and, sure enough, it soon is raining again. Bill comments that there is no way he could live in Alaska with this weather. I readily agree. I guess all this natural beauty has to have a downside or it’s name would be Alaskafornia.

Today’s crab catch is 5! Three, unfortunately are small and female, but 2 are of good size and male. Maybe, just maybe, we’ve found the secret. A bait box with perforated holes allowing good smells to waft out is not enough. These guys want to gnaw on the real thing – a fresh salmon head. The head, of course, is gone. To my surprise, as soon as we head out into open water, Bill announces that we need another fish head and he’s rigging up the recalcitrant fishing rod with determination. I guess the guy likes crab more than fish. If the procuring of fish heads in order to catch crabs is what it takes to make an enthusiastic fisherperson out of him, so be it.

For those of you who may not have followed the description on how to tell male from female crabs, here is a graphic presentation. The female (above) has a round abdomen shaped like a beehive. The male’s (below) is narrower looking more like a lighthouse.

The rain has stopped. It’s turned into a fine overcast day, and, in very light wind, we motor down Icy Strait to our next anchorage. I know the water is cold up here, but I really don’t need a name like “Icy Strait” to remind me of what’s just a few feet below my feet.

We see a pod of humpback whales coming up for air. Pow, Pow, Pow – the plumes of spray follow one after another like the finale of a fireworks display. It’s thrilling. Then we see the arch of their backs and the flip of their tails as they go down again. They put on a show like this 3 more times as they swim up the coast. One more final graceful arch of their tails and they’re gone. What an amazing sight!

Our first choice of anchorage in a bite off Pleasant Island isn’t going to be a good one with the anticipated wind direction. Instead we anchor across from Gustavus in what really is a fairway. The land around Gustavus surprises us with its gentleness. We had expected a rugged, tortured looking mountainous area at the gateway to Glacier Bay. Instead it is verdantly green and mellow with sandy beaches leading to the water. There are snow-capped mountains, but nothing that bespeaks of a glacier area not too many miles away. It could be springtime on Lake Geneva!

We drop anchor and jig for Halibut. At first there’s no success for either of us, though Bill does bring up an octopus which we let go on its merry way. Having had one not-to-be-repeated any time soon experience of cooking an octopus about 20 years ago, I’m still not ready for a second attempt and may never be. Bill next baits a double hook arrangement with a herring cut in half. This was my idea as I figured a cut up herring would have more blood and gore smell appeal to any passing fish. It worked. Within seconds, Bill snags a Halibut. Well, more a flounder, but it’s a fish! He rebaits the hook, gives it to me, and, to his surprise because he had already told me I didn’t have the right technique, I even manage to snag one and pull it in. Worried that I would lose it, Bill counseled me the whole way in. Well, the fish and hook stayed connected, and I brought in my first fish ever! It wasn’t trophy size, but it was a fish and an edible one, too. What a day! Two crabs in the morning and two Halibut this evening. Fish heads for the crab trap next time we bait it. We are learning what works, and we are almost living off the sea. I love it!

Glaciers and Icebergs

This is a sailboat, and, like any such boat, we are not sailing trouble-free. It’s not a big deal, but I’d be a lot happier if Bill could get it fixed. The wind directional control antenna on top of the mast has quit. All the instruments that indicate wind speed, direction and angle (true and apparent) don’t work. Bill’s strung up telltales on the shrouds to augment the little arrow that can be seen if you double up, duck your head over and around the steering wheel and peer out from under the bimini to the top of the mast. Does that sound rather contortionistic? It is. Having missed the all-important step of learning to sail by the seat of my pants on a small tippy boat, preferably in warm water, I’ve learned to sail by those instruments. Bill says this is a good learning experience for me. Will you find me someone who appreciates a “good learning experience”?----- I want the electronics back in operation! He goes up the mast in Ketchikan, declares the possibly loose connection fixed and we’re ready to sail.

Our actual time under sail for this trip has been far lower than we expected. About 90% of the time we have been under motor. Raising sail consistently becomes the kiss of death to any wind. To our amazement, it doesn’t just dwindle off. It just stops like somebody shut the door. Like our fishing, we optimistically hope for better, longer wind windows.

Janet and Tom Schmitt join us in Ketchikan. We have a final farewell dinner with Jane at (for once) a very good little restaurant. One thing we have noticed about the Alaskans is that, though their cooking leaves something to be desired, their friendliness and sense of humor are refreshing and fun. For the most part, they are eager to talk and engage one in conversation, and they love talking about their locale and land.

Tom, to my joy, is a fisherperson. He arrives with recently procured license, fishing pole and a collection of weights, spoons, spools and other stuff. However, this type of fishing is not what he is most familiar with so, like me, he engages any fishermen he sees in conversation. The difference is that he knows and understands what they are talking about. I do not. Next thing I know, Bill is into fish talk. They manfully discuss different weights and lures. They disappear into every fish or hardware store we pass to buy new gadgets that they know will work this time.










And they fish and fish, but they don’t catch and catch.








They keep trying and trying. Their luck has to change or their skill must improve.












Janet and I remain prepared - optimistic that the galley will be called into action.








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The attraction of this leg of our trip is Tracy Arm with its 2 glaciers at the end of a magnificent iceberg-ridden fiord. Along the way, we will stop in Wrangell and Petersburg with our final destination being Juneau.



Meyers Chuck is our first anchorage. The harbor is protected with its own natural breakwater of rocks.









We get out and explore. Columbine are blooming along the paths. Just like home! Tom eagerly engages the dockside fishermen in talk. We enviously admire their freshly caught salmon. We set out the crab trap. The guys fish in the bay. Nothing, nada, but we love our setting and are treated to a magnificent sunset.
















Saturday, June 23rd, we anchor in the early afternoon in Frosty Bay. The weather has turned cold with rain threatened. We drop the trap, and the guys fish a bit, but rain soon drives them below. In true Americano fashion, we put on a movie and make popcorn. The movie is apropos for where we are. It’s about a bear cub orphaned in the BC wilderness. Having expected to wake up every morning to bears on the shores and not having that happen, it is nice to at least watch one in film. We watch those bears catch fish. Maybe we’re going about this all wrong.


The next day we motor to Wrangell in overcast and mist. We walk out to the beach where some very old petroglyphs can be spotted at low tide. There’s a mountain formation called The Elephant off the coast. We are told we are fortunate to be able to see it as it’s usually covered in clouds or mist. Not only do we see the mountain, but the clouds have even given the fellow an eye!

Earlier when we entered the harbor, we had been directed by the harbormaster to raft up against any appropriately sized boat already there. Fortunately we spotted the boat that we had rafted next to in Prince Rupert. Its owners, Joe and Jane, have become cruising friends and helped us tie alongside. As we’re all heading north, we keep meeting in various spots along the way. After a short discussion about Wrangell restaurants, we decide to pull together a joint dinner and eat on their boat. Their 65’ trawler with full size everything in the kitchen is much more comfortable for 7 than ours. It was a fun evening which we reluctantly cut short when news is dispensed to all that the 2 captains have decided that a 4:00 a.m. wake-up call is in order for us to leave Wrangell in time to reach the Wrangell Narrows at slack. Being an old hand at this stuff now and having First Mate Tom on board, I (and Janet) cozily sleep thru the harbor exit. The Wrangell Narrows, which we reach in 3 hours, is tricky with a myriad of buoys and markers. At night with all the marker lights on, the stretch has the nickname of Christmas Tree Alley. We pull into Petersburg in the late morning and eagerly walk the town before stopping for a good Halibut Sandwich lunch.




Janet and Tom decide that they need to do a load of laundry. I add all our towels to their load. Now, the towels I have on the boat are micro fiber, the benefits of which are that they don’t take up a lot of space and they don’t grow mold. A negative is that using fabric softener on them will gunk them up, but without fabric softener, they and everything else in the wash with them stick together with static. To decrease this, I found these nubby-looking rubber balls that you throw in the dryer with the laundry, and they’re supposed to reduce static. It’s questionable, but I have them so I use them. Janet heads off to the Laundromat which, as Petersburg is first and foremost a fishing town, has about 6 rugged, young fishermen in there fumbling with their loads of laundry. Janet, who grew up at a time when mothers did not tell their children not to talk to strangers and who is also of the same congenial ilk as the Alaskans, immediately engages them in conversation. She’s having a grand time talking and learning from them when she opens the dryer door and out explode these 4 missiles. It’s the nubby rubber balls. I had forgotten to warn her about this propensity of theirs. The fishermen are aghast. What the X?X?X are those? As everyone is scrambling around the floor of the Laundromat struggling to corner 4 nubby rubber balls before they bounce out the door, Janet attempts to explain that the balls weren’t her idea really and that she has this stupid friend with micro fiber towels who……..Well, that’s the last time Janet will offer to do the laundry!



That evening, Tom walks down to the end of the dock and buys several pounds of freshly caught shrimp off the boat selling it. We feast on Shrimp sautéed in Garlic Butter. There certainly is something soul satisfying about eating
‘off the water”, whether we catch it or buy it.








After several overcast and rainy days, we wake to blue skies and sun. We leave Petersburg for the final stretch to Tracy Arm stopping by Baird Glacier along the way. An eagle welcomes us to the land of Glaciers and Icebergs.

Heading to Baird Glacier, the water turns an icy cold green from glacier run-off.











Depending upon the sunlight, the color of the water will change from a chilling green brown to a very pretty, non-threatening crystal green.








The deeper we travel into a fiord, the colder the air temperature becomes and the more layers we keep adding. Other than gloves, I am now in full regalia.





The day clouds up. With no wind and the water so very still, we feel like we are on a large mountain lake rather than the Inside Passage with the ocean only a few short miles away. As we motor into Cannery Cove for the evening anchor, the sun again breaks thru.









We wind our way thru a group of islands to enter Cannery Cove



By habit now, we drop our trap as soon as we are anchored. This time we are very hopeful. There are a ton of other crab traps out. This must be a good spot. Tom and I drop it right in the middle. Next morning, Janet and I retrieve the trap. Nothing! Absolutely nothing. We pass a man going to his traps. Janet, in a sweet voice, sadly wishes him better luck than us. He nods and says that he thinks a good many of these traps have been there for days. We climb on the boat and, as we’re securing The Dingbat, this same man motors up to the boat with 2 very nice male crabs for us. How nice that Janet will engage all and sundry in talk! The man was so taken by our plight that he offered up 2 of his. We happily accept and thank him delightedly. Two more Dungeness Crabs to add to my Fishing Tally. I realize we didn’t actually trap these guys, but if we had not been crabbing, we would not have gotten them. So the total now is 5 Dungeness Crabs.

We head north to the only anchorage in Tracy Arm. The wind is coming from the south. Bill decides to go thru the exercise of launching the spinnaker, and exercise it is with sheets, halyards and tackle going all different but definite directions. I don’t think of myself as 3-dimensionally challenged, but maybe I am. There will never be a time when I understand how to rig this sail, but Bill handles it neatly.







As Bill unfurls the sail, there’s a binding twist in the sheath that covers the sail, and we struggle to unsheathe the bugger. When the sail finally unfurls and is flying, it’s absolutely gorgeous. We sail smoothly on.










One pleased and satisfied Captain. Ours is the only spinnaker we have seen in the Inside Passage.


We glide along beautifully for a few hours and then we have what Janet afterward labels an “SI” – Spinnaker Incident. As we near Tracy Arm and start to take down the spinnaker, the wind rips up to 20+ knots and the bind in the sheathing really kinks. We are fighting wind and sail. The sheath to contain the sail only comes halfway down before binding. Tom turns the boat into the wind as Bill commands. The boat heels over with the force of the sail. Janet heads for higher ground with the First Mate not too far behind. The First Mate then gives herself a few good mental kicks in the posterior and, next thing you know, she’s scrambling topside to help Bill pull down the cover. Then, Janet’s out there pulling in sail. Tom’s at the helm. We’re all working together. What a team! Go Team! We get the sail in, breathe a collective sigh of relief and continue on to anchor and our donated crab dinner!

June 28 – Today is the day we go into Tracy Arm. Magically, we are under blue skies and sun. The day is even somewhat warm. Before heading into the fiord, we do a photo shoot of Avante and the icebergs. Tom and I are in The Dingbat, and Bill and Janet are on Avante as she gracefully passes by a few well-positioned icebergs. The day is so bright. The water so still and sparkling. The whole effect is surreal.















Tracy Arm – I do not have the words or the elegance to describe this place and this day. It was more of everything than any of us expected. The blue skies, the relative warmth, the iceberg fields, the steep chiseled walls, the views, the glaciers --- so very much more.



Entering Tracy Arm we find a few scattered icebergs which add to the effect.












We continue through 21 miles of gorgeous scenery.







Sunlight and water create pastel reflections.





Steep, chiseled cliffs rise above as we glide over unfathomable depths below us.







Five miles before the glaciers we encounter a minefield of bergie bits











Fending off the ice becomes impossible as the pack ice thickens







Around every corner we encounter more ice, but we continue to be able to pick our way through.









Concentration at the helm










Eventually, we spot North Sawyer Glacier, but not far ahead, the path is obstructed by thick pack ice that the wind has blown to the north end of the arm








We round yet another corner and there with the clouds upwelling like a celestial version of the Alleluia Chorus lies the blue tinged South Sawyer Glacier. Maybe you had to be there to feel it, but we all caught our breaths in awe and surprise at the sight.







A half hour later, Bill declares victory. We’re as near the glacier as is safe and feasible. We have a quick lunch while drifting with the ice. Then we begin picking our way back through all the ice. The trip back is just as much work as the trip in. The wind and the current have changed the ice positions and erased our entry path. At the end of a long, wonderful day, we thank and toast a very tired Captain.




The next day begins our final miles to Juneau. It dawns grey and settles into rain by the afternoon. We anchor early hoping to fish, but the weather drives us all under cover. It’s a bridge afternoon! We all marvel at what a difference a day can make.

June 30th, we dock in Auk Bay roughly 15 miles from Juneau. The bridge one needs to go under to enter Juneau harbor is too low for Avante's mast so Auk Bay is where the big boys go as well as a good many of the local fishing fleet. It's an interesting combination of boats and boaters. We find out that you can fish from the docks and your boat as long as you don't tangle your line in somebody's prop. Sadly, we say good bye to Janet and Tom on July 1st. Bill and I will rest and restock for the next 3 days in Juneau, and I intend to fish!