Greywolf’s Chronicles: Glacier Bay, Part Two

Gone fishin’! In Hoonah, Jeff had marked places to jig for halibut on our Glacier Bay chart. The day after our tour on the Baranof Wind (in the rain), Greywolf took us fishing (in the rain). Using Jeff’s pole and jig, Jolie quickly caught this little guy who agreed to be put in our freezer to become crab bait. Not to be outdone, Bob hooked a halibut! Excitement reigned among the novices on Greywolf. (That would be all of us).

Jolie knew something about bringing in a fish this big, so she started explaining the technique to Bob. She knew enough to do, but not to teach, so Bob gave her the pole, and the fish surfaced. Doug scooped him into our (challenged) salmon net. I took pictures.

With a length of 41 inches, the halibut weight table in Local Knowledge said he weighed 32 pounds.

Then came the process of killing, filleting and skinning Bob's first-ever halibut. It helped that Doug had watched the fish-killers deals with their bounty the previous Saturday. We changed our menu for the next few days, and the rest of the halibut found a space next to the crab-bait-fish in our freezer.

At this point, we had no more room in the freezer. We stowed Jeff’s pole and told Greywolf we were going to take her to see wolves! The three wolves we had seen on the Baranof Wind cruise were on the same beach, doing the same thing they had been doing the previous day. Careful observation showed that they were not dead. A brown bear was at his station on the other side of a rock outcropping, fishing. Are these animals under contract? Are they union???

Puffins to port! Critter sightings always bought everyone to attention. Two sets of binoculars for four people proved to be enough; we had no squabbles about you’ve had those long enough!

Bob spotted this brown bear on our first evening in North Sandy Cove and honed his critter-spotting skills as the week progressed. There are no black bears in Glacier Bay. He only looks black because he is a black brown bear. Really. Some are blond brown bears. Our Black Brown Bear was on the beach each day we were in the cove.

I spotted this rock. ‘Looked like a bear to me.

Bob thought it was a pig.

View looking north from our anchorge.

Jolie and Bob went crabbing--the only way to get away from
the old people. They caught sea urchins, the the respite was worth it.

With three cameras and two laptops on board, we spent time downloading pictures and

viewing the results. Yes, I do think the table looked like that much of the time.

How do they live like that???

We celebrated Jolie and Bob’s birthdays in North Sandy Cove. The celebrants recalled childhood Birthdays From Hell involving dogs eating birthday cakes, being attacked by swarms of hornets, and the birthday the child being left at the site of the celebration. Why don’t we remember the Heavenly Birthdays???

When you can’t decide what kind of cheesecake to buy, get the

Kellogg's variety pack.

Bob is a drum major and is learning to play the pipes. He’s explaining

his electronic chanter to Doug.

Doug surprised himself by creating a sound that closely resembled music. If he pursues this,

I’ll be looking for an apartment.

We had hoped to anchor one night in front of Reid Glacier and go ashore to walk along the front of the glacier. When we got to the bay, the entrance was was choked with berggie bits. One boat was anchored in the bay. We would go back to North Sandy Cove, but not before An Explore.

Jolie, Bob, and I took the handheld VHF radio and puttered away in Pup to see if we could get ashore. Doug and Allie piloted Greywolf to an ice-free spot in the channel, in the hopes that we would return.

Jolie steered Pup along a slalom course marked by small and not-so-small chunks of ice. An inflatable from the boat anchored in the bay made it’s way through the sparse ice. Sirus, a 73 foot Nordhav’n, had anchored the night before and was now waiting for the compacted berggie bits to move on. The crew in the inflatable was surveying an escape route.

We could not get ashore. Reid had created a protective moraine in front of himself...a buffer to deter tourists? Pup bottomed out in about three feet of water; even my firefighters reluctantly admitted that was not going to work. I called Doug on the VHF to let him know we were still afloat, and Pup headed toward the mouth of the bay.

The ice had shifted and compacted since we entered the bay. Bob positioned himself in the bow with an oar, shoving aside heavy ice chunks as we maneuvered for the shifting channels of relatively open water. The ice can be razor sharp, damaging fiberglass boat hulls. Pup is made of fabric. I poked at berggie bits floating harmlessly by with the other oar, trying to appear useful.

We rounded a headland and Greywolf came into sight, waiting in relatively clear water; Pup and his crew were reunited with his big sister. Jolie and Bob grabbed the fish net and took Pup back out to snag a small berggie bit: 200 year old ice for our rum and Cokes!

We were fortunate we navigated this Glacier Bay slushy with no heroic tales. Bigger boats than Pup have found themselves stranded until the tide changes, as Sirus could attest.

Sirus made her way out of the ice later in the day.

We had SUNSHINE on the last day. Jolie is reading Ordinary Wolves by Seth Kanter. We both highly recommend it, although Jolie said ending was not what she would have wanted.

Jolie and Bob both have boat-handling experience, so we had two more helmsmen. (I couldn’t bring myself to write “helmspeople”.)

Little Bob couldn’t seem to get the hang of handling the wheel, so we just let him do chart work.

On our last night in the Park, we again anchored in Bartlett Cove to position ourselves for our transit to Hoonah the next day.

Bob bought us drinks at the lodge and we enjoyed sharing impressions of Glacier Bay with other travelers.

Sometimes you should decline when another traveler asks if you would like them to take a picture of all of you. I’m still trying to decide what the caption should be here...