Trawler Blogs

Joining us for the next leg of our 2014 cruise was Marcia’s sister

Cindee and her husband Steve. Steve is an accomplished nature

photographer but had not yet visited Glacier Bay National Park. In

order to give him the greatest opportunity to capture images in the best

light, we agreed that spending the entire 2-weeks of their visit with us

in Glacier Bay made the most sense. Since the NPS only issues permits

for a maximum of 7-days at a time, it took some effort (mainly by Steve)

to obtain two permits back-to-back (the NPS allows vessel operators to

have two permits at a time).

To maximize their time, Cindee & Steve flew directly into Gustavus, a

9-mile shuttle ride to Bartlett Cove, the NPS Glacier Bay Headquarters.

We agreed to meet them in Bartlett Cove at the public dock.

All of the logistics worked fine and we arrived the morning of June 22

at the dock about the same time as their ride from Gustavus dropped them

off. Alaska’s “finest” weather (i.e., rain) welcomed them to Glacier

Bay. After we attended the boater orientation, we tanked up on water

and discarded our garbage and recyclable material and took off for our

first night’s destination.

As it turned out, the worst weather of our 2-weeks in Glacier Bay was

the first day. We had steady 15-20 knot head winds with 3-4 foot head

seas pretty much all of the way until we turned into the calm waters of

the entrance channel into North Sandy Cove.

Since we had the time, we worked hard at seeing as much of the park as

possible from a boat. We covered over 400 miles cruising through the

various bays and inlets, used 8 different anchorages (2 of which were

new to us). We saw bear (brown and black), moose, mountain goat, wolf,

river otter, sea otter (lots), stellar sea lion (lots), puffin, orca and

humpback.

The best whale viewing was in the Bartlett Cove anchorage, arguably the

most developed part of the park. Both orca and humpback whales cruised

by within 50 yards of our boat.

The weather was okay but often cloudy and moist. Fortunately, the winds

were generally light to moderate (i.e., less than 10 knots).

The best weather day was the day we went to the head of Tarr Inlet where

the tidewater Margerie Glacier terminates. We stayed the night before

in Reid Inlet about 12 miles south so our early start put us at the

glacier before the cruise ships, tour boats and other pleasure craft

arrived. It is a special treat to drift in the water a quarter-mile off

from the face of a cracking and rumbling glacier. The occasional ice

fall from the glacier to the water and subsequent wake persuaded us to

move a little further out where we drifted with engine off to fully

appreciate the setting.

The two permits were separated by a day in which we anchored in Bartlett

Cove. We used that time to walk the trails at the park headquarters, do

laundry at the Glacier Bay Lodge and take a provisioning trip into

Gustavus for some fresh food.

On the morning of July 6, we tied the boat to the Bartlett Cove public

dock once again and said good bye to Cindee and Steve whose return

flight left later that day. We headed out for the next leg of our trip,

back to Sitka.