At 4 AM on a Saturday morning, Phil dreams of sleeping in and going out for brunch
Bald Eagles Everywhere!
Humpback Fluke, diving to begin another round of bubble netting
The view as we begin our five mile crossing to the Finger Islands
A fishing boat pulling in crab pots heads towards the pot at the end of the rainbow
On a layover day, I grab a little time with my iPod in my tent (home for the next few months)
Transporting the "Bubble of Dry"
Almost the entirety of South East Alaska lies within the Tongas National Forrest, which is a temperate rain forest. Much of the region receives annual rainfall totals averaging well above 100 inches per year. Though summer is a relatively dry period, we are still inundated with water (especially for a couple of California boys, though Phil is now claiming Wyoming as his home state...he keeps saying something about solidarity with Dick?).
During my first week up here the sun was out for a grand total of about 2 hours, seven days straight of rain each day. We say that we are sea kayaking, but really we are transporting our little bubbles of dry through a liquid environment. We have on water clothes complete with rubber/neoprene boots, paddling pants and tops, rain hats, umbrella's, separate rain gear for on shore, everything double bagged before being put into dry hatches, you get the point. Despite all of our efforts, much of the time damp is dry.
Admiralty Island...land of the Brown Bear
On our second day kayaking, we cross from Douglass Island to Admiralty Island. A spectacular place known for many attributes...a fantastic coastline, one of the highest concentrations of Bald Eagles in Alaska, Humpback's galore...But the one that held my attention was twice as many Brown Bears live on the island as humans, about one per square mile!
We arrive to camp late, tired, and wet. We unpack our boats, set our gear above the high tide line and walk a 1/4 mile down the beach to set up our kitchen. When we turn to head back to set up tents, Phil sais, "are those two bears coming down the beach?" The first Brown Bears(Grizzly, they are basically the same bear, but "Grizzlies" refers to those in the interior and "Brown" refers to those on the coast, there is a third group called "Kodiak" those are twice the size of the coastal variety growing to 1400 lbs. and are recently famous from the movie "Grizzly Man") that Phil or I have ever seen. They make their way up the beach, explore our kayaks and gear, then disappear into the shoulder high grass behind our boats. Because the tide is going to be at about 18 feet, we have to set our tents and kitchen at the very edge of the grass. While it was amazing to be in the presence of such fantastic creatures, it scared the piss out of me. I did not sleep well that night.
We went on to have 2 other sightings of Brown Bears on Admiralty. As time went on I became less fearful, though still acutely aware, as the Bears did not seem to take a great interest in us.
Whales, Whales, and more Whales
It had taken us 2 hours to find the 3 walled shelter that we had both a written description of and directions from a local homesteader (there are still people that are homesteading in Alaska). It was our third of five days getting up at 2:00 am in order to catch the ebb tide, and it was raining again...I did not want to leave the dry of the shelter. By the time we reached camp I was soaked and exhausted. Within an hour the sun made its second appearance, enough to dry gear, lounge about on the beach, and lift our spirits (amazing how quickly a little sun can change things).
In the distance we could see the first whale spouts of the trip. Within 20 minutes they began breaching, massive creatures thrusting themselves entirely out of the water. Throughout the rest of the afternoon they spouted, bubble netted and lunge fed, and called out.
In the morning, as we rose to another 2:00 AM start, we could hear them just off shore. The fog was so thick that it obscured our view, but the sound of 8 or 9 breaches, their wake hitting shore, their calls back and forth, and the force of their landing reverberating into our tents was like nothing else I have experienced.
As we headed south and rounded the next point, we stopped in a kelp bed to have lunch in our boats. 30 yards in front of us a circle of bubbles began to rise, followed by 3 whales surfacing, mouths open and swallowing everything in their path. For more than an hour we watched them feed just off shore from us, swimming below schools of fish and herding them to the surface by blowing large bubbles, then rising to feast at the surface. Humpback's eat somewhere in the range of 800 lbs of food per day! For the next few days we will see whales every day, all day.
Crossings
Our boats so heavily loaded we average only about 3.5 miles per hour, less than the 4-5 I was anticipating. The days are long and the only time that matters is what time we need to be where in order to catch or avoid the ebb or the flood. Unfortunately, some times even when we thought we had it just right we didn't.
At the southern end of Admiralty Island is the juncture of Stephan's Passage, Frederick Sound, and Chatham Straight. Outside of the bears, this part of the trip had been weighing on me more than others as we had a 3 mile crossing followed by two 5 mile crossings. We timed the first on perfectly, arriving at the Brothers Islands with ease on a sunny afternoon. We were greeted by the crew from a small boat called the Catalyst. Ensen, Steve, Morgan, and Brian invited us to join them for a cook out on the beach with their guests (not the last of the Alaskan generosity we would experience). We ate, drank, and told stories until late...maybe a little too late as we missed out window for the big crossing the next day.
When we arrived at the East Brother, the ebb was in full force, it would carry us past the finger islands before we could make the five mile crossing. We retreated to the Middle Brother and napped until the next slack. We awoke to fog so thick that we couldn't see the East Brother a 1/4 mile away. Just as we were about to settle in for another 6 hours of waiting, there was a clearing. We inched our way out, using a compass bearing to find the islands in the fog. Nervously, we went through a couple of rounds of "lets paddle 10 more minutes and see how we feel," after the third round we could make out the faint outline of the first island in the distance. With a sigh of relief, we veer south past the fingers and make our second five mile crossing to the mainland and the entrance to Frederick Sound.
Ahh Petersburg
I have never been anywhere where folks are as kind and generous as in Petersburg. Once we landed, and before we had unloaded our boats, a voice from the dock above asked "where'd you come from?" Bob Carter is the Presbyterian minister in Petersburg, a town of mostly Lutheran Norwegians. Within five minutes, Bob had offered us a ride, a place to store our kayaks, and time to sit and look at maps to help plan the next section of the trip (during the planning section, we came to realize that Bob is a pretty hard core paddler, having done solo trips up here that make our trip look fairly mundane, most impressive of all is that he is totally humble about his exploits).
We have been dreaming of Halibut nuggets for most of the 150 mile trip (fresh, lite Halibut chunks battered and fried...best eaten right out of the backcountry). We check into the motel and head to the spot where we last ate nuggets two years ago. They have since closed their kitchen and aren't sure anyone in town makes Halibut Nuggets...our dreams are crushed. We head to the Northern Lights restaurant with our hopes high, no dice. We tell our sob story to our waitress, Ailis, who is sympathetic. The folks in the next booth here this and push for chocolate cake. When we arrive the next night, Ailis has made the special of the day...you guessed it, Halibut Nuggets (with a side note that reads "for Phil and Derek"), she has also baked chocolate cake, which she has saved 4 pieces for us.
We stay an extra day, since our packages hadn't arrived from Juneau, or maybe it was the allure of town and rest? We each pay a visit to the chiropractor and get a massage. After the massage, Nancy offers to loan us her car if we need to run any errands, "it'll be parked out front and the keys are in it if you need it." Petersburg is a great place to arrive and a hard place to leave.
Where do we go from here?
Tomorrow we head back out for a 10 day tour. We will head south down the east side of Mitkof Island to Dry Straight at the southern end of Frederick Sound. There, on 7/27 we will get picked up by a jet boat and taken up the Stikine River (John Muir has a great story about the Stikine and a dog). Along the Stikine, we will stay at NFS cabins at Chief Shakes Hot Springs and Twin Lakes before heading north to Le Conte Bay on 7/29. We will spend a couple of days exploring Le Conte Bay, home to the southern most tidewater glacier in the US. From Le Conte Bay, we will head North up Frederick Sound and back to Petersburg by 8/3, where Phil will pass the kayak baton to Brian Melley who will head south with me to Ketchikan on 8/5.
