Pacific NW

Expeditions

I am convinced that we witnessed Surprise Glacier on one of its most spectacular days ever. It was constantly sloughing ice and there was a major calving event every 5 minutes. We stayed the whole day here and spent 12 hours at the face. By the middle of the day we had given names to the various features of the glacier. We each adopted our own “section” of glacier and hedged bets as to whose section would collapse first. We took great pride when our sections fell, and ignored or downplayed each other’s sections when they fell. It was great fun! There wasn’t a cat’s paw of wind all day and I was able to enjoy watching the icefalls to its fullest all day without being blown around into the icebergs. Needless to say, we were way too close to the glacier for our own good. Each time there was a loud crack it would set my heart pounding. The entire day was an adrenaline rush packed with unbelievable sights and cataclysmic ice events. Suddenly there was a series of large booms and groans, and Neptune’s entire section of ice exploded off the face sending forth an enormous cloud of churning ice through the water at 100 MPH. After the initial petrification I fumbled to start the engine, and pulled the key out of the ignition! We were fine though. Other bergs in front of us dampened the shock swell and absorbed the momentum of the wall. When huge blocks of ice fall from the glacier face, they do belly-flops into the sea and disintegrate into millions of car-sized fragments. All of those fragments plunge upwards to the surface at once and spread out in all directions very radidly, like a drop of oil on the water. The noise generated from this particular event increased until it shook the entire fjord with a sustained, gushing roar. We will never forget it. An eagle landed on top of one of the ice towers. It was unperturbed when the pinnacles of ice collapsed all around it, unflinching. I guess the eagle could just fly away if its perch exploded beneath it, unless it got sucked down by a downdraft. The bald eagle seemed to be really enjoying the show too, and stayed for a few hours. As I drifted off to sleep, vivid silent visions of blue ice blocks disintegrating and plummeting through the air filled my head.

On our way to Serpentine Cove we visited a place where three tidewater glaciers spill from the mountains and meet in the same basin. It was awesome. Another day of fantastic ice columns thundering down. The experience is indescribable. Serpentine Cove is a beautiful anchorage, with a glacier coming down to its mouth. Clouds gathered in the evening and kept in the day’s warmth.

I breathed a sigh of relief as we left Whittier, its tower fading into the distance. We soon encountered a thick wall of fog. For the next 45 miles there was nothing but white all around. The top of the mast became obscured in the haze, and all sense of direction was lost. The compass seemed to have a few tricks of its own that day too. There must have been a local magnetic disturbance. When the fog finally cleared, we were surrounded by dozens of glaciers and towering mountains. College Fjord has many tidewater glaciers. The upper end of it marks Silent Partner’s northernmost point of the voyage. We ground to a halt in a thick ice pack at Latitude 61 degrees 13.000′ North! It was a very proud moment for all. The ice from the glaciers was too thick to approach any of the faces, so we ran back to Coghill Point Anchorage for the evening. I went for a 6 mile hike to a cabin on a lake. It felt good to work up a sweat and do some hiking again. On the way I saw many bear tracks, huge swans, and several of the largest beaver houses I’ve ever seen! They were huge, probably 15 feet tall and 30 feet long. It was dusk when I set out on the hike. But because the days are so long, dusk lasts a really long time too. My instincts kept telling me to return to the boat ASAP before it got too dark, and I had to keep referring to a wristwatch to believe what time it was.

We awoke to pouring rain coming down in sheets. In the early afternoon I was completely surprised to hear a woman’s voice outside the boat calling “hello?” She and another were in kayaks, shuddering under several layers of sopping wet gore-tex. They wanted to know how long the rain was going to last, and looked into the boat longingly when I poked my head out, sweating and in a t-shirt. I cannot praise that woodstove enough. By 1700 hours the rain still hadn’t let up. We decided to make the run into Whittier as it was only a few hours away. The lady in the harbormaster’s office was a ditz and it took me three tries on the radio before she remembered to call back with a slip assignment. We were crammed into a slip so narrow that I didn’t even have room to put the fenders out! The harbor desperately needs to be expanded. I took matters into my own hands and moved to a slip with six more inches of width, and used a “Bayliner” power boat as my fender. The city of Whittier is the strangest and ugliest town we’ve ever seen. It is tucked in amongst some of the most stunning tracts of wilderness, glaciers and mountains. The “city” used to be occupied by 30,000 troops during WWII. They all lived in three huge buildings. Today, about 300 people live in Whittier, all in the same one building! The other two have been abandoned and lie in crumbling ruin. There are no residential houses, just the one building. Inside it are the post office, general store, movie store, city council, restaurants etc. It feels like a huge college dorm from the twilight zone. The rest of the “downtown” is a series of abandoned fire stations and concrete slabs and a grocery store that sells the customary dusty boxes of pasta and cereal from the mid 80’s at 2012 prices. Neptune and I explored the big building and talked with its citizens. Apparently there are only three people that live elsewhere. They are trappers living in a schoolbus up the mountain behind the building that throw the occasional barbecue. The whole scene reminded us of a bureau of reclamation project gone wrong. As we walked through the cinderblock, linoleum and asbestos tile, and fluorescent-lit corridors of the tower, we wondered at the people who lived there.

Immediately after leaving Port Audrey basin a giant Humpback whale leapt completely free out of the water. The splash it made was terrific. Right off the starboard bow at 50 yards. Rain and low clouds gave way to sunshine in the afternoon. As we neared Whittier we saw more boats than we’ve seen the entire trip. Saturday night during boating season, I guess. It has finally arrived. About 10 little runabouts zipped around like fleas. Even saw the monsterous white floating skyscraper of a cruise ship, of all things! A thick black cloud of smoke belched from its stacks, obscuring the glaciers beyond. Well, I guess we too are now “just another boat” out there. It is somewhat shocking to be back in weekend-warrior territory. For so long now the other sailors we have met along the way all shared a common thread: you really have to know what you’re doing to be out here. Thus a mutual respect for the other was instantly recognized. Despite all the busyness, I had a wonderful afternoon. I rowed around the perimeter of the cove, and went for a hike. The snow was still about 10 feet deep but compact enough to walk on slowly. I got soaked and was dressed way too warm in the blinding afternoon sun. Grizzly tracks criss-crossed over the snow absolutely everywhere. I tried to locate a cabin but it must have still been covered in snow. I did however find a huge frozen lake, about 10 miles long. Later on in the afternoon I did some general boat maintenace. Neptune had the excellent idea of using spruce boughs to clean the insides of our woodstove pipes, which worked very well. We chopped firewood and filled our water tanks at a waterfall. This fresh snowmelt water is the best tasting water of the trip so far.

Neptune and I awoke to a horrible sight. Some time during the night, Modulus had completely filled to the gunwales with rainwater and flipped over. She was floating hull-up at the end of her line. Worse yet, we had left the oars in her! Immediately we donned our foul weather gear and I began to think of ways to improvise a pair of oars. Amazingly, when we flipped Modulus back over, they were still under the boat!! And even more incredible was the loose spare oarlock, still in the boat. The rain came down in buckets last night and all day today. I set my cup out in the cockpit and periodically went out to have a full glass of rainwater. Several waterfalls in the basin tripled and quadrupled in size, the sound of their roar increasing all day. We sat by the woodstove , read, and cooked popcorn. In the evening the weather broke for 2 hours and I went off for a hike on shore. The land here is amazing. All around it is open, broken forest and tundra with wild-looking tube mosses. You can walk for miles and miles in any direction without bushwacking. There were thousands of small lakes and tarns that reflected the high mountain peaks beyond. Bear trails criss-crossed the tundra everywhere and I came across countless fresh scat piles, good reminders about where my place is in the food chain out here! All of my five senses were greatly heightened by the need to be aware, and I greatly enjoyed the hike. It feels good to move around and work up a sweat after sitting for so long on the boat, too.

Snug Harbor is not a snug harbor. I am re-naming it “Williwaw Avenue”. All through the night violent williwaws screamed into the bay with incredible force. Thank god for our Forfjord! We would surely have been blown onto the beach without it. I locked the tiller down and removed as much as I could from the decks to reduce windage. Still we sheered off in all directions as we were buffeted by the gusts all night. A warm rain slapped the decks in waves and sheets, depending on the velocity of the gusts. I am so glad we changed anchors and repositioned the boat! The Forfjord held us fast all through the night. Sleep was not an option. The wind shrieking and waves breaking against the hull were very effective at keeping me awake and alert. The boat would heel over and swing an arc to port only to be knocked back suddenly to starboard by another williwaw. Despite my worrying, we didn’t drag an inch. I love that old heavy Forfjord! The clouds hung low all day as we rounded the southern end of Knight Island. At one point we sailed in close to shore and watched a huge Grizzly bear feeding in the intertidal zone. The forecast is still grim and it’s pouring rain, so I decided to anchor in a “hurricane hole”. Especially after last night’s episode. Port Audrey is a totally cool place, a good one to come back to. It is a small uncharted basin, totally landlocked at low tide, with a mud bottom 30 feet deep that gradually shoals to gentle beaches. Heaven. After so many grand mountain vistas and sweeping panoramas, it is nice to be in a more intimate setting. By evening a drenching downpour began. Silent Partner sits calmly in the basin while the wind tears at the treetops above, a plume of smoke issuing from the chimney. We have to keep the hatches fully open so we don’t get too hot. Nothing beats wood heat. Neptune and I went for a short excursion to shore and explored an abandoned cannery from 1910. Several seals swam right up to Modulus and followed us as we rowed around the basin. I snorted at them, which they seemed to like, and they drew in even closer.

Thousands of bird calls echoed throughout the anchorage this morning. I watched a heron hunt for fish for awhile. It is so cool how the heron’s whole body and behavior is perfectly suited for stalking fish. Without a single miss the heron struck at ten fish in a row, shaking their wriggling bodies in its beak and then swallowing them. It was a great show! Out in Montague Strait we made an attempt at sailing but the winds were extremely light. We passed many rafts of sea otters and were passed by a humpback whale. Arching its back and throwing its flukes high into the air, the whale sounded and that was the last we saw of it. Coming into Snug Harbor on Knight Island I sensed that we would see a bear. It was a strange feeling. Sure enough, as I was scanning the shoreline, there was a black bear on the beach! He ran along the beach for awhile and then ambled off up into the woods. Our anchorage, as usual, has spectacular scenery and is surrounded by craggy peaks. We anchored off a stream but I was unhappy with our swinging room. The weather was showing signs of change. I got “that feeling” about it and we promptly moved the boat out into deeper water. I changed to our storm anchor and put out all the chain, anchoring in 80 feet of water. Sure enough, immediately after we had re-anchored, the first gusts of wind shrieked into the bay. Tonight for the first time we are sharing an anchorage with another boat. It is nice to know we will be riding out the storm with others.

On our way southward to Green Island we were swept up in an extensive fog mass. It grew quite thick and blocked the sun. Like a coyote we darted from shoal area to shoal area, staying out of the main channels as much as possible. What a wonderful thing the GPS is! After several hours of steering by the compass the fog began to break apart. Various mountain tops appeared and vanished again at surprising heights. Fog plays strange perceptions on the eye as well as the mind. Finally it completely lifted and revealed fantastic mountains all around, with Green Island right in front of us. Green Island is very green. Behind it, in stark contrast, was the long white spine of Montague Island. A pod of lively dolphins accompanied us into the harbor, throwing up quite a spray about the boat. Rock pinnacles and ridges surround the whole of Green Island, so we navigated with extreme care. The 1964 earthquake caused parts of the island to rise from the sea as much as 40 feet, and the area hasn’t been re-charted since. The anchorage is beautiful. Lots of coves, islands and channels to explore, and millions of birds. I went for a row to a forest service cabin and spent the afternoon there reading the cabin journal. Nobody through since August of last year.

Neptune woke me today. “Pete, bear, quickly!” I jumped onto the deck and we watched the big black bear pick its way along the beach, looking for things to eat in the intertidal zone. Our first bear of the voyage! It’s about time, too. Shortly thereafter a solitary humpback whale chuffed and breached its way by the boat. Nothing quite like waking up to bears and whales in the morning! We cooked up a breakfast of sausage and eggs and steamed out of the inlet. Many ice sheets had broken loose and were drifting by. Luckily none of them carried us away in the night as happened in Shoup Bay. All of Prince William Sound was like a giant mirror again today. On the distant horizons lofty mountaintops appeared to hover in mid-air from the mirage effect and the curvature of the earth. We motored to Naked Island in the middle of the Sound. The island is low and green, and even had 2 houses on it. Its soft features reminded me of the San Juan Islands in Washington. All the leaves were coming out here too! First of the season for us. It is nice to see them. After anchoring in Bass Harbor I went for a long row. The weather was so calm I rowed out a mile into the Sound to a small island off-shore, scoured by the swell that usually pounds it. Many oystercatchers and seals on the seaward side of the island, plus a few sea lions. The seals were very curious about me and followed me everywhere. They swam right up under Modulus and looked at me as they swam by. It is very strange making eye contact with something that is underwater. As I rowed back to the anchorage I was aggressively approached by a sea lion. I don’t mind seeing them from the mothership, but this one was much bigger than me and Modulus combined. He swam up very close, barking and snorting, and I suddenly became very aware of how little freeboard Modulus has. I stood up and shouted at him but he only became more interested. After much vigorous rowing I was clear of the danger and was once again among sea otters and kittiwake gulls.