Glacier Bay – Part 2 Things the go bump in the night

Sunday July 12- it’s 12:15am, the three of us are almost sound asleep, when the boat rocks from a wave on a calm night. Since no sound of a boat, we all rose gathering in the salon. While looking out porthole windows, we see whale activity and splashing in the water off the starboard quarter, in Alaskan twilight. Parallel to the boat about 30 yards away, the spout of a whale was seen as well as it’s arching back. Suddenly, we all see a wave coming right at us like a torpedo and BAM we are violently hit broadside by a whale, creating at least 10 degree roll of the boat to Port, the impact shook everything inside the boat and us, knocking me off balance to the other side of the boat. It was a significant jolt. After collecting ourselves, we see there is no further sign of the whale or apparent damage to the boat. It took us hours to finally settle down and go back to sleep. We reported the incident to the Park and their Marine Biologist, they said our boat is about the same size as Humpback, this is not a normal occurrence, the whale may have mistaken us for another whale. It was recommended if you encounter a whale while anchored, make noise, start the engine ect. There have been no reports or sightings of an injured whale in the Bay.

In the morning we headed up Tarr Inlet along with s/v Second Wind and s/v Jan. Neither of them heard our whale encounter during the night.

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At the end of the Tarr Inlet are Grand Pacific Glacier, and the Margerie. The Pacific was very actively cracking, not very pretty to look at compared to Margerie, it’s covered in silt and stones.

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Margerie Glacier was very actively calving, we witnessed more than a dozen spectacular ice falls.

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We took photos of each other’s boats in front of The Margerie Glacier, exchanged email addresses.

With the clearer sky’s, it warranted another drive by of Rendu Inlet, to view the Rendu Glacier. Afterwards we headed towards Blue Mouse Cove for the night.

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We dropped anchor in Blue Mouse Cove at 7:30pm. Joining our new friends plus another sailboat and a Motor boat.

Monday July 13- socially distant dinghy raft up having coffee with s/v Second Wind, Nancy and Art and s/v Jan, Jan and Giorgio. We gathered at our boat. I made a cinnamon pecan strudel to share.

We left Blue Mouse Cove around 11am. Heading towards Giekie Inlet. The Giekie Glacier seen atop the mountain in the Inlet.

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There were two inlets off Giekie, The Tyndall Cove and Shag Cove.

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Back on the West Arm, we spotted several whales. This one was close enough for me to photograph.

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We anchored for the night in Fingers Bay.

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Tuesday July 14- today our 7 day permit expired and were exiting Glacier Bay, this truly was a lifetime experience!!!

We traveled about 40 miles across the Icy Strait to the marina in Hoonah. Hoonah has the largest Tlingit community in Alaska. Located on Chichagof Island, Icy Strait Point, an authentic Alaska Native village, established when the Tlingits were forced from their ancestral lands by advancing glaciers. Also, this island has the largest population of brown bears on earth.

We saw this brilliant rainbow on our way to get take out from The Fisherman’s Daughter.

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