Saturday, July 28, 2018

Fingers Bay

0800 position 58-27N 135-57W.  Headed out of Glacier Bay.


Thankful moseyed south yesterday passing the spot where the massive glacier that once filled the bay ended in 1860 and continued on to Fingers Bay.  This seemed like a good spot to stop for the night, and it also looked like it had halibut potential.  Along the way we stopped to fill our ice chest with glacier ice from the floating bergs.  This was our last chance to get natural cocktail ice for some time.


The entrance to Fingers Bay has a dangerous rock mid-channel, but we made it in without incident.  In addition to the cruising guides, we have Don and Sharry's GPS tracks from three of Starr's voyages to this part of the world on our navigation computer, and they had entered Fingers Bay.  When you follow the path of a larger, deeper vessel it is unlikely that you will run aground.


Once inside Fingers Bay we stopped to fish.  Matt and Vicki did some bottom fishing for halibut and I used a "buzz bomb" to try to snag a salmon.  I managed to hook something small and inedible.  Matt and Vicki engineered a bait guaranteed to tempt even the most discriminating halibut.  They took a herring, sewed some salmon scraps around it with needle and thread, and ran a large hook through it.  Sure enough, something took the bait and headed out for the entrance of the bay.  There was much debate on when Matt should try to set the hook.  Whatever had the bait was taking line at steady rate of about 1 foot every 2 seconds.  Matt let her run for about 3 minutes and then tried to set the hook.  It looked like he had it hooked, but the line went slack after about ten seconds.  At first we thought it must have been a halibut, but when a sea otter popped to the surface near where the hook had travelled we figured he had grabbed the bait in his little hands and let go when Matt tugged on the line.


Thankful headed in to anchor, and once settled in the southwest corner of the bay, we found ourselves surrounded by wildlife.  Three stellar sea lions were working their way around the bay eating dinner, and they were shadowed by a small harbor seal.  We grilled pork ribs for dinner, and when the sea lions smelled the sizzling pork they all surfaced near Thankful's transom seeking a handout.  Two shy tiny harbor porpoise were also cruising around the bay,  A flock of seagulls disagreed loudly over ownership of the scraps as they worked the surface above the sea lions.  Eagles soared and a murder of crows squawked in the trees around the cove.  I caught a salmon, too small to keep, with the buzz bomb while larger fish jumped just out of casting range.  It was another stellar evening aboard M/V Thankful. 


We just passed through the narrowest and shallowest part of Glacier Bay, and Thankful's speed over the bottom hit 11.3 knots with the ebb tide behind us.  This speed boost was not accidental.  The crew set their alarms to get up early this morning to take advantage of the current.


We are heading back to park headquarters at Bartlett Cove to fill water and get rid of garbage before departing the bay this morning.  This is the first time on Thankful that we've had to deal with fog.  Visibility is just under a mile.  The radar is on to warn us of approaching vessels and we are keeping a careful lookout. 




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