We were happy with our bear sightings and our bear encounter for the morning so decided to move to the bay where we had initially hoped to anchor. This was much shallower which was nice and we were sort of snuggled between the bank and a small island.
I made Dean very uncomfortable by deciding to go for a kayak. Bears are more active in the morning and evening and this was slap bang in the middle of the day and I was in a kayak. What could go wrong?
To give you an idea of how immense this place is, that little spec in the water below is me on my kayak.
It was lovely exploring the bay.
Dean had the dinghy launched and ready to go and placed himself in the bean bag up on the front deck so he could watch me and save me if I was attacked by a bear. You may be able to see him luxuriating there.
Well the most I saw were some cute ducks which no matter how quietly I floated, drifted, paddled, they would not let me get close. There’s no bears in this bay. They are all around in the other one waiting for the salmon run to start. Ummm no.
In the afternoon Dean spotted two on the grass grazing. A light brown coloured bear and a much darker one. Terrified I was going to kayak out to them by myself, Dean quickly offered to take us in the dinghy before I could open my mouth. So armed with boat hook, we motored out to them. In the photo below there is actually a little spec on shore between us that is a bear.
We are most definitely in the Alaskan wilderness but after making our way through the Aleutians which really was the last frontier, we both kind of feel the peninsula is a bit more tamed. And correspondingly the animals are more habituated and used to humans. So whereas I have said the bears in those outer islands and bays just took off when they saw us, these ones are much more tolerant.
The reason I digressed was we were able to motor up nearly all the way and they couldn’t have given a hoot we were there. Once Dean reached his limit where we were getting no closer, he even called out to them to let them know we were there. You are not supposed to surprise bears.
They were clearly hyper aware we were there but just continued about their business. Dark bear even lay down for a while. But what puzzled us was their close proximity. While we have seen bears in the same landscape there has definitely been a distance between them that is maintained. These were much closer. Then it came to us. A mating pair!!
Dark bear finally woke up and started nonchalantly making his (we decided he was the boy) way closer to Girl bear. He’d take two steps towards her. She’d take one step back. Oh my goodness, were we about to see some bear lovey dub dub??? Boy bear took a step too close and girl bear lunged and snapped at him, and he retreated.
I missed the moment she lunged at him, but I took this photo a few moments before and look at this body language. He is eyeing her up from behind and she is giving him the side eye. Then whamo, just as I put down my camera!
He hung around her for a while.
But everytime he moved closer she moved away and until she finally she lay in the stream for a nap while he again slowly edged himself closer. And closer. Stopped right next to her. Then kept walking.
Now she followed him. Perhaps she realised that playing hard to get wasn’t the right strategy.
Sulky bear kept walking. Then had a snooze in the water to cool his cockles.
Girl bear ate some grass while she waited for Sulky bear to transform back into Lovey Dub Dub bear. But Sulky bear wasn’t sufficiently cooled down yet and he got up and kept walking. He left the meadow and headed for the beach. She followed. Her heart was dropping.
He kept walking.
He came to a rock wall blocking his way and even that didn’t stop him.
He just got in the water and swam around it.
Sulky bear got out of the water and continued walking. Past our boat. And the last we saw of him was him walking around the corner in the distance.
Girl bear returned to her meadow and kept grazing. Unrequited love? Opportunity lost? Dodged a bullet? Honeymoon over? Who wants to live with a moody bear anyway?
We never did see him return. Maybe the salmon started their run after all and he was making his way to the river to fatten up. But unfortunately it wasn’t the last we were to see of Girl bear. And worse still she was going to turn out to be the bunny boiler amongst bears. I realise in hindsight maybe I judged Boy bear harshly. Maybe enough was enough and he was leaving her to us because she just was high maintenance, or just plain not nice. And she was about to drive us out of our anchorage as well!
Run to Paradise 