What a stunning day we had. Leaving our little harbour at Disk Island we exited through the narrow pass and into Knight Island Passage. Knight Island is enormous and the views were wonderful.
We then progressed into Dangerous Passage which was gorgeous. The sun was out, we could see the snowy mountains where the glaciers are in the distance. Otters were laying around. And then we saw one. Yep an ice berg. Well not a huge one. They are actually called bergy bits. When we looked through the binoculars they were floating all over the place. This is where we are off to tomorrow, to see the glaciers. I won’t put a photo of the ice because you can barely see it in a photo, and my next post will have plenty up close and personal!
But tonight we are heading for Jackpot Bay. We then go down a couple of narrow passes to enter Em’urluq Bay. This is kind of a larger version of Disk Bay. A large basin, about 30m in the middle, with steep sides. You can see how narrow that entrance is below.
Dean felt he had won the Jackpot when we got to Jackpot Bay. He loved it. And Em’urluq Bay has become his new favourite anchorage. We are surrounded by tree covered hills. A number of smaller streams are running into it at regular intervals around the bay but probably not big enough to support salmon. But one larger one near us looked quite adequate, and was surrounded by seagulls squabbling away in the manner of gulls around the world.
Despite being a sunny day, the temperature has dropped dramatically in the vicinity of these white mountains and glaciers. I feel we are going to have a cold night. We sat out on deck and had a drink while we soaked up our surroundings.
We could see otters floating around on the other side of the bay. A seal or sea lion came to check us out. Salmon were jumping. And two black bears went fishing in our nearby river. They looked quite small and young. Both caught fish and took them into the trees to eat and we saw them come back for more. Being on the boat it was a bit far to take good photos but it was delightful watching them splash around in the water as they fished, completely oblivious to our presence.
I went for a kayak by myself trying to get closer to the otters. They circled around me keeping almost the exact distance away the whole time. There was no sneaking up on these guys! A couple had a baby on their chest, but being so late in the season, the baby was almost as big as its mother. Still very cute though.
We saw lots of the bears who were making the most of the end of the salmon run. Apparently there aren’t many big black bears anymore as they are being hunted so much, which is a bit sad.
This was a really beautiful place and although we had plans to leave, we also had plans to return if we possibly could.
Run to Paradise 