Bjorklund Log: Alaska Trip Day 50

7/5/11

North Sandy Cove, Glacier Bay, AK

Miles Travelled: 35

We had fair warning that fireworks would be set off on and near the dock we stayed at last night, and well, the warning was justified. The alarm rang at 5:00am and it seemed VERY early. Fortunately the boys didn’t wake up when we turned on the engine, or when we departed from the dock. We needed to leave early so that we could travel the 13 nm from Gustavus to the park visitor center at Bartlett Cove for the 8:00am boater orientation. We pulled up to the dock at Bartlett Cove, fed the boys and got us all to the visitor center on time for the orientation, whew!

After the orientation, we took our laundry to the lodge and while it washed, I posted to the blog while Tor kept the boys occupied. The boys crawled all over (Tor thought they did enough laps to go ½ a mile each) upstairs at the lodge where there were displays about the natural history of the park…just out of reach of little boys, perfect! When they’d had enough crawling around, the laundry was still drying, so we brought them down stairs and I still had some posting to do, so some very bored employees ended up helping us out by keeping the boys out of things. I felt pretty irresponsible, but everyone kept saying that they were having so much fun, and that the boys were a highlight of the day. Thanks to the Glacier Bay Lodge staff I got the blog up to date! We ended up buying a rather garish stuffed moose that the boys really fell in love with at the gift shop and by the time I was done posting, it just wasn’t in saleable shape any longer! The laundry was still drying so we took the opportunity to shower all 4 of us. It turned into a whirlwind of a morning. By the time we got back to the boat it was lunch time and then nap time. Tor got the boat fueled up while we got ready for nap and then we were off. It was a very long, though very productive 3.5 hours.

We caught a heck of a push into the bay through Stikaday Narrows and saw a top speed of 9.8kts! We’d been in Glacier Bay all morning, but now it really felt like it. We weren’t just doing the regular old chores, we could actually look around and realize that we had made it. Of course we were bone tired from our poor sleep last night and our whirlwind morning, and then it started POURING rain, but still we were in Glacier Bay!

On our motor to N. Sandy Cove we went by the Stellar Sea Lion haul out on S. Marble Island. That was a sight to see. S. Marble Island is a designated critical habitat area and you need to stay 100 yards off, but that was plenty close to see the sea lions and hear them. It was a lot of fun to hear them grunt and groan. These aren’t the California Sea Lions that bark.

When we anchored in N. Sandy Cove there was one other boat. By the time the boys were in bed, there were 7 total boats. Glacier Bay is a very large park, but because it is mostly glacially carved fjords which are really deep, anchorages are few and far between. Only 25 private vessels are allowed in the park at any one time, so given the vast area of the park, there really aren’t many boats, but since there are only a few anchorages, I think we will probably see several boats every night that we are in the park.

I rowed around a little bit after the boys went to bed, and checked out the stream coming into N. Sandy Cove. I like rowing John T the dinghy, and it was neat to poke around a little bit.

It’s early to bed tonight, we are TIRED!