7/28/11
Frosty Bay, Mainland AK
Miles Travelled: 21
Our plan to wake up at 5:00 and get going towards Anan Bear Observatory worked out very well. The boys stayed asleep and we got to Anan and anchored in time for breakfast. Poor Tor spent the morning in the rain, but he wore my foul weather coat (even though the sleeves were a bit short) and stayed a little bit warmer.
We got ready to head up to the observatory, but it takes a long time to get little boys all suited up in long johns, rain gear and life jackets, it was a very rainy SE Alaska morning. By the time we were all ashore to walk up the trail to the observatory platform it was about 9:15. We had a half mile walk to get to the platform through beautiful woods on a very nicely maintained boardwalk. The whole way we made noise to make sure we didn’t surprise any bears on the trail. Fortunately we didn’t see any. I say fortunately because my own Mama Bear radar was starting to tingle. I was glad to get to the fenced observatory deck, even though a bear could easily get onto the deck if it wanted, there was something about being around other people that made my radar calm down a bit.
We were able to see about 5 black bears all fishing in the creek, but they weren’t catching much since the water was running too high due to all the rain of the past few days. I really wanted to see a bear actually catch a fish, but I never did. Tor was lucky enough to see it, but I wasn’t looking in the right place at the right time. We were able to spend some time right down at creek level in the photo blind. That was really cool because we were up close and personal with the bears. Unfortunately Lars didn’t get the memo that we needed to be quiet so we didn’t disturb the bears and even though the rushing creek was loud enough to drown out most of the sound, happy little human baby sounds weren’t what the bears needed to hear to help their fishing.
Too soon it was 10:30 and we needed to rush back to the boat to get the boys lunch and then down for their nap. Tor and I were exhausted by the time we got back to the boat. It was a full out sprint all morning to get about an hour at the observatory. This is one of those things that maybe we should have waited for the boys to be a little older when they could walk the trail themselves and didn’t need to have a nap so desperately. Given that we needed to move the boat and go another 10 miles or so for our anchorage for the night, we didn’t have the energy or time to go back up to the observatory. Too bad we had to buy a permit for all four of us!
Fortunately we met up with Taranga (last time we saw them was in Glacier Bay) in the morning before we headed in to the observatory, and Gerd and Linda invited us for dinner when we met up in Frosty Bay. Both boats tied up at the empty forest service float so we could easily transport boys and booster seats over to Taranga. Linda made a delicious pasta with a creamy vegetable sauce and LOTS and LOTS of crab. We gorged on crab! A couple of days earlier Gerd and Linda called a commercial crab boat on the radio and asked if they could buy a couple of crabs, he said no he couldn’t sell since he didn’t have the proper license, but come over and he would give them a couple. When Linda rowed over there he insisted that a couple meant four and wow were we ever lucky to have run into Taranga when we did! We thoroughly enjoyed our evening with Gerd and Linda and dinner was spectacular.
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