We picked up our friends Dave and Jean of Zarpe fame, in Juneau and returned to the Tracy Arm and surrounds spots we had just visited. This time we were seasoned travelers in this area.

North Sawyer Glacier was as impressive as the first time, and we managed to get much closer to South Sawyer but not close enough to see the face of the glacier. Due to the amount of icebergs floating down. Next we headed back up to Dawes Glacier. Again, we were the only boat at the face, the weather was lovely and sunny and there was a lot of glacier cracking noises going on. We saw a few relatively small bits of ice break off and fall into the water. The cracking sounded just like thunder. We stayed about an hour and then waited till the time was right to enter Fords Terror again. We stayed two nights in Fords Terror and had a great time. We rode the dinghy up the stream for as far as possible, it passes under a rock overhang. It felt quite eerie to be under there. What happens if it falls?

After Fords Terror we anchored for a night at Wood Spit and saw a whale breech. The one and only. Quite a sight.

Next we headed across the passage to Admiralty Island where we saw many many whales feeding. We spent about an hour drifting along with the whales. That was a lot of fun. We spent the night at Cannery Cove where we saw a couple of bears in the distance.

After Cannery Cove, we dropped Jean back Juneau, we picked up a family member to spend a week in Glacier Bay..

The weather was wet and misty on arrival in Glacier Bay, we tied up at the dock to check in and attend the boaters briefing. There are a few rules and regulations to abide by because this is one of the National Parks of USA.

We found a great anchoring spot in Blue Mouse Bay, we even had a resident whale loafing around. From here we travelled up Johns Hopkins Inlet towards the glacier at the head. The glacier was what we would call a “dirty glacier” because it was mostly black streaks. There was a lot of ice in the water and it took us a long time to wind our way through the ice field. We spent almost an hour floating around near the face of the glacier. Leaving the inlet was a lot easier than approaching it.

Next we went up Tarr Inlet to see Marjorie Glacier. This was a much prettier glacier, the face of it was nice and blue. And of course, having a whale lolling around just added to the spectacle. The whale surfaced within a few yards of the boat. I don’t know who got a bigger fright, me or the whale. We collected a bergie bit that had pebbles and sand in and saved some of the pebbles as keep sakes and kept the ice for cocktails later. We then tried to get close to Geikie Glacier but the karabatic winds coming off the glacier would have made for a stressful night so we went back to Blue Mouse Bay where we stayed for two more nights. The resident whale was lunge feeding for most of the afternoon but I did not manage to get any decent photos because no matter how patient I think I am, the whale is always lunging somewhere where I am not looking.

We decided to leave Glacier Bay a day early because of an approaching low pressure system and we needed to drop our guests off in Juneau to catch flights they could not afford to miss.

After the guests had left, it rained and kept us in the marina for four days . A good time to change oil in all the engines and do a few other boat jobs.