At the end of the last blog, we were in Seward waiting for our friend Bob to join us for a cruise in Prince William Sound.
Thursday, July 30, 2020 – Seward: We spent most of the day doing maintenance and chores including loading water and taking up our trash.
Bob came aboard mid-afternoon to join us for a week of cruising in Prince William Sound.
He settled in then we went out for a walk along the coastline and into downtown.
We had supper at
The Cookery, then walked through town to the start of the
Marathon Mountain Race.
On the way back to the boat, we stopped at the hardware store for bait and some fishing tackle.
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| An old pier on the Seward shoreline |
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| Planter in the shoreside campground, Seward, AK |
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Marathon Mountain (top),
Description of the race to the top (bottom left), Start of the race (bottom right) |
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| Art work, Downtown Seward, Alaska |
Friday, July 31, 2020 – Seward to Fox Farm Bay, Prince William Sound (53 nm, 6.5 hours): We left the dock this morning about 7:45 and headed south down Resurrection Bay.
Bob spotted some mountain goats on the slopes of Cape Resurrection.
We cruised east along the Chugach Coast and as we approached Cape Puget, Dave and Bob set up the fishing poles. Bob knew of a great place to catch rockfish just south of the cape. We stopped to fish for a while and caught some rockfish but didn't keep anything. As we turned into Port Bainbridge, the west entrance to Prince William Sound, we saw four orcas swimming along the shore. We anchored up in Fox Farm Bay and settled in for the evening.
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| Cape Resurrection |
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| Barwell Island |
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| Dave fishing for rockfish south of Cape Puget |
Saturday, August 1, 2020 – Fox Farm Bay to Jackpot Bay via Chenega and Tiger Glaciers (58 nm, 6.5 hours): It was overcast and raining as we heaved anchor this morning at 7:30 in order to catch the flood current up Bainbridge Passage. Bainbridge Passage is narrow with steep cliff sides and lots of waterfalls. We caught the current right and our speed over ground (SOG) exceeded 10 knots as we made our way north.
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| Shoreline of Bainbridge Passage |
Bob had some previous good luck shrimping on the east side of Verdant Island so we dropped off our shrimp pot there, then turned southwest down Icy Bay.
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| Bob setting out the shrimp trap near Verdant Island |
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| Our shrimp trap buoys floating near Verdant Island, notice the bergie bit in the background |
We cruised into Chenega Bay and got within 1/4 mile of the face of the Chenega Glacier. On the way out of the bay, we stopped to collect some glacier ice for our coolers. Further southwest, at the head of Icy Bay, is the Tiger Glacier so we went to check it out.
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| Seals on an bergie bit near Chenega Glacier |
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| Ice berg near Chenega Glacier |
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| Panoramic view of Chenega Glacier |
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| Waterfalls near Tiger Glacier |
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| Panoramic view of Tiger Glacier |
We headed back to Verdant Island to pick up our shrimp trap; there were eleven inside, enough for shrimp cocktails. We headed to Jackpot Bay to anchor up for the night and dropped off the pot again just outside the entrance. The wind was forecast to be greater than 25 knots from the east, then northeast so we anchored up in a small, well protected cove on the north side of the bay.
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| Bob recovering the shrimp trap near Verdant Island |
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| Bob resetting the shrimp trap near the entrance to Jackpot Bay |
Sunday, August 2, 2020 – Jackpot Bay to Waterfall Cove (43
nm, 6.0 hours): It was overcast and raining when we got up this morning. It was calm as we left the anchorage.
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| The small island we anchored near in Jackpot Bay. Fireweed is growing on top. This photo was taken at low tide. |
We only had two shrimp in the shrimp trap. The winds picked up to 20 - 25 knots as we exited Knight Passage and we had some lumpy, 3 - 4 feet, seas. We got a small break from the seas as we passed between Perry and Lone Island and were almost completely out of the wind and seas as we entered Esther Passage. This was one area we didn't visit last year because both the south and northwest entrances were crowded with bowpickers (a bowpicker is a fishing boat rigged to fish with a gillnet deployed from the bow of the boat) . There were no bowpickers out in the area today. We dropped off our shrimp trap near Grommet Bay then went about 3 nm further north to anchor in Waterfall Cove.
The waterfalls coming down the cliffs at the head of the cove were spectacular and the cove was full of life. Gulls and bald eagles were gathered at the mouths of two creeks that drained into the cove, sea lions were catching salmon, curious sea otters swam up close to the boat to check us out and we saw a black bear come out of the woods.
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| The waterfalls at the head of Waterfall Cove |
Monday, August 3, 2020 – Waterfall Cove to Emerald Bay (34
nm, 5.2 hours): It was still raining when we got up this morning. We watched a group of mergansers feeding along the shore while we had our breakfast and coffee. We heaved anchor ~8:00 and headed south down Esther Passage to pick up our shrimp trap. Only two inside. There was a light fog in the area so we turned on the radar as we exited the passage and turned east. It was a bumpy ride with winds in the low 20s and seas 3 - 4 feet until we entered the passage north of Glacier Island where we were protected from both the wind and the seas. We had a break from the rain so we stopped to do some fishing. We mostly did some catch and release but we kept one rockfish for ceviche.
It started to rain again so we pulled in our lines. Bob stayed out on deck to fillet the rockfish and got a little beat up by the wind and the rain. We motored into Heather Bay, dropped off the shrimp trap, then anchored up in Emerald Cove. While we were doing some route planning for tomorrow, we noticed that we only had 6 feet of water under the keel. The tide was at plus 10 feet with a negative tide forecasted for the early morning. We were a little two close to shore, so we heaved anchor and moved out to deeper water.
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| Clouds along the mountains surrounding Heather Bay |
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| Small waterfall near our anchorage location in Emerald Bay |
Tuesday, August 4, 2020 – Emerald Bay to Landlocked Bay via Columbia Glacier (50 nm, 6 hours): We woke up to a bright, sunny day this morning which was a nice change. We heaved anchor and checked our shrimp trap, 8 large shrimp inside.
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| Bob and B on the bow retrieving the shrimp trap outside of Emerald Bay |
We reset it to try and catch more while we went up to the Columbia Glacier. We had tried to go up and see the glacier last year, but the ice was so heavy in the moraine area that we couldn't get through. This year the path was easy and we motored all the way to the head of the bay. The Columbia Glacier has
receded significantly from when the area was charted and most of the ice now comes off the face of the eastern arm. We got within 2 nm of the face. The area closer in was choked with ice and wasn't charted so we took a few pictures and headed south.
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| Heading north towards the Columbia Glacier |
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| The Columbia Glacier |
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| Picture of our chart plotter making it look like we are on top of the glacier |
We picked up our shrimp trap and had 6 more inside, enough to make shrimp and grits for supper.
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| Bob and B on the bow after the second pull of the shrimp trap, 6 were inside |
We dropped anchor "a lunch hook" just south of Elf Point and Dave and Bob fished while I made lunch. No luck. We moved further east/northeast and tried a few places where we had luck last year, but didn't catch anything worth keeping. We cruised south down the Tatitlek Narrows, tried fishing again near Bidarka Point - no luck, dropped off our shrimp trap and pulled into Landlocked Bay to anchor for the night. We spotted a few mountain goats on the way in.
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| Bob fishing off the stern |
Wednesday, August 5, 2020 – Landlocked Bay to Cordova (49
nm, 6.5 hours): It was partly sunny this morning. We heaved anchor and got underway ~7:45. The shrimp trap was empty which is what we expected based on last year's results; we didn't catch any shrimp on the east side of Prince William Sound. We tried a few fishing spots on the south shore of Port Fidalgo, near Snug Corner Cove but didn't have any luck. We scoped out a few places to try west of Goose Island, but the weather picked up as we headed out there. The weather prediction for the day was winds: light and variable, seas: 2 feet; reality as we cruised from the west side of Goose Island, around Knowles Head and across Port Gravina was winds: 25 - 30 knots, seas: 3 - 4 feet, definitely unexpected. Things settled down again as we came around Gravina Point and headed east into Orca Bay. Mid-afternoon, we tied up at the transient dock in the Cordova Harbor.
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| Our view of the Cordova transient dock from the pilot house |
We took a walk around the harbor to the Science Center and up the hill through downtown. We ate supper at Baja Taco and spent the rest of the evening unlaxing.
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| View of the entrance to the Cordova Harbor at high tide (from the Science Center) |
Thursday, August 6, 2020 - Cordova: Bob took an early morning walk to
The Little Cordova Bakery and brought back biscuits and gravy for our breakfast. We took a walk around town to burn off some of our breakfast, then came back to the boat so Bob could pack his bags. He caught the airport shuttle and flew to Anchorage on the early afternoon flight.
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| St. George's church, built in 1917-1918 |
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| Bob and Dave waiting for the airport shuttle |
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| A bowpicker at the dock in Cordova Harbor, you can see the gillnet reel on the bow. |
It's been a very different summer as compared to last year. Along with the issues associated with COVID-19, and the rainy weather, the commercial salmon fishery is experiencing the 4th lowest harvest to date in 50 years. When we were in Cordova last summer, there were boats constantly in motion, moving from their slips to the haul-out grid, to the fuel dock, to the fish processing plants and out to the fishing grounds. The harbor is very quiet this year and we saw very few fishing boats out working in Prince William Sound.
Cordova's response to the COVID-19 situation has been the best we've seen since we arrived in Alaska (our comparisons are Kodiak and Seward). Masks are required when entering a business; many businesses are set-up for curbside or window pick-up only and many have handing washing stations near their front doors. There are large signs posted at the harbor entrance stating that any boats arriving from out of state must quarantine for 14 days and when we ate at the Mexican restaurant, we were required to leave a phone number for contact tracing.
Friday - Saturday, August 7 - 8, 2020 - Cordova: We have spent most of our time in Cordova doing chores and maintenance. It continues to rain, but we have had enough clear weather to do some walking. We've done some voyage planning for our trip to Southeast Alaska. It looks like we will have a weather window to make the trip starting on Tuesday. Our plan is to leave Cordova on Sunday and to spend two nights at anchor before exiting Prince William Sound.
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