North Sandy Cove was divinely calm last night and both Ryan and I felt very well rested this morning. Presented with another perfect, sunny day, we didn’t linger and headed up a mirror calm Muir Inlet.
Our first stop was Adams Inlet. We could only go partway up, as most of the inlet is only open to non-motorized vessels. The scenery where we did go was stunning. The low, rocky coastline we were sliding through complemented the tall, jagged peaks behind. Birds flew in groups around us, while seals, otters, and three whales wove through the inlet eating their breakfast.
We drifted for at least an hour here for breakfast, watching the wildlife, with the sounds of the seabirds punctuated by puffs of air from the whales and splashes from the seals.
At the risk of repeating myself, Glacier Bay is stunning - so vast, and everywhere you look in that vastness is full of beauty and life. Humpback whales and otters were all over today, and we lost count of the sightings. As we moved up Muir Inlet we started to see icebergs again, which we soon discovered came from McBride Inlet. We had seen that it was uncharted on the Navionics maps and wondered if it might be navigable, but one look told us we didn’t want to try it - the inlet was choked with icebergs, had completely opaque waters, and a 5+ knot current full of ice (and a few otters) came pouring out of the narrow inlet. We later learned that on the day we arrived at Glacier Bay, someone in a 65-foot motor yacht had tried going into McBridge Inlet, ran aground, ripped their hull open when the current dragged them across the rocks, and sank their boat. Yikes! Sadly, McBride has retreated around the corner at the head of the inlet, so we couldn’t see the glacier face and had to be content admiring the big blue icebergs.
We continued up Muir Inlet, but we couldn’t go all the way to Muir Glacier because the end of the inlet is currently designated a non-motorized zone, so we went as far as we could and got a fairly good view of Riggs Glacier, as well as enjoying the coastline and the all-around lovely scenery.
We did go all the way up Wachusett Inlet (11 miles long) on the way back. Carroll Glacier, sweeping west at the end of the inlet, was undeniably spectacular, but it was a long, fairly uninteresting trip to get to it. I admit that our standards might be getting a little unreasonable.
We did see a brown bear sow and her cub toward the end of Wachusett; they scampered off when they noticed us.
On the way back to our anchorage, we ran into (not literally, thank goodness) a group of three whales that popped up on either side of our boat. We immediately stopped and let the encounter unfold. The whale off starboard seemed huge, but its hard to tell if it was actually size or just proximity. When I took pictures, my telephoto zoom lens could actually fill the frame with just this whale’s surfacing back.
We think the other two must have been a mother and calf, since they stayed close to each other and swam in sync.
The three eventually grouped together and headed away from us, but what a treat!
After such a long, full day, we were happy to find our anchorage empty with a choice of anchoring spots. We decided to return to North Sandy Cove today since we slept so well here last night, and it’s on the way out of Glacier Bay. We have one more night before our park permit ends, and we will spend it at park headquarters in Bartlett Cove so we can do laundry, get some water, and use the internet.
Today’s route (77 miles)
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