Today did not get off to a promising start, then - whales! But I’m getting ahead of myself. We left at 6 AM this morning, hoping to find reasonably calm waters in Chatham Strait on our way south to Bay of Pillars on Kuiu Island. The forecast wasn’t good, but it wasn’t awful, and early mornings are usually better than later, so we were cautiously optimistic. At first there was merely a light swell, but once the tide turned, the current was opposing the wind, and it just got nasty.
Wild North handled great, but the waves made everything bang around, and that’s just not good for us or Wild North. We ducked back in at Red Bluff Bay to have a coffee break and re-evaluate our plans for the day. Using our Starlink internet in Red Bluff, we saw the forecast was not getting any better, so we decided to flag the circumnavigation of Kuiu and make an adventure of going down Rocky Pass between Kuiu and Kupreanof Islands. Rocky Pass is a shallow, reefy alternative to the Wrangell Narrows that only smaller boats can traverse.
With that decided we headed east across Chatham Strait and into Frederick Sound. Going at an angle to the waves made it possible to plane, which made the trip less bumpy, as well as faster. Frederick Sound was a lot calmer, so that felt like a good decision. As we made our way down Frederick Sound, we noticed several boats all bunched together off Saginaw Bay. We thought it must be some kind of awesome fishing spot, and then we saw them. Whales. Lots and lots of whales.
When we were at Warm Springs, we heard that there was a group of about 80 whales in the area, but we had no hope that we would come across them; yet there they were. There were several big groups of them and THEY WERE BUBBLE-NET FEEDING!
It was amazing to watch. A big group would come to surface and take a bunch of breaths in preparation. Sometimes there was some fin and tail slapping.
Then they’d disappear for a bit and just when you were starting to think they’d swum away, they’d all lunge up out of the water in a big synchronized group.
It was utterly amazing, they’re so big and the way they coordinated the feeding was such a feat. We saw at least two big groups of whales bubble-net feeding as we made our way through Frederick Sound, plus spouts of other whales in the distance. We also saw a couple whales breaching, coming completely out of the water, but that is almost impossible to catch on camera because you get no warning.
I had been disappointed to miss out on the west coast of Kuiu Island, but this completely made up for it.
The rest of the day was just a lot of boating—we ended up doing more miles than usual because of the change of plans. We stopped for late lunch and a break in Stedman Cove, and to review the tides and navigational strategies for our trip through Rocky Pass. With high tide at 6 PM, we timed our entry for about 4:30 PM. We met several fishing vessels and one pleasure craft on our way south, but luckily did not meet anyone in “The Summit”, a dredged section that is very shallow and narrow. We stopped in the middle of the pass at an anchorage called “Halfway There”, because we were getting tired and there were no good anchorages close to the exit of Rocky Pass. We’re the only ones here. Tomorrow we will go through the “Devil’s Elbow” before leaving Rocky Pass and heading south to our next anchorage on or near Prince of Wales Island.
We so want to do a similar trip next summer and these updates are awesome. Thanks very much for sharing. G&E