sy Timoneer

We had a few days in Seward before the second group of guests arrived, this time five young ladies all in their twenties. We left from Seward after they had a beautiful sunny day and visits to the Sealife Museum, which is extremely well done and a great education of the wildlife in Alaska.

On our first day out of Seward we encountered a pod of humpback whales doing their bubble feeding which we got to witness at real close quarters.

Whales Bubblefeeding

Later we saw orcas, a bear, sea otters (always a favourite) as well as catching shrimp, a salmon and a 27lb halibut – all of this in one day! The only thing we didn’t see that day was the sunshine!

In fact as good as the weather had been for our first trip it was equally as bad for the second. We had a float plane scheduled to meet us at a prearranged anchorage as one of the girls had to go home early, but we had to cancel this flight due to the rain and fog. Instead we diverted to Whittier to drop her off so that she could travel back to Anchorage by road. After that we continued on our voyage up to College Arm where we saw hundreds of sea otters and lots of good glaciers.

Glacier

Each day we were catching large shrimp in the pots that we put down in 500 feet of water. We usually drop the pots outside of wherever we anchor for the night and then pick them up again on the way out the following morning. We pull traps back onboard using a halyard from the top of the main mast so it is quite an operation each day. Occasionally all we got were star fish but usually there were shrimp, so we had some good feeds off our catch.

Salmon are still proving elusive but we do catch the odd one here and there and Penny does them justice in the galley.

We visited a fish hatchery at St Elias Island, which gave a good insight into how the whole salmon business works and it was very interesting. We stopped off at an oyster farm and got enough oysters for a good feed then down to Jackpot Bay where we saw quite a few bears and had fun following the salmon up the rivers.

Columbia Glacier was a big hit with lots of large icebergs floating around and that gave the girls an opportunity to don the survival suits for a photo shoot standing on one of them.

Girls on Ice

Time was running out very fast and we had a mad rush at the end as again the weather ruled out any flights out of Valdez. We only just made it in time for the girls to jump on a ferry back to Whittier and then they were driven into Anchorage for their flight home on July 31st.

Timoneer continued on to Cordova the following day with a few brief stops along the way. The highlight was Beartrap Bay where true to it’s name we saw a lot of brown bears feeding on salmon in the stream. Cordova was a welcome brief break and then straight down to Yakutat where we broke the journey to Sitka.

Our arrival in Sitka produced the usual interest that we get up here in Alaska and the locals are very friendly. We have there for a couple of days and then travelled south of Baronof Island headed to Juneau where we stopped off overnight at the Warm Springs – fantastic! Next day on our way again we had some of the best whale viewing ever. Humpbacks bubble feeding literally about 20feet from the boat!

Goodbye whales at close quarters

We sat with them for over an hour and then continued on our way with a small diversion to catch two silver salmon to keep the larder stocked.
We pick up the next guests on the 16th. More to follow after that trip so stay tuned!

Goodbye

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