Another morning without rain! With a fairly long run today, we got underway
around 7:00 AM. With little boat traffic
and calm winds, our first 15 nm was easy.
We spotted a bunch of humpbacks, some close and some far, but none
bubble net feeding, unfortunately. As we
rounded the corner to head southwest down Peril Strait the wind started blowing
from behind us. It wasn’t bad, but
enough that the autopilot had to work to keep us on course. And I was a bit concerned about Chatham
Strait, where I pounded into nasty head seas for hours on end last week.
As we approached Chatham Strait the wind calmed down. I bumped up the speed to get through while
the conditions were good. As we
approached Pt. Thatcher we saw a humpback flapping around in the water. We got closer, and it looked like he was
caught in the field of kelp. He
continued flapping around, and then abruptly headed right for us! I started up the engine and moved out of his
way, and then, not more than 50 yard from the boat, he breached
spectacularly. The size of the humpbacks
never fails to impress me, and when you see one out of the water so close, it
is particularly impressive. Whenever I
see these whales up close I can’t help but think of the picture of a whale
landing on a sailboat near Cape Town a couple of years ago. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen here!
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| Humpback flapping around |
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| Notice the kelp |
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| And the breach...this is with a lens at zoomed to 70mm! |
A couple hours later we were tied up on the dock in Warm
Springs Bay, nestled in a tiny spot between a couple of fishing boats rafted
together and a sailboat. If we were any
bigger, we would have had to anchor out a mile away. Sometimes being the littlest boat around has
advantages!
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| Busy dock! |
Baranof Warm Springs is the tiny town (village, or maybe
settlement, seems more appropriate given its size) at the head of Warm Springs
Bay. It’s entirely built on wooden
stilts, some of which have held up better than others as evidenced by several
buildings collapsing into the sea. A
roaring waterfall plunges into the bay nearby, creating quite a current at the
dock as well as an audible rumble. At
the top of the dock are three bathhouses, with hot water piped in and views of
the bay. A short walk up a boardwalk are
the natural springs, tucked in just above the rushing river.
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| Buildings falling into the water |
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| Town |
We walked up to the hot springs soon after arriving for a
nice soak. The temperatures are hot, and
I had to cool off in a pool of frigid river water. The setting is spectacular. Huge volumes of water rush through the river
just a few feet away, snowcapped mountains soar above, and evergreen trees keep
the sun from beating down too strongly (yes, it was sunny!).
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| Dad in one of the pools |
After our soak we walked back down to the boat, changed
clothes, ate dinner, and then took a walk back up past the hot springs to
Baranof Lake. We followed a primitive
trail up a grassy knoll where we enjoyed a terrific view of the lake,
mountains, forests, and sounds around us, almost entirely devoid of human
presence.
Then back to the boat for some reading before falling
asleep. Tomorrow we’ll head down to Red
Bluff Bay, widely reputed to be one of the great anchorages in SE Alaska.
57.2 nm today and 1,770.8 total
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