Geographic Harbor

We arrived here two days ago. We were promised a lot of bears, visible from the boat at land and close. We have seen 4 so far here, and even with my 450mm lens they are small in the picture. But, we have seen some. And I have to admit the weather is not behind us right now, it's raining. It has been since yesterday. Today we moved Alita to a spot where we can see the bear beaches a bit better and saw a mom And its young one. So very cute! Despite the rain we took the Dinghy and went closer, the mud flat however forced us to some distance. The bears seem to only come out at low tide here hoping to find some food at the beach. Haven't seen or caught any Salmon yet. We're short of protein :-). No meat, no fish. Marcus went fishing yesterday, no luck. So we're eating vegetarian. I took a photo of bear mama with grass in her mouth today. So cute.

At least the rain gives me opportunity to work on my photos.
Because of rainy and windy weather we'll be here another 2 days.

Geographic Bay

The night before we left our last anchorage a Muse (Elk) swam through the bay to the other side. Focussed and chilled. So fun to watch. And that was just after watching a bear touring the beach. We had a 2-day and one night good sail/ motoring north-east from that anchorage to Geographic Harbor, where we are at now and will be for about a week because of weather. This is THE place to watch bears. As we had just dropped anchor a little Dinghy motor boat came with some photographers and their 600 and 800mm lenses on board. Din't know where they are staying over night. But, no bear here so far. Ok, we saw one. As we approached the bay here we had a welcoming by whales and sea otters. So so very cute. It was a bit hazy, but nice weather and we just had a midnight super beautiful sunset in the calmest water. Flat calm, a perfect mirror, which is great if you're anchored underneath high mountains reflecting in the waters....Soso beautiful here. Good night.

Moving on

We left Fox Bay at 9am this morning and sailed 100nm esst along the beautiful snowy mountain coast. At our anchorage we took the Dinghy ashore and walked a bit. The first thing we saw was bear footprints on the beach. A paw is about my shoe size! A bit scary. We are equipped with a bell (cow bell that my friend gave me when I first left in 2012 that now has a use), bear spray and flares. We also carry emergency kit should we have to stay on land because the bears sleeps at our Dinghy, out Sat Phone and my 7mm neoprene suit + hat + gloved should a bear kill our Dinghy so that I can swim back aboard and get the kajak tor picking up the others. Tomorrow early in the morning we leave this place to sail another 140nm east to "Geographic harbor". This is supposed to be bear heaven. You can sit on the boat and watch bears all day long. We will also walk on land. The bears are used to people there. Unfortunately we will meet the first "land" tourists who a brought there by boat. Because of some bad weather coming up we will be there for about a week, so I finally get a rest. The weather today was gorgeous, though more wind than expected which was good for sailing. Later in the day the clouds started moving in. I guess it can't be sunshine and blue sky the whole time :-)

Fox Bay

We left Sand Point this morning headed for the mainland only 4nm away and then further to the east. As we motored along it cleared up more and more and the mainland, the western Alaskan Peninsula, revealed its snowy and icy majestic beauty that makes you speechless. I never get tired of this amazing view. As we moved along the mountain chain it was so peaceful, hardly any wind and this flat sea top over a SE swell of about 1m. That made for super photos with Puffins and seagulls and later even whales in the foreground. Words are not enough to describe the beauty. Under way Marcus decided to shorten our travel distance and so we ended up at Fox Bay with a spectacular view from our well protected and green anchorage bay over to snow covered mountain range. And it's just peaceful and quiet. As the name suggests we're supposed to see Foxes here and even wolves. When I saw something walking in the bush out the angle of my eye I wondered that a fox would be that tall until I took a
closer look (with my camera) and found out it was a brown bear!! Oh my god, my first bear in nature!!!
Ah and I forgot: we had our first fresh salmon today, soso good!!! A fisherman gave the fresh caught salomon fillets yesterday. King Salmon, so very good! What a day!