Views From Above

 Our location tonight is Shag Cove in Glacier Bay National Park

This post shares some thoughts on drones interspersed with a random selection of images saved from my drone videos; I hope you enjoy them. At the end of the post is a link to a YouTube drone video from one of our Ford's Terror anchorage.

Our anchorage in the east arm of Ford's Terror. If you look closely you can see Invictus as the tiny dot at top center.

I appreciate my drone and I fly it whenever I can, wherever I can. I enjoy the many gigabytes of mostly video on my hard-drive but I’m not sure what Brenda and Patrick will do with all that some day. I guess delete is an easy thing.

A small stream flowing into Donkey Cove.

So lush and green

I really like the different perspective that a drone provides. It lets me see places and things that I would not otherwise be able to see. As an example of this while we are boating, the drone allows me to see what lies beyond the dense forested edge of the anchorages we spend each night in. The vegetation, terrain, and the bugs make it practically impossible to know what lies just a few yards beyond the cove’s margins. The drone makes it so easy to observe the otherwise inaccessible. And the ability to so easily see everything from above is remarkable.

This shot is surreal to me. It looks like Invictus is floating on clouds.

You can see the glacial stream is mixing with clear water.

I have some drone-flying stories to share about close calls, minor crashes, and yes, full on crashes. The technology that allows an amateur to fly a four-rotor aircraft is impressive but not perfect. A software glitch is why I’m on my second drone. My first drone sits [upright] 6 fathoms deep just off the west coast of Goose Island. I know it’s upright because the water was so clear I watched it go all the way down. So sad, so devastating. The quality of the silence after an event like that is interesting – the lapping of the waves against the hull and a few gulls squawking in the distance. And then there’s the look that Roma and I gave each other when the awful truth sank (pun intended) in.

 

Erosion on this mountainside makes a beautiful pattern.

My drone has a reasonably good camera. As I am flying, the image is displayed on the controller screen, which is about the size of a large cell phone screen. Even with my glasses on, the finer details are not visible on such a small screen. Once the video is loaded onto the computer, then the full image can be appreciated. I often find really cool details in the video that were a complete surprise.

A beautiful estuary in No Name Cove, Tracy Arm.

One time I was videoing a shallow wetland. When I viewed the video on the computer monitor, I noticed a muddy trail progressing underwater. A closer view showed that it was a beaver stirring up the mud as he swam along the bottom.

The long view south from Ruth Cove.

A beautiful foreshore in Ruth Cove.

Two arms of Sawyer Glacier converge just a few hundred meters above tidewater.

 

This is the face of the Sawyer Glacier at tidewater. You can see where the river that is running underneath the glacier exits on the left margin.

Here's a close up of the river's exit. I wanted to fly the drone right inside but chickened out.

It's hard to grasp the scale of this landscape. If you look really closely you can see the pilot and his dinghy just to the left of that amazing red bluff. It was too windy to launch from Invictus so I had to go to shore.

Here's a closer view of the pilot, dinghy and Oblio. Mr O is tough to see but he is above and behind me on the rock.

Another beautiful estuary, this one at Sullivan Cove.

A different view of the same estuary. I imagine that this creek will fill with spawning salmon. That would be fun to film from above.

This is a patch of fireweed at Sullivan Cove. There were very large grizzly tracks and wolf tracks on the beach.

Here is a YouTube drone video of Ford's Terror that you might enjoy.

Dundas Bay - wildlife wonderland

Our location tonight: Dundas Bay

This post isn't about Glacier Bay Park, which requires a permit to visit by boat. But it starts with our attempts to get into the park. Only 25 boats are allowed in the park at a time and many people (more organized than us) book up to a year in advance. Therefore permits are hard to get. Our first application, which we made two days ago, was turned down so we reapplied for different dates. Luckily someone canceled their permit and we were rewarded with a five day cruising permit. We will post about our Glacier Bay cruise later.

But our permit starts on the 27th so we had two days to spend elsewhere. We chose to take a look at Dundas Bay, which is a few hours cruise west of Glacier Bay and is included in the park boundaries but does not require a permit. On the way we fished a bit and kept three salmon for the table.

When fishing was over we headed into Dundas Bay and what a wonderful place it is. The overcast and fog patches did not detract from the experience. The setting and the scenery are amazing - raw, rough, and wild. The essence of wilderness. This area, like Glacier Bay, was under 4000' of ice only 80 to 100 years ago. The landscape shows the passage of the ice - smooth rock, u-shaped valleys, silty blue waters, and ravaged river courses.

Our pictures can't do it justice but here are a few anyway. The rules prohibit approaching too close to marine mammals so we shoot at max telephoto and then zoom in for some detail.

U-shaped valleys gouged by the glacier.

In 1850 the Little Ice Age ended and since then the glaciers have been receding. In their place, life has advanced. To say this place is full of life is an understatement. What was once bare rock is now covered with a rich carpet of rain forest. It is one of the richest marine environments that we have witnessed yet. On the way to our anchorage in the West Arm we saw humpback whales, Dall's porpoises, seals, sea lions, sea otters, 1000's of birds of so many species, fish jumping, fish being eaten... and capped off by a brown bear wandering the shoreline.

No matter which direction we looked the sky was filled with birds

There were so many birds all around that it looked like we were in a snow storm. So many sea otters too! We saw many hundreds. Some in groups. Moms with their pups. Others as singles. And everybody is busy making their living. The place is popping with activity. 

A humpback whale mom with her calf.

A group of sea otters is called a raft. This raft is about 25 animals.

 A pup

A pup with its mom

The brown spot on the beach is a brown bear. In British Columbia we call them grizzly bears.

Cropped image. He is watching us.

Fun in Prince Rupert

Last night and tonight we are docked at the Hoonah City Harbour.

We're still catching up with blog posts, sigh.

On our way to Alaska we arrived in Prince Rupert on June 17 and stayed for a couple of days. We had excellent coffee at Cowpuccino's, delicious sushi at Opa Sushi Bar and seafood at the Breakers Pub, and, best of all, met an R2AK (Race to Alaska) 2nd place winner!

We docked at the Prince Rupert Rowing and Yacht Club (sounds hoity toity, but isn't) in Cow Bay, 

which has an interesting history.

A bit of Cow Bay history.

Smiles has been there forever.

While on a dock walk we met Ken who was hanging an R2AK burgee on a halyard on his sailboat!

I am a total R2AK fan and struck up a conversation with him and found out that he has raced in several R2AK races. His wife Barb and daughter have raced also.
Ken's team, "Lagopus" placed 2nd in 2018, behind first place winners,
the all women team "Sail Like A Girl".
The prize for 1st place is $10,000 nailed to a board. 2nd place wins a set of steak knives. R2AK is not a main stream event. Race to Alaska intel.
Ken had the set of steak knives on board his sailboat and brought them out to show us.

We visited with Ken and Barb on Luna Quest and sampled their impressive collection of Scotch and listened to some great stories from R2AK races, including the one about Karl Kruger who did the entire 2017 race from Port Townsend, WA to Ketchikan, AK on a SUP (stand up paddle board).
Karl Kruger, R2AK SUP racer.

 

Ready for an early morning start from Prince Rupert to Dundas Island before continuing on

to cross into US waters.

Funter Bay - Coot Cove - Cool Wreck

We are in Alaska. But where in Alaska? Some of you have inquired so we will try to put a link to our location at the top of each post.

Tonight we are in Swanson Harbor

Last night we anchored in Coot Cove on the northeast side of Funter Bay, which is at the northwest end of Admiralty Island. Admiralty Island is known for having more than 1 million acres of old growth rain forest and one of the world's highest brown bear populations. It is home to 1600 brown bears, more than the rest of the United States combined. It is also home to the greatest concentration of nesting bald eagles. More than 5000 bald eagles live on Admiralty Island.

Periodically boats and ships get wrecked. These days, if possible, wrecks are usually cleaned up quickly to avoid damage to the environment. But in the past, the wreck was generally left to decay at its own pace.

Here are some photos of the Coot Cove wreck, obviously was never cleaned up. I Googled the history of the wreck - it's named Anna Baron, built in 1902, 77' long.

Four cylinders producing 130 hp

Oblio for scale

I flew the drone for this image.

Injector pump with one rod missing

The exhaust manifold

Evidence of the frames and keel

Bits of the concrete poured into the bilge for ballast

A hydraulic steering ram that has seen better days