July 2, 2017

It was a bit foggy when we first got up, but it had cleared by the time we left around 7:30. We were headed up Tracy Arm to see if we could see the glacier. It's about 25 miles up the Arm and so it's a "project". It was a bit windy when we left but not too bad. By the time though that we got to the 2nd to last bend, the ice bergs were thick enough that we had to go in and out of idle to steer around them. We reached to about the next bend where we could barely see Sawyer Island, but there was this "wall" of small ice bergs. Greg got on the bow and we nudged up to one to see if he could move it aside with the boat hook. Hah! Fat Chance. I got the turn around sign. Not *this* fiberglass boat.

We were in a narrow spot and it was even hard to turn around. Then we twisted our way back through the maze again and then eventually into slightly clearer water and then to reasonably clear. But the bergs persisted. We had flat calm glass conditions for the entire way back. We also talked to a mini cruise ship that was heading up, the Wilderness Adventures.

Back out through the channel where there was 1 big berg right smack in the middle of the channel - fortunately there was still lots of room to go around it. It was pleasant enough back in Stephens Passage for awhile, but slowly the wind came up again from the South. By the time we reached the Taku Harbor entrance, it was 20kts.



There were quite a few boats on the dock which was surprising. We have barely seen any other pleasure boats cruising around here. Low and behold, it was half of the "SlowBoat" flotilla, which is now down to 4 boats.

We tied up and immediately went for a walk on the trail to stretch ours and Bella's legs. We ran into the group at the cabin and by that time, it was raining pretty hard. Not a very chatty group, most headed back to their boats and we spoke briefly to Laura.

By the time we got back to our boat (Bella walked the whole way), it was really pouring and the wind was up again and was blowing straight into the harbor. All the boats were rocking and rolling at the dock and there were white caps inside. Not particularly fun. So we had beer and crackers and cheese and listened to the weather report. Not that great but not that bad for the next 2 days and what we were experiencing wasn't happening. The good news is that my cold is a bit better.

Short nap, reading, Blog. Dinner. Wind down a bit but still rocking.