July 13, 2017

Greg went out first thing to collect the crab pots, and sadly still no keepers. There were 2 in the pots at least so they apparently do hold crab. When we left, we noted that another boat had anchored in the outside part of the cove last night after we were in. Wow! Three whole recreational boats is a new record!

The ride down into Peril Straight was lovely. Our plan was to go to Appleton Cove so that we could put the crab pots out there as we heard that others had been successful. But when we arrived, one of the fish boats had completely carpet bombed the whole cove with pots, and was actually in the process of checking them. There are so many pots that we had to pick through them to find a place to anchor. We also thought about going out into Peril Straight and doing some fishing there.

We had some lunch, and it started to sprinke/rain so then it was nap time for some. And then the wind came up and it was fairly unpleasant outside so we read some more. Late in the afternoon though, the wind died completely and the sun came out! We hopped in the dingy to take advantage of the opportunity. It was now high tide and so we went down to the flats at the end of cove. And sure enough, we saw Brown Bears! They are not a myth! They were still small even in the binoculars, but we could see 4 cubs and Mom. Just lazing around in the grass and sun. No photos as they were too far away. We did row closer up the "ocean stream", but then they appeared to retreat into the forest. Bella fortunately did not make good bear bait.

Back to Spellbound for dinner and ended up seeing a single bear back there. So we popped back into the dingy with cameras to see what we could see. The single one (male?) left by that time, but we could see the sow and 4 cubs hanging around. She knew we were there and kept an eye on us, but we were far enough away that we didn't bother her. Got some "proof" shots.