Alaska Adventure

Travelog: Alaska June 6-13, 2007

June 6, 2007
Jack and I are aboard the second leg of our 3 flights to Alaska and hopefully by 5PM today we will arrive in Cordova, Alaska. There we will meet my brother, Skip and sister in law, Linda and their boat, Windhorse, for a cruise along Prince William Sound, ending the week in Seward, Alaska. I will post pictures and my travelog on a blog if you want to travel along with us. The only caveat is that access to internet is limited at sea. So depending on what ports we visit, I may or may not get this posted until we land in Anchorage again on the 12th/13th of June. Go to travelog.lesliedashew.com to see the postings.


WINDHORSE



The town of Cordova is at the head of Orca inlet on Prince William Sound.The area around Cordova was historically home to the Alutiiq, with a population of Eyak to the east, and occasional visits from Ahtna and Tlingit people for trade or battle. Orca Inlet was named "Puerto Córdova", after the city of Cordoba, Spain, by Don Salvador Fidalgo in 1790. You may recall that just over a year ago, Jack and I were in Cordoba, Spain! I am certain that the two towns will be quite different.



While it is a small town (2400 people) it was settled by prospectors in 1884 (copper, silver and gold mined nearby); a settlement for oil drillers and a port for copper ore transport. Later, it became a railroad terminus as the port wasn't great for large ships. It also became known as the "razor clam capital or the world!" Now it is a fishing and canning town. Cordova is near to Valdez and both towns now have science centers that study the ocean ecosystems, as a result of the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989.


This has been a very relaxing vacation; much more low-keyed than many of those we have taken on other occasions. Other than our first day in Cordova and our last day or so in Seward (soon to come), we have basically stayed on the boat, eating, sleeping, visiting, taking photos, downloading photos, learning about my new camera, etc. Our usual travel adventures are more exploratory of new places and cultures. Our excitement here is seeing the wildlife and beauty of nature around us.
Jack read three books; we saw a couple of videos and studied navigational maps and guides to Prince Williams Sound. For relaxation, you can’t beat this type of trip. Very cozy and relaxing.

Travel log 3:48PM on Thursday, 6/7/07 on board Windhorse

It is a balmy 70 degrees and cozy
Inside the cabin, that is.
Outside it has been rainy and cold, mid-40s. 16 knots of wind.
We just left Cordova, as we had to wait for the combination of traffic of fishing vessels and rain swalls to calm down before we left the dock.
We are cruising past Hawkins Island (to the North) with snowcapped peaks of the Chugach Mountains beyond. Hawkins is covered with evergreen trees and rocky points jutting out into the water below them. The sky is grey; the sea is grey-green, fairly calm but small white caps.
I alternate between looking at the computer screen and looking at the sea to watch for whales, otters, eagles and seals. We did spot one of the seals on the buoys as we left Cordova.

As I mentioned earlier, Cordova is a small fishing village. Skip and Linda spent a week there while waiting for us and got to know people. They met us at the airport because the gal who runs the art gallery offered her car to them when Linda mentioned that we would be finding a cab to bring us to town. “The keys are in the car; just take it!” One of our bags didn’t make it off the plane, so the woman at the airport brought it to us at the market that was just a short way from the town docks where the boat was tied up. Our cell phones don’t work here so we had to go to the market to call to check to see if the bag had come on the later flight; they let us use the courtesy phone there for calls. These anecdotes illustrate what a friendly little town it is.

We went to the local cultural center/museum in town, right down the street from the market. The Ilanka Cultural Center specializes in art of the Eyak, Alutiiq, Tlingit and Athabascan peoples. They provide a workspace to conduct classes in native languages and crafts and a sewing circle for elder women. The exhibition space had a small exhibit from the museum in Juneau on traditional native fishing and hunting kayaks. One of the two employees there whom we got to know, Mary Babic, asked me if I go to the March art show at the Heard Museum when I mentioned that we live in Phoenix. She said her sister, Denise Wallace, shows there every year and when I saw her work, I recognized it immediately (jewelry I have coveted, but was too expensive for me.). By the time we left there (with a book on Alaskan art, a traditional Spirit-hunter piece and a hat for jack), it was pouring rain and Mary offered us a ride uptown before she headed to the airport. The gift shop was as big as the exhibit space and Linda and I just loved the artwork there. Incidentally, one artist whose work was on exhibit is John Hoover who does wood masks and wood triptych panels. He had a major show at the Heard Museum. He is from Cordova, born there in 1919, and was a commercial fisherman before he began painting and working in stone, wood and metal.

The native population is Eyak Indians. The Native village of Eyak wanted a place where their culture could be honored and worked to open this center. In the center’s display there was also items produced from the “Indian School” which educated Eyaks during the era when native Americans were not allowed in public schools. By the way, “ilanka” is the Alugiig word for “family.” They also showed a totem pole of shame: regarding the Exxon Valdez disaster.

The Center also houses “Eyak” the skeleton of a 30 year old Orca whale. The orca whale became stranded in 2000 and died 5 miles from Cordova. So a community group decided to salvage the bones and rearticulate them. A combination of tribal folks, staff from the local science center, high school science students and other volunteers all got together to cleanse the bones, and reattach them. It is hanging in the front of the museum.

Well, after getting settled on the boat last night, we had a delicious dinner of (you might guess..) salmon. If you have ever tasted Copper River Salmon you will know what a treat it was to be at the mouth of the Copper River (which is where Cordova is) and have a fisherman give you a fresh coho salmon that is cooked immediately. What a delicate flavor! We sat around and talked for hours, as it didn’t get dark! Finally, around 11PM we concluded we should hit the bunks and get some sleep. We fell asleep to the sound of the rain on the decks above.

We are heading for Eaglek bay en route to College Fjord where some of the best glaciers in Alaska are found. Eaglek bay should be a good place to see bears and eagles. I did see a couple of eagles while at the dock last night: one was a young spotted one

Friday, June 8, 2007 Schoppe Bay of Eaglek Harbor, Alaska
We arrived in Eaglek harbor last night after 9PM, still daylight, and searched for just the right spot to anchor. Skip slowly took the boat into this wonderful cove that was almost totally surrounded by land and islands-probably 500 feet in diameter. Using radar and sonar he checked out the underwater landscape to determine the safest spot, given the wind and the currents we might experience during the night. After about 20 minutes of searching and dropping the anchor in the best spots and finding it didn’t hold, we moved on to another bay quite a bit larger. While we were exploring the cove, two very large eagles were perched on tall pines watching us.



The passage over here was peaceful and uneventful. At first we passed in channels and then were at sea; some waves as high as 4 feet (not bad) and occasionally we surfed them, adding speed to our 11-12 knots. Our route to Eaglek Bay is to go north around Hawkins Island, through Sheep Bay, out into Orca Bay, across the Prince William sound, west to Eaglek.

Our bay now is surrounded by pine trees, then mountains with snow (about 2500 feet tall) and seagulls swooping around us. There are small waterfalls. Supposedly some bear-but we haven’t seen any. It is quiet, peaceful. Not another person or boat to be seen. The only sound is the rain.

After breakfast, we head out. The water is calm in Eaglek bay. Little islands, covered with evergreens are the only interruptions in the waters. We are headed for the biggest waterfall in Prince William Sound. We turn a corner and voila! What a beautiful sight. A powerful waterfall pounding down into the bay with a force like Niagra Falls!

What to do next….they promised us a bear. So we decided to anchor nearby where it was most likely we would see one and then leave early the next morning to see glaciers. We toured the area, relaxed on the boat, took photos, played with them on our computers, read and after dinner watched “Fargo.” I had never seen it; the rest had.

I have made it through 48 hours without a phone or e-mail. I haven’t had the shakes or anything! It has really been peaceful.

Saturday, June 9th College Fjord

All I can say is WOW.
We are surrounded by snow covered mountains and glaciers: Wellesley, Vassar, Harvard and Yale, to name a few. AND it is sunny and beautiful!!
What a contrast to the last two days. We are about to have lunch up on the flying bridge where we can have a 360 view of this beautiful fjord…all to ourselves. That is also what is amazing. No other boats here! Not a tour boat, a private boat or anything.

Our lunch today: Salad, Reuben’s burritos from Ojai, California and water with ice we caught from the dinghy that was floating in the water.

It is so peaceful: the only sound is water, ice breaking around us and the occasional thunder of glaciers calving. And of course the camera shutters as Skip and I take literally hundreds of shots.

We left our anchorage this morning at a little after 6am. Jack and I slept through the first hour until we approached Esther passage: a very narrow
passage from Eaglek Bay to College Fjord, between the mainland and Esther Island. The narrowest area was about 500 feet wide. At the entrance, we saw bow-picker salmon boats and loading boats, hauling in fish. The backdrop consisted of beautiful snow covered mountains, 4-5,000 feet high, that led us out into a foggy fjord within sight of our first glacier.

As 10 am approached, the clouds began to lift and the sun started peeking through. By noon, it was sunny and we took off a few of our layers. The fjord is 1000 feet deep and narrowed as we approached the end with Harvard and Yale glaciers ahead. We stopped as the ice in the water began getting very thick. We took out the dingy and took a ride a bit further out, where we picked up a few more photos and some ice.

We are now headed for Harriman Fjord (around the corner) named for the financier of the exploration of this area in the late 1800s. He named the glaciers after the colleges of his research crew. We just saw some pods of Otters, floating on their backs: cute!

Just before Harriman Fjord, we had to go on Barry Arm and stopped to see the glacier we glanced at en route to the earlier spot. It turns out there were 3 glaciers: Cascade, Barry and Coxe. Totally different from one another. We got within a few hundred feet of the glaciers. We even saw some small calving and a wonderful waterfall. We headed up Harriman Fjord and found the cove was too filled with ice to stop there. So we headed west to another cove which turned out to be spectacular. We thought we had Bettles Bay to ourselves, but slowly now, other boats are joining us. Apparently, boats docked in Whittier (where people from Anchorage keep their boats) can reach here in 1/2 hour (under power). So it is a likely spot for weekenders and fishermen.

So after wondering about a bit in the dinghy, we are fixing dinner (at 8:15PM) and the sun is just retreating behind the mountains. By the way, we are visited from time to time by sea otters: they are so cute.

Sunday, June 10, 2007
We woke up to great sunshine again and were ecstatic! The light on the water and the snow-covered mountains was magnificent. Linda, Skip and I each took a turn in the rowing dinghy and toured Bettles Bay.



I absolutely loved my peaceful jaunt in the rowing dinghy. Because it has a flat bottom, I was able to get very close to shore and see the beauty of the land that surrounds on the boat. The rock formations that sit at the edge of the water are like contemporary sculptures: angular, with depth of colors and craggy edges. On top of them are mosses and exposed roots, some dead tree trunks and then beautiful green foliage and trees.
I heard a goose honking and looked around and noticed 4 goslings who were swimming some feet away. It was almost like a cocks’n encouraging a crew. I decided to keep my distance since I assumed she was a protective mother. The water was very shallow there and I could the rocks and shells below.


We left Bettles Bay and headed back into Port Wells Passage, the larger body of water we traveled on briefly yesterday. It is magnificent as no matter which way you look, you see mountains with pine trees and snow-on the mainland or islands. What a back drop! We headed down Perry Passage, Knight Island Passage and Bainbridge Passage to Fox Farm Bay, in sight of the Bay of Alaska. We came this way in order to see whales. We didn’t. What a disappointment! However, it was a beautiful, sunny day with the sun shining on the water. Cruising the Bainbridge route was lovely in that we were in a narrow passage again, with tall mountains, waterfalls, snow and trees surrounding us. Eagles, gulls and arctic terns fly by. Otters poke their noses at us from time to time and we see rocks with seals on them. However, we didn’t find the whales! Everyone is shocked.

Instead, we anchored at Fox Farm Bay where again we were surrounded by islands. Once anchored we all retired to the flying bridge where we sat in the sun and had a drink and enjoyed this incredibly peaceful setting. Once again, we found a couple of eagles perched atop a tree guarding the area.

Monday, June 11, 2007 Seward

We emerged from Fox Farm Bay under low cloud cover, disappointed by the weather and the lack of whales and bears, but as we approached Seward, we were greeted by sunshine. What a difference that makes!

However, we received a radio communication that coast guard types wanted to board our vessel. They told us they were approaching midship and to prepare to be boarded. We were boarded by a Game Warden as we entered Seward harbor. They had a “wanted” poster for this boat. We were advised that we had to have a “pilot” aboard because we cruise under foreign flags. I won’t go into the rest of the story, but needless to say, we were quite annoyed by the threat of prosecution for breaking laws we didn’t know existed and are being arbitrarily prosecuted. It added to the excitement of the trip….
And gave us a bad taste for Alaska. Which is too bad, because the rest of our experience was great.

Once we got the boat docked in this small harbor, we headed into town. It was famous for the earthquake centered not far from here in the 60s (9.2 on Richter scale) and a 30 foot tidal wave. The town has a few historic buildings and a wonderful marine study center that we will visit tomorrow. After touring around, a boat's "agent" contacted us to help us deal with the official mess we were in and came down to the boat. Shortly thereafter, we completed "compliance" documents and the game warden came to visit with his wife and a beautiful salmon he had caught. He felt badly that we were being treated like criminals, when in fact he and the "agent" both knew of Skip as a skilled and famous boat builder, author and pilot. We went to a local fish house and had a fabulous dinner of salmon, halibut and shrimp and put the days misadventures behind us.

More to come! Leslie