Day 414 Mother Nature gives in.

As we left Cleveland Passage on the way to Tracy Arm, I was bundled in my foul weather gear all over again. It had rained most of the night and looked to continue through today. Not what we wanted when we saw our first ice bergs.

We left at 0620 and headed North, well sort of at least. Up Stephens Passage. A long wide body of water that leads to Juneau. As we went, the weather started to break and we started to have some sunshine!! Boy, it sure felt good after several days of rain and gloom. We saw several groups of whales playing way off in the distance as we headed North. I'd fired up the computer and our AIS and saw several cruise ships headed our way. Norwegian Pearl, Rhapsody Of The Sea, and later even more. Norwegian Pearl was headed for Juneau in the late morning but was back and heading up Tracy Arm about 1630 hours. Man, these guys cover a lot of water in a day. A few hours here and a few hours there and that's all you get. They couldn't have been in Juneau for more than four hours. Oh well, not my problem.

Having left so early, we took advantage of the flood tide and made it to Tracy Arm(57 48.61N 133 37.980W) by 1220 hours. Just 6 hours to cover 37.3 miles. Not too bad. I stood at the bow all the way into the bay and guided Tracy in as there were bergs of all sizes in the water surrounding us. Some big(easy to see) and some that just barely broke the water(hard to see)but could really mess up your boat and propeller if you hit them. We were shadowed by another big cruising power boat, "My Suzy". A 72 foot biggy. They zipped into Tracy Arm or as he called it over the VHF, "Tracy's Arm" and pulled into the cove right beside where we had just dropped our anchor to see if it had held as they were coming back to the cove in about a week after they had seen what they wanted to see farther North. As we had just dropped our anchor, it was hard to tell him how well we were holding. As the day progress and the winds came out of the South, she held just fine as it turns out.

We had a quick lunch(fighting off LOTS of BIG horse flies) and launched Puff and took Dragon(Mercury 8HP out board motor) along as the winds were more than I wanted to row in. Dragon started up after about 4 pulls of the cord. Not too bad for a motor that hasn't been used since May 29 at Codville Lagoon. We wanted to go see all the ice bergs that we had passed as we came into Tracy Arm. There were dozens of them in all shapes and sizes and all an iridescent blue. They almost seemed as that they could glow in the dark. I'll post lots of pictures once I can get on the internet again.

Just as we were about to head out, a berg just outside the cove where we stopped rolled over and Tracy saw it all. She was not impressed(scared and rightfully so) and wanted to make sure we didn't get too close to any of them. The last place you want to be is beside a berg when it rolls. It can swamp the boat you are in very quickly. We worked our way through the maze of bergs and picked up some ice from the one that rolled. It was perfectly clear. I've never seen ice so clear. It was like an abstract piece of glass it was so clear. I had some later in a drink. It stays frozen much longer in drinks than regular cubes, at least that is what it looked like to us. It appears to be a much denser ice. My drink had ice in it from literally thousands of years ago. What a kick!!!

It stayed beautifully sunny for the rest of the afternoon and may be the same tomorrow when we take off for the big glaciers at the head of the bay. We saw several tour boats as well as two other cruisers coming back from their tours. The two cruisers are anchored in the cove with us tonight. We even saw a sea plane buzz us over head heading back to Juneau.

Once back at Zephyr, we put Dragon back on her rack and hoisted Puff back on board so we will be ready for tomorrow as we plan on heading up to the glaciers at 0500 to take advantage of the flood tide as the lack of tour boats at that time. The sun now rises at 0352(yeah, that's right 3:52AM!) and sets at 2158 hours(9:58PM). That's a lot of day light!! The days just keep on getting longer each day. It is still twilight we I go to bed at 2100 hours. Really strange to see it light so late at night.

Well, it's off to bed as 0430 will be here soon.