St. Mathews Bay to Comfort Cove

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It was foggy in the morning, and we only had a short ways to go today, so we weren't in any hurry. We saw a seaplane cruising the valley along the bay. And we saw another eagle, doing the breast stroke with his salmon catch. That’s two on this trip!

Fog trying to lift in St. Mathews Bay

We had passed Comfort Cove on our way to Beartrap earlier in the trip, and decided we should check it out as our friends on Telita's recommended it. Port Gravina had whitecaps and a bit of fetch from the Hinchinbrook Entrance, but once inside the narrow entrance, it was nice. The breeze kept the bugs down, but the tides weren’t great for exploring, so we just chilled and enjoyed the view.

Comfort Cove provides a nice calm anchorage

Long Bay to St. Mathews Bay

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 Happy July! Once again, we were alone in our anchorage last night. It has been a while since we shared an anchorage with a pleasure boat.

The weather is looking up today, we can see more of Long Bay, which we have decided is “nice” but not a major “wow” compared to some of the other places we’ve been on this trip. So we hoisted the anchor, which was very muddy with shale, and headed off for a long trip to St. Matthews Bay.

Long Bay, looking down the valley

It wasn’t hard for Bob to dodge the icebergs, and he gave the boat to me as we entered the Valdez Traffic Zone. Not much was going on traffic-wise, either visually or on AIS. The views today were beautiful in all quadrants.

The very famous spot where the Exxon Valdez ran agound

Approaching St. Matthews Bay, we went through several rafts of otters, though none wanted to pose. It’s really pretty as you wind your way into the head of the bay to anchor. We worked our way in, and found just the right spot. Shortly after dropping the hook, we went out for a dinghy ride and scared a bunch of eagles that were fishing at the bay’s’ head. There were probably 5-6 altogther.

Fun in the water, otter frolics

We then headed back towards the mouth to the little island, and circumnavigated (just!) as the tide wasn’t too low. We saw .9’ at the lowest point – glad to be in the dinghy!

The famous "porpoise cam" rig

We had a very peaceful night, alone again. This is a majestic place with gorgeous mountains and a valley at the head.

Warmer water seems to bring out the jellies

OceanFlyer in St. Mathews Bay


Eickelberg Bay to Long Bay

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We arose to rain showers and cloudy skies. We both slept late for us – about 8:30 or so. About 11:30 the tide was right, and off we went for our beach walk and to see the white cobbled bed streams. It was easy to get to shore, and we walked the beach for about an hour, finding all kinds of cool rocks and rock formations…but no animals.

What's wrong with this picture?

When we got back to the dinghy (secured with a sand spike, upon which we piled our PFDs), the tide had come up so much the sand spike was in the water and my PFD had deployed! That was really funny, we got a good chuckle out of that.

Remember, put your PDFs in the dinghy

Great long beaches at low tide in Eickelberg Bay

Beach art

Sea garden on the beach

Back at the boat, we straightened up and Bob changed the Kabola fuel filter. We had lunch and left about 3:30. Bob trolled for salmon on the way out but no joy.

Enroute to Long Bay, we dodged some ice from Columbia Glacier, some of the ice was topped by otters who were enjoying the ride.

The seals mobile home

Clouds and iceberg are the scenery for today

There's mountain in them there clouds

The rain started up again as we found the entrance to Long Bay. This was an anchorage that the Mother Goose fleet had checked out earlier in the trip and they told us it was worth a stop. It is a pretty anchorage, near an island but open to the south. The winds had died (but not the rain), so there was no fetch, although the clouds stayed low and it was a good evening to cuddle up inside.

Peaceful in Low Bay

Cedar Bay Head to Eickelberg Bay

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Awoke to a nice morning. We were chilling out and getting ready to depart when we sucked a jellyfish into the 9kW generator's sea water intake strainer. It shut down immediately. It was totally gross and disgusting, a huge blob of gook in the strainer. Bob had a hell of a time getting the strainer out, and then once he did, we couldn’t dislodge the jellyfish parts. I had to work on it for a long time with vinegar and baking soda, which finally did the trick, and we were operational once more.

Karen say this is the culprit

We waited for the right tide, so we could see not only the charted rock but the marked rock, noted as "PA reported 2011" on the charts. We steeled our nerves and departed on Bob’s route…and it worked fabulously!

Another nice day in Prince William Sound

We meandered our way over to Eickelberg Bay, hoping to see critters but we were skunked. I chose this anchorage because it had white cobble beaches that were good for walks at low tide. As we approached Glacier Island, we started to see icebergs again.

The wind picked up a little in the afternoon creating a little chop

Eickelberg looks open and kind of uninviting at first but it does have great beaches. We decided to walk them when the tide was right in the morning and we enjoyed our solitude, relaxing well into the evening with the air conditioning running again!

Cedar Lakes Cove to Head of Cedar Bay

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A very sunny morning, calm with clear skies. We were excited to retrace our steps and avoid that 4’ shallow spot. We waited until the tide was a bit lower than yesterday so that the charted rock shown in the Lethcoe photo would be more visible.

Off we went. Karen stood on the bow… and we again hit a shallow spot, with the depth sounder down to 4.1 feet! That was not planned, as we hugged Block Island more than last time with the dinghy, but still passed over it. On the bright side, the actual charted rock was just visible.

After that, it was an easy entrance. Trinket, the maroon hulled boat from Whittier was still there. We much have been on stealth mode, because as we rounded the corner, we had a full on view of a young man with his pants at his ankles…taking a….well, you know what I mean. I think we scared the life out of him.

Trinket in Cedar Bay

Trinket was departing for the Meares Glacier, so they kindly gave us their spot. It was lovely, and we were settled in by 10:45. But, as was becoming a theme…it was really buggy.

Nevertheless, we went out in the afternoon and hiked up a grassy knoll to take some photos, and then we took the dinghy back out that entrance to see why we kept going over the shallow ledge when following the guidebook. This time we went right over the marked rock, because the marker was underwater. Bob decided that we should leave this rock to starboard on the way out despite the recommended path in the guidebook.

OceanFlyer in Cedar Bay

Karen celebrating making to top of the knoll

Good hiking around Cedar Bay but what out for the bogs

What a pretty anchorage

OceanFlyer enjoying the sun and view in Cedar Bay

Later that evening, it got really hot, with not a breath of air. We finally caved in and turned on the air conditioning when it got to 85 in the cabin. The M/V Columbia Queen came into the anchorage after dinner and anchored a good distance away, and spent their time cleaning halibut off the swim step.

It was still warm when we went to bed – 75 degrees outside!