Long Bay to St. Mathews Bay

/

 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

/

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

/

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

/

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!

Schoppe Lagoon to Cedar Lakes Cove

/

Awoke to a beautiful sunny day. It was a good day for the “easy” hike to Mueller Cove that was written up in the guidebook. We waited for the right tides, and went back to the east side where we had seen the bear the night before. It was a great landing spot, but a very tough and steep climb to…nowhere. We couldn’t find the path over to Mueller Cove, and it was really buggy.

Nice anchorage at Schoppe Lagoon

OceanFlyer in Schoppe Lagoon

At low tide the entrance looks very narrow..it is

So, we changed plans and once again exited the lagoon, heading for North Anchorage. It was really nice and definitely a great place to kayak.

A word about the next photo. Dinghys range from utilitarian to luxurious. Ours is the fromer. It came with the boat and it does just fine. However, the seating is not very comfortable. I sit on a hard 4 inch bench and Karen has no dedicated seating. So we rigged one of folding "beach chairs" we have on board and secured it to the dinghy. Karen is in heaven.  A bit cobbled together looking; but it works. For me, my eyes dry out and tear when we go fast. And our 20hp Honda can push the dinghy to over 16 knots. So I found a pair of sky diving goggles to wear. Very light and very effective. So their you have it, the Geeked out dingy ready for long and fast exploring.

Geeked out dinghy

Once back at the boat, we saw a black bear on the west shore of the lagoon. The sun was shining on him and Bob got some great pictures.

Bear in Schoppe Lagoon

We left in the early afternoon on a high tide, and headed for Cedar Bay. There were lots of porpoises today, and they made a beeline for us and then played in our bow wake for about 15 minutes.

Karen plays with the porpoise on our bow

These guys make fast look easy

As we headed towards Cedar Bay, we saw the Mother Goose AIS signals back in Granite Bay, so we motored up to a good line of sight with Deception and chatted for a while with Brian, and talked a bit about how to change the fuel filters on our Onan generators.

From afar, it's easy to understand why it is named Granite Bay

Karen planned to overnight just outside the head of Cedar Bay in Cedar Lakes Cove, where we could dinghy over to the tricky entrance to the head of Cedar Bay and reconnoiter. This anchorage felt quite exposed, but was actually peaceful. You anchor in the middle in 30 feet, about 500 feet in from the mouth. It feels close to the rocks and reefs, but it’s fine. We watched gulls chasing an eagle, and stayed inside avoiding the late afternoon bugs.

After dinner, on about a +4 tide (which is the minimum the guidebook suggests for entering the head of Cedar Bay), we took the dingy over to the head entrance to check it out. Confusing! The rock in the Lethcoe photo didn't show except for the very tip, and we hit an unexpected 4’ shallow spot near a rock with a market on it.

The entrance otherwise was deep, not in the teens that Lethcoe notes. Inside was lovely and we found a maroon hulled sailing vessel Trinket from Whittier at anchor in the best spot. We circled Trinket, but no one came out to say hello. It was about  9:30, so maybe they were asleep. We agreed – we are definitely coming back with OceanFlyer in the morning!