Mosquito Cove, Inian Islands

7:57am: Icy Strait, after exiting Flynn Cove, looking north towards the east side of Glacier Bay. You can see a bit of fog on the horizon...

8:24am westbound Icy Strait.

8:36 am.

8:38am. Yup! Here it is--thick fog! It can be unnerving and disorienting, especially when it comes in so fast! We had our radar to guide us safely, but a stellar sea lion came up right near our boat, followed by a humpback whale! That was alarming!

8:39am.

10:05 am.

10:26am. Eventually the fog lifted and we could see Point Adolphus in the distance. You can see on the map, it marks the turn to a more southerly path. There were a bunch of humpbacks feeding around here, as well as cormorants, surf scoters and porpoises.

The Inian Islands mark the ending of Icy Strait and beginning of Cross Sound. They all but flock the flow of the tide west to east, so the North and South Inian Passes have a lot of current that flow through them. We timed our passages through this area very carefully. I put a red dot where Mosquito Cove is located.

Entering North Inian Passage. Mountains of Chicagof Island in the far distance

The entrance to the Inian Islands using North Inian Passage. Mosquito Cove is around the corner to the left.

Very interesting rock formations here.

We dinghied around and went and found "Hobbit Hole," a very small, very protected cove in the Inian Islands (not on the map, but just east of us in Mosquito Cove). You can see there was a house and some out buildings and dock in there. We weren't sure what weather it was a fish camp or someone's homestead. Later we discovered that it is an institute created by some Stanford PhD students to be used as a field school in the interest of environmental education. Check out their website--it is fun to peruse: https://inianislandsinstitute.org/about-us/inian-islands-institute/

So much kelp! It is pretty to see and to think of all the life it supports from small nudibranchs to sea otters and orcas wrapping themselves up in it, and there fish that can hide amongst kelp forests. It signals shallow water for boaters, and it easily gets wrapped on our keel or rudder. We try our best to avoid going through it in Dog Star.

It would be an easy to dinghy to Elfin Cove from here, but the wind was up 10-15 knots and the water was getting bumpy, so we returned to Dog Star.

Skillet Turkey Chili from Smitten Kitchen for dinner tonight, with all the toppings. So easy and so delicious! And a green salad... iceberg lettuce lasts longer than green leave lettuce does. We don't often get it, but it made for a nice crunch with the sunflower seeds.

After dinner, a humpback visited the entrance to our anchorage, as well as the stellar sea lions growling every now and then.