Sawmill Bay in Excursion Inlet

Sorry for the pause... My laptop gave me the black screen of death and it takes me longer to do this on my iPhone. I am using David's laptop today, so we will see how it goes.

The mountains are out as we leave Dundas Bay. (Using the Peakfinder app on my iPhone to identify mountains.) Grateful for the clear day!

Looking into the wide entrance to Glacier Bay. See the huge cruise ship? We will visit another time...

Some real current going past the opening to Glacier Bay! Our speed is usually about 7-8 knots/hour. This photo is of our GPS chart; we are the gray boat. The wind is 10 knots, depth is 91 feet (the glacial moraine). Forty three minutes to a waypoint we set 9.1 nautical miles away Wheeeeee!

These are the Fairweather Mountains, northwest of us. I think there are a few we can't see.

After getting settled in Sawmill Bay, I made Skillet Turkey Chili, another Smitten Kitchen recipe we have been making on repeat. I add some smoky paprika to it. So good!

We spent two nights at this anchorage. This is the morning tide ebbing at Sawmill Bay. No bears seen. This called for a beach stroll to look for scat or prints. None seen, but lots of other cool stuff... It was a minus 4 foot tide! That is really low, so we could see all kinds of things we don't usually easily see.

See the sea cucumbers?! We have never seen these in the wild before today. Apparently, some people like to eat them...

This is what else we saw!

David on shore at low tide.

This is sedge grass that grows along the shores in many places. It feeds the bears in the spring while they await the feast of salmon. Apparently, the root is very high in protein.

There were large fish jumping all around us in the bay, as well as small herring, so we decided to try some fishing. We loaded up the dinghy and stayed close by Dog Star to see what we could catch. Seven or eight harbor porpoises were feeding in the distance, but came over immediately after we got our lines in the water. They were very curious, and swam all around and under the dinghy. I was worried they might get entangled in our lines, so we pulled them in. Eventually, the porpoises swam away to eat some more... so we tried putting our lines in again... They zoomed back over and played some more, even zipping with exquisite accuracy between the downrigger line and the dinghy! We think they were attracted to our shiny flashers under the water. They hung out with us all day, coming and going, while we fished. We landed 4 Coho, and could have caught more, but were concerned we wouldn't have room in the freezer! It was so dang fun!

They were all 7-8#/each.

Our haul! Now to fillet them!

Me and my big guy!

What's inside a fish's belly? A bunch of smaller fish.

David got lots of practice filleting with all these! Of course, we had salmon for dinner. We vacuum packed the rest and put them in our freezer.

A great day had by all, living it to the fullest in wild Alaska!