Bay of Pillars: Part one

 

As Ruthie Jeanne moved out of the Southern Chatham Strait into the Bay of Pillars, we saw a big lodge just inside the entrance. According to our navigational info, the owner of the lodge will occasionally contacts boaters passing by via VHF and ask if they’d like to chat and take a tour of his property. I slowed as we passed the lodge hoping we’d get a call on the VHF, but none came. A little disappointed, we moved on.

The Bay of Pillars was so named because of its steepled rocks pillars, like someone stuck them upright into the bottom of the bay. Often times there is a clue on the depth sounder of the bottom beginning to rise so there is ample time to slow, stop or avoid a shoal or unexpected rocky area. On a marine chart, with due diligence, it’s easy to set the boat’s course to navigate around such areas. But in the Bay of Pillars there was a caution on the charts to look out for “uncharted obstructions”, like the pillars. Slowing as we entered this area, Terry was on the bow, watching for any obstacles in our path.  

We navigated through the ½ mile long narrow pass, some area only 40 or 50 feet wide. It was a little hair raising at times. Then it opened up into a big land locked body of water 3 miles long and 2 miles wide. This was our first trip through this area so everything was new. We didn’t have the luxury of prior experience to help us through the narrows. Piloting back out to the entrance a couple days later was a piece of cake.

Big Bay after navigating the skinny entrance.  Beautiful place.

When we first entered the big bay, we spotted 50 or more sea otters, some with pups perched on the stomachs. A group of sea otters is called a colony or raft. When we saw all of them together is looked like one big raft. These creatures are so cute and so endearingly playful I could watch them all day. However, as I mentioned before the otters have wreaked havoc on the marine environment of many bays, coves, and inlets in SE Alaska.

Our personal experience was this: in the areas we anchored where there were otters, we didn’t catch any fish, clams or crab. Our walks on the beach where there were literally hundreds of thousands of clam shells, we found no live clams. The evidence of the otters destructive digging was plain to see, as there were divots in the beach about the size of a medium to large bowls as far as the eye could see. When an otter digs a clam, they store a rock in a pouch underneath their arm. It lays the clam on its stomach and uses the rock to crack open mollusks and clams. Pretty clever for a sea otter.

Not a great photo, but hey, it's only an iPhone. 

At the other end of the big bay, we entered a small cove where there was more protection from the wind and waves that existed in the larger bay. Over the next couple of days, we observed a young male moose with a tiny rack and spindly legs, and later 3 females walking together down the beach. They were munching on bushes and small trees. We never observed them grazing on shrubs or grass along the ground. Each of them stared at us for a long while, probably wondering if we were a menace or just harmless gawkers.

Another not so great picture. No those aren't horses.  

When anchored and settled in, we noticed white jellyfish all over the cove. Their sizes were as small as a baseball and as big as a bowling ball, slowing moving along with whatever current there was in the cove. They were relaxing to watch as they did their slow dance through the water. 

(According to ScubaNews the Alaskan jellies are Moon Jellyfish. They use long harpoon-like tenacles to sting prey and feed on planktonic fish and invertebrates. A group of jellies is identified as a smack and the group can number in the thousands. Fun fact: Jellyfish are edible. (Yuck) They can be prepared many ways, including drying and then shredded or sliced thinly and tossed with sugar, soy sauce, or oil and vinegar for a salad.)

Hope all is well with you.

Ed Out. 

Leaving Petersburg Behind

 

We left Petersburg and got a glimpse of the upper end of Le Conte Glacier, 

where we visited the day before. 

We left the Petersburg Marina and motored out into Frederick Sound, headed for a big anchorage named Thomas Bay, we could see the upper end of Le Conte Glacier as we headed west. Thomas Bay looked like a great place to get some crab.  However, we were warned by fellow boaters in Petersburg that the commercial crabbing season opened a day before so there might be slim pickings.  I chatted with a guy that used to crab commercially. His observation was that each year there were fewer and fewer crab to go around for the commercial guys. They had to “fish on top of each other”,’ meaning the pots were close together and no one could really get a prized catch. His take was that the sea otter reintroduction is killing the Dungeness crab fishery.

(After googling the topic, I found that sea otters were reintroduced to Alaska, British Columbia, and Washington in 1965 after being hunted to extinction in the 1800 and 1900s. The British, Canadians, Americans and First Nation traders were all involved in wiping out the sea otter colonies. After the reintroduction the population has come roaring back. But there are consequences to their return in the form of a marine environment becoming out of balance.  

Unfortunately, at the top of the meal menu for sea otters is Dungeness crab and their appetite is a voracious one for that particular fare. They also dine on sea urchins, gooey ducks, clams, sea cucumbers, sea stars, chitons, octopus, squid, rock scallops and mussels. They weigh 35 to 90 pounds and eat 20-30% of their body weight per day. It doesn’t take long to understand how the otter can adversely affect the environment along the shores of the bays and inlets and how it affects those in the fishing industry trying to make a living catching crab On one hand the otter was brought back from extinction, which is probably a good thing and they're now a protected species. On the other hand, they have completely depleted the marine stocks in many of the inland bays and coves. There are now studies to devise plans for mitigating their adverse effects. And that only means one thing, fewer sea otters.)

We entered Thomas Bay and noticed hundreds of crab pots. A little disappointing, but there will be one or two for us at some point because we knew there were crab in the area. It was tough finding an unobstructed spot to anchor and not tangle with the crab buoys. Our original plan was to spend two days here, but we moved on the next day in search of a more comfortable anchorage and fewer crab pots. We didn’t see otters in this bay, a little unusual.

Thomas Bay. Difficult to see but there were hundreds of pot in and 

around us. If you are looking at this on an iphone/ipad, zoom in and you'll see.

A different view when heading out of Thomas Bay. 

And did we ever hit the jackpot with the next anchorage. Off of Donkey Bay, there’s a anchorage identified as Cannery Cove. It’s nestled in a big mountainous bowl with waterfalls, steep structure, a variety of trees, sharp gullies cut by snow and runoff and snowcapped ridges. Just can’t beat the view of a lowland valley that shot straight up. One of the most beautiful place Moon and have ever seen. I took a dozen pictures in an attempt to show off this gorgeous spot but none of them did it justice. I’ll include a couple but just know I couldn’t quite capture the beauty of the place with my iPhone.

The beauty of Cannery Cove

The only down side to Cannery Cove was the dime sized horseflies. They dive bomb the unsuspected in Kevlar Armor and a nasty disposition. Their bite is worse than a mosquito but not as bad as a bee. The good news? They land like they just jumped off a 5-step porch so it’s pretty easy to know they are there, and they’re slow. The problem with whacking these pesky little buggers is they just won’t roll over and die. They have to be nailed, spot on, or the next thing you know they’re up jumping around swearing a blue streak. I had to go after them again with the fly swatter to finish the job. Unfortunately, those  pesky flies always called in reinforcements. This was a great anchorage, so taking the good with the bad is the order of the day

We left Cannery Cove and headed for Security Inlet. Along the way near a smallish islet, there were the spotted harbor seals with their elegant coats of light gray, accented with black spots, the usual black harbor seals and sea lions aplenty. As we passed this islet a humpback surprised us by rolling over near the boat. Then minutes later, like it was a slow-motion video, the whale came straight up out of the water about 8 feet with its mouth open. Probably, the huge creature got just what they wanted, a herring breakfast. And the herring were everywhere in this area so it wasn’t surprising that it supported so much of the wildlife we were able to observe.  

Mouth closed, sinking back down into the deep blue. 

We left beauty of Cannery Cove for Security Bay on Kuiu Island, (pronounced Kwee ooh). The bay’s name was kind of a misnomer because the wind blew through there like it was going to push us back to Petersburg. But the anchor was set well enough and the boat remained in one spot, swinging one way then the other. After the nauseousness from the wide swings went away, it was relaxing. This area had many small islands and islets and sea otters with their pups were everywhere. Funny, they call a group of sea otters a raft, more about that later. We would have stayed another day if it wasn’t for the wind.

3:45 a.m. in Security Bay after the winds died down and a smooth ride out into Fredric Sound. 

Up early the next day, we left at 3:45 to catch a good tide and rounded the NW side of Kuiu Island where the outgoing tide was headed south down North Chatham Strait and the water in Fredric Sound was headed west, and there the two met. And boy did they. Yikes. The meeting caused some rough and confused seas which threw us around quite a bit. I looked at Moon and said, “this wasn’t in the NOAA weather report!”. The experience made me think of the times I had many beers and got up on a mechanical bull, like the 1980’s Urban Cowboy days, up and down until I fell off. Lucky for us after a hairy ride we found calmer waters. We had a plan B and Plan C anchorage if the water was too much for us but didn’t need them. We were able to make it into the Bay of Pillars, an anchorage we were anticipating without any more circus-ride type seas.  

That’s it for now. Hope all your seas are calm. 

Ed Out