Sea Lions

Friday June 22nd 2012

Another beautiful sunshiny morning, no wind, seas are flat calm like a millpond.
Left at 9:15 to cruise north into Glacier Bay and soon lost count of the seals and sea otters we saw and even saw 2 or 3 whales although they seemed pretty shy to show themselves much. We drove from up top on the flybridge, the first time this year it has not been too cold or too wet to sit out. It WAS cold but the panorama was too spectacular to sit indoors so we bundled up in warm clothes. I had TWO hoodies and a tuque on as well as my heavy jacket.

Even for Vivian

The view was worth the cold trip

After about an hour we approached South Marble Island and from over 2 miles away we could hear the sea lions barking. Up close the noise was constant and downwind you could also smell them a mile or more away. There must have been a thousand or more all hauled out on the rocks and swimming and gamboling nearby. Park regulations in this area of the park allow you within 100 yards of shore so we got a fantastic close up view and Vivian took “lots” of pictures . There were also thousands of birds nesting on the same island and the noise of the sea lions and the birds combined was pretty amazing at times.

Breakfast

Sea otters are the cutest of all

Humpback whale

Sea lion rookery

Sea lions have a nice life here

and a nice view

Leaving there, still in a flat calm, we traveled a few miles to South Sandy Cove where we anchored  to have lunch and relax for an hour.

South Sandy Cove anchorage

 Leaving there after an hour we were amazed at the swift change in the weather, the wind came up from nowhere and we were bashing into 3 foot waves with spray covering the windshield and flybridge. We had about one and a half hours of this till we reached our overnight anchorage in Blue Mouse Cove.

Blue Mouse Cove anchorage

View from Blue Mouse cove

and another view

And another whale

Amazingly, the minute we turned into the mouth of the cove the wind dropped and within half an hour we were sunbathing (again for the first time this summer) on the deck in 28C degree sunshine. It was still 25c after dinner at 7:30 PM and was still daylight when we went to bed after 11PM.

All in all it was a very satisfying day.