July 25, 2019 - Glacier Bay: Beardslee Islands, North Fingers Bay, Berg Bay

We are nearing the end of our stay in Glacier Bay.  We started motoring south with a plan to kayak around the Beardslee islands before heading to Fingers bay for the night.  On our way south we had one last pass by South Marble Island where the puffins and sea lions live along with many other sea birds and wildlife.  The sea lions are very loud !

Tufted Puffin

One bull with all his cows

When we entered Glacier Bay, the ranger that gave us our orientation told us we might be able to extend our stay if we were interested in that.  The procedure to do so is to call the Ranger on the VHF radio at 7:00AM 48 hours before the day you want to add.  48 hours at 7:00AM turned out to be when we were motoring towards the Beardslee Island group, and we were once again within VHF radio range.  We asked for one additional day.  They checked the schedules and determined we could add one extra day.  Score!

The normal anchorage in the Beardslee Islands was several miles away from the islands we wanted to kayak so we decided to shoot for a closer area with depths in the 40 foot range.  We had a good hook on a rocky bottom and got the kayaks down and set off.

Getting into kayaks

We had not thought out our plan too well and the tide was low so we were not able to get into the island group at all really.  So we watched humpbacks and looked at sea life.  Quite a few humpbacks were eating near us and it is spectacular to watch.

Beautiful sea life visible in the clear water

Cindy standing on shore out there

Whale with Adagio in the background

Jellyfish

North Fingers Bay was nice and quiet, once again we were the only boat.  We woke in the morning and were planning to leave when low and behold on the shore is a black bear around a rock chewing and rubbing on it at the shoreline.  So we watched for a period of time and Steve went for a closer look in the kayak.

Steve and the bear looking at each other.

This bear was curious about Steve in the kayak and walked down
 to the water and watched him