Drier Bay

Position  Outside Copper Bay N  60d 15.91
                            W 147d 53.79

         Mallard Bay        N  60d 17.41
                            W 147d 48.89

Well we stayed at Thumb Bay for one more day but decided to hit two anchorages today.  We wanted to see Copper Bay but it is a very treacherous pass in there so we anchored in a nook just outside of it (that was a little tricky to get in as well) and then took the dinghy for a quick look see.  Copper Bay is very pretty and surrounded by the highest mountains on Knight Island.  Very pretty inside but the anchorages are all more than 70 meters deep so even if we got in we couldn't anchor.    The passage in is very tricky and has to be done at high tide and slack water.  Even in the dinghy we were swept around a bit worrying we might find one of the many shallow rocks with the outboard.  The scenery didn't photograph well so you will just have to take our word that it was pretty.  We did get one pretty nice shot of a stream/waterfall.  We will add some pictures to the various blogs when we get somewhere with internet, probably Valdez, but that should still be a couple of weeks away.

After we left our anchorage outside Copper Bay we decided to go outside of Mummy Island rather than sneak the rest of the way up Long Channel.  We are glad we did as we got a spectacular whale display.  They were a bit away from us closer to Chenega Island than Mummy Island but they were bubble feeding in the grandest way.  Once we swear that one of them came almost entirely out of the water.  Too bad there was only us and one other fishing boat watching the show.

We are currently in Mallard Bay and will probably sight see from here for a couple of days.  There is lots to see in the Drier Bay area whether we do it via dinghy or big boat we are not sure.  This anchorage has snow down to almost sea level.  So we decided to hike to see if we could make it through the forest to the snow line and maybe take a picture looking down on Sari Timur.  Pauline gave up shortly after we bashed through the salmon berry bushes and a bunch of spiny plants.  Mark continued on through the forest and finally made it to a stream bed which he followed up well above the snow line but figured out he would have to bash through a lot more scrub and forest and make it through a fairly large valley before reaching the snow.  He did the manly thing and gave up and decided to follow the stream back to the bay.

Summer Solstice is beautiful here in Mallard Bay and we are taking the time to sun a bit of our old smelly laundry before putting it away for the next Laundromat.  We are sharing the bay with a bunch of harbor seals.