Humpback Cove, Whale Bay

Position   N  60 d 12.46
          W 148 d 17.26

We had been noticing a bit of fog over the last couple of days but today it was pretty thick.  The visibility was about 2 miles but we decided it was not too bad and we would leave anyway.  We crossed over to Chenega Island rather quickly to get out of the way of Knight Passage.  We cannot go ashore on Chenega Island without a special permit but that didn't bother us as there is enough to see in the sound anyway so we were heading toward Whale Bay.  As we rounded the south western tip of Chenega we saw some white objects in the distance.  Pauline joked that they were ice bergs.  Mark seemed to think they were small pleasure boats.  Well as usual Pauline was right and Mark was wrong as we got closer we discovered there were some bergy bits floating in the open water.  We passed one that was about 20 feet long and stuck out of the water about 3 feet.  Our guide tells us that 9/10ths of them are submerged so they are rather big.  By the time we got the camera ready we didn't have such a good shot of it but we got a good photo of the next one we passed though it was a little bit smaller.  But with the fog it felt kind of like the Titanic.

not as big as the one we saw but we thought it was cute with the birds sitting on the berg

Humpback Cove has a moraine to cross over but once inside opens up to a lovely bay.  With a large meadow area beyond the tidal flats and views of the ice fields.  It is supposed to have the largest concentration of Black Kamchatka Lilies in the Sound.  So we loaded ourselves in the dinghy and went ashore.  Not expecting much but soon we had a lot of yellow flowers then some wild daisies, then some purple flowers (it looked like it might be the early stages of fireweed) and then we hit large concentrations of the lilies.  Neither of us had seen them before and we were quite impressed.  A little further into the meadow we stumbled on some more salmon berry bushes but unlike the ones on Knight Island just fifteen miles away these were just dropping their blossoms.  We do not know how fast these ripen but clearly they are a few weeks behind the ones on Knight Island.  

When we got back to the boat we got a radio forecast and found out the fog was actually smog caused by a forest fire near swan river that has engulfed the Kenai Peninsula.  It is supposed to get better tomorrow but we will wake up and see how it is before we leave for Icy Bay.  We want good views for the areas inside of Icy Bay as we cannot anchor there and we want to take in the great views as well as pick up some glacier ice for the martinis!