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We spent a couple of relaxing days in Mallard Bay watching the seal population. We did this mainly from the main boat with the naked eye and occasionally with the binoculars. Mainly because many of the seals had new pups and we had been told if they are disturbed the seals will abandon the pups and not return. We are not sure if that is just in the ice fields or all over but we decided caution was a better approach. Certain seals we begin to recognize especially the super big bull.
It was then on to do some more exploring. We anchored over next to the remains of the old cannery dock in Port Audrey Inlet. It was founded in 1924 and closed during WW2. The forest has reclaimed almost all of it but we think we found the clearing where the cabins and cannery were. There were bits of large metal containers and pipes etc but not much else. We took the the dinghy into the inner cover. It is rather pretty and guarded by one of the largest sea otters we have seen.
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| ruins of the old cannery dock |
After exploring this area a bit we upped anchor and swung through North East Cove. This is really pretty but it looked a bit exposed to a westerly so we continued on to Barnes Cove. Barnes has a large tidal flat and a bunch of water falls way up above the tree line and some below the tree line too, as Mark was later to find out. After walking a bit around the tidal flat Mark decided to follow the dry stream bed to see if he could break though the tree line. Since he failed so miserably in Mallard Bay. Because we were worried about the tide coming in Pauline opted to stay near the dinghy and Mark promised to not hike for more than a couple of hours. After a few hundred meters the dry stream bed soon was flowing with water. The further up he made, the more water and faster the flow. A lot of fallen trees and big rocks to navigate around. And pretty soon he found some smaller falls he had to scale. During one of these he fell down just shy of waist deep and got soaked including filling he XtraTuffs. But now he was committed and was sure he could see the clearing and he kept going. Of course the clearing turned out to be just a bid switchback in the stream. He started to worry that the stream was going to break out into a small lake that he would have to circulate but he had his bear bell and spray and kept on. He soon made it passed the falls and could hear no falls in front only behind. He gave Pauline a call on the handheld as he had been going for an hour. She heard him but he could not hear her. After about another fifteen minutes the water source disappeared and the bed was dry again. He tried Pauline again but did not make contact. So he transmitted blindly that he would go another fifteen minutes and if he didn't break through he would turn around. At the top of the stream bed were many large boulders and a lot of over growth so he finally turned around after scaling a couple and they just seem to be getting more difficult. On the way back down he was skirting around one of the falls and he again slipped. Not sure if it was the same place or not but this time he went in completely he was holding on to a tree branch and as he spun around the water went down his neck and he was more than waist deep but his chest and mobile phone stayed dry. For those of you not familiar with Alaska these streams are fed via snow melt so when you fall in you suddenly wake up! Anyhow after another fifteen minutes or so he was below the falls and finally made contact with Pauline. Though he had spent quite a bit more than an hour climbing up he was back in a total of just over two hours.
Pauline had been wandering down on or near the tidal flats looking for the ruins of a former copper penny factory that is supposed to be in this bay or one of the miners cabins but neither of these did we find.
We are taking the day off today just doing some small boat chores and hope to head off to whale bay tomorrow and get closer to the ice fields and glaciers again.
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