In the Land of Milk & Glaciers

 

OK, that is a weird title to this post, but wait, I'll explain...

We are north of Petersburg, AK in Thomas Bay, Ruth Island Anchorage.   Thomas Bay is a large bay formed by glaciers.  The terminal moraine is at the mouth of the bay.   Interestingly the depth outside is 500+ feet as is the depth inside, but over the moraine it varies between 30' and 1' with some exposed rocks at low tide.    We head 9 miles up the bay to get to one of the few anchorable sites with less than 100' of water.   The water is a lovely pale green/milky color due to the glacier runoff.

The picture represents the actual color of the water fairly well, though it doesn't quite capture the milkiness of it.   Hence the title of this blog...

Its pouring rain and overcast, but I'm assured by the guidebooks that there are glaciers around.   They are not tidal glaciers (they no longer reach the ocean's edge as they once did, a very long time ago.).

From Petersburg north, we will start running into ice (figuratively, hopefully not literally).

We had a long day, up at 0500 (5:00am), underway around 5:30am, dropped the anchor at 1730 (5:30pm), dinner at 8:00pm, and hopefully to bed soon.   It rained pretty much the whole day.   Not drizzle, but genuine soaking rain.   The boat got a good rinsing.

We didn't see whales today, but we did see some extremely cute sea otters, seals, sea lions, eagles galore, etc.   Of course, one had to be awake to see them...

We ran the watermaker today and generated about 120 gallons of nice fresh water.   I had to stop when the filter got plugged-up.   The turbidity in the water makes for lots of suspended sediments that clog filters.   Tomorrow, I've got the change to new filters.

Our route took us through the famed Wrangell Narrows.   a 24-mile narrow, twisty, rock-strewn, shallow, high-current channel between Kupreanof Island and Mitkof Island.   The Wrangell Narrows contains 60+ channel markers and 5 ranges; it is a navigational challenge - or at least it used to be.   Modern navigation tools (chartplotters, GPS, depth sounders, etc.) significantly reduce the challenge and risk.   I am very OK with that.

Successfully transiting the Wrangell Narrows is considered an SE Alaska right-of-passage.  Check that one off the list!

The town of Petersburg is at the north end of the Wrangell Narrows.   It looks like a cute fishing-centric town.   We will come visit on our return trip south in a month.

Tonight, at our chosen anchorage another Selene pulled-in so we exchanged pleasantries over the VHF radio and look forward to meeting them in person at next year's Selene Rendezvous in Roche Harbor in April.   

The picture, below, is from the 2023 Selene Rendezvous.   That's a lot of experience & knowledge, in that picture!