Liquid Pleasures

OK, weird title, I get it.   Today was marked by greyness, fog, and rain.   

Our permit for Glacier Bay was for 6 days, but we missed the first two as we were delayed with maintenance issues (remember, thruster batteries and the propane system issues).  

So, today was our last day in Glacier Bay and we had to be out of the park by midnight.   The challenge with that is we have to get somewhere well before midnight, preferably while it is still light out. 

So, we departed the stunningly beautiful North Sandy Cove anchorage at 0753 this morning and headed out of the park.    We crossed the park entrance line at 1202 and headed for Funter Bay on Admiralty Island, just west of Juneau.

Our trip was completely fog-bound, rainy, grey, and we couldn't see squat.   I had to navigate almost the entire way by instrumentation alone (GPS, Chartplotter, Depth Sounder, and Radar).   We couldn't see the mountains, shoreline, other ships, heck, we couldn't even see the sea otters, which I know where out there!

63 miles and 8.35 hours later we dropped anchor.  And then the clouds lifted a bit; surprise, Funter Bay is actually kinda cute.

We anchored in 51' of water at low tide, so I put out 190' of chain rode and our single bridle setup.   No winds forecast for tonight.   Yea!  

Tomorrow, we head up the Lynn Canal, the longest fjord in N. America, to visit the town of Haines and then on to Skagway.   It will also mark our northernmost point in our journey this year, which should be just north of 58 20.0N.   Our westernmost point as of today was at the Johns Hopkins Glacier at 137 34.1W.

To recap our Glacier Bay travels, see the attached map.   The blue line is our first day, the yellow line is the second, orange the third, and green was the fourth (last, today).   We can hardly wait to come back next year as we only saw a teeny portion of this park.

We saw humpbacks, eagles, gulls, terns, seals, sea lions, river otters, and a few sea otters.   We did not see bear, moose, elk, deer, mountain goats, etc.   We will have to hunt for those on our next visit.

The mountains are lost in the clouds but are supposed to be over 12,000' high.   They plunge straight into the fjords which are about 1,000' - 2,000' deep.   That's a lot of vertical elevation.  Remember, the word of the day a while back was "immensity"...

Also, it snows in the higher elevations every single day of the year.   And if the rain is any indication, they must get multiple feet of snow every day.   No wonder they have glaciers here.

Some of you have asked about how we cook on the boat.   Blue Redd has a full kitchen (called a Galley on a boat).   We have a propane home-style cooktop, microwave/convection oven, 2 refrigerators, 2 freezers, and ice maker, big kitchen sink, disposal, trash compactor, and a wetware dishwasher (that's me).  No dishwasher machine, though with only two of us aboard, washing dishes by hand is no big deal.

A note on our cooktop.   I probably overdid it a wee bit, but I wanted a cooktop such that I could properly do stir-fry in my wok.   The cooktop is a Fulgor.   The big burner is 18,000btu and when it is cranked-up it puts out so much heat we almost have to vacate the boat!  Sometimes, I remind me of Tim the Toolman Taylor...🤦

Tonight, Karen is whipping up a Chicken Cordon Bleu to pair with the leftover portabella risotto and the last of our broccoli.

For tonight's libations, we are having a 2018 Brian Carter Cellars Tempranillo.   

I wish you all could be here to join in with us (but not all at the same time!).

So, to wrap-up...   We went from fog to rain to snow to Tempranillo, and all from a boat.   Liquid pleasures, indeed.