Some last photos from Glacier Bay, and some other treats.

If you remember from the last post, we looked for mountain goats on Gloomy Knob as we were northbound in the bay but didn’t see any. We decided to head back there on our way south and had success! Groups of goats…

…and a nanny with her kid. So sweet!

And since we were so close to Tidal Inlet we nosed in to check the beach and the alluvial fan for wildlife, and we lucked out with a brown bear sow and her very blonde two year old cubs.

We drifted in the deep part of the inlet to have lunch, and spotted a pair of sub-adult brown bears on a different part of the beach – a “brownie” and a “blondie”. This is the first time we’ve seen so many light colored brown bears.

A sleepy sea otter waved as we headed out of the bay and back to Hoonah – we needed a few days to pick up some forwarded mail and catch up on laundry.

The weather was clear but hot! It was 80 degrees one day, which is way too hot for the wildlife and the locals. It’s very scary to see so much fishbelly-white skin when the Alaskans don their shorts! It was a relief when the sun set (around 10pm) and we enjoyed seeing the pretty sky.

The eagles were still sitting on their nest, but we haven’t seen any little fuzzy heads yet. We don’t know if the eaglets have hatched yet, but that nest is pretty deep.

All caught up on mail, Internet and phone calls, we headed out of Hoonah, past the docked cruise ship. I had to laugh at the two crew members standing on a little float by the ship’s bow, painting with very long-handled rollers. Maintenance on any kind of boat, big or small, never ends.

We cruised west towards the outside coast of Chichagof Island, and had to take the boat out of gear quickly when a humpback appeared right next to us. We drifted for a while to make sure it cleared the area before we put the engines back in gear. You just never know what’s around the next corner.