Seward to Fox farm Bay & Whittier.

25/6
Nice wind today as we set off for Fox Farm bay, as usual though it's right on the nose..........darn it.

Off we go down the East side of Fox Island through the narrow strait then into the strait between Barwell Island and Cape Resurrection......holy polony....the sea has lifted enormously, we had'nt noticed the wind had increased the day before.
We now had a 3m sea running against us.

We turn and head East, this eases the situation somewhat, as we now have the sea beam on (on our side). This is slightly better as you can run along the top of the waves and drop down into the troughs.......still a tad choppy though.
We carry on across the Blying Sound, not getting any respite until we come up the West side of Elrington Island and our anchorage for the night in Fox Farm Bay.
What a beautiful spot.........just stunning.
Talk about the calm after the storm, we had a fantastic night in the bay, just superb.
A large Alaskan motor yacht was already in there and later a small fishing skiff anchored up and promptly started to fillet his days catch.
An otter meandered across the bay to see what he could salvage from the filleting, he did quite well, the fisherman threw plenty overboard for him.........maybe a regular occurrence !

26/6
After a good nights sleep, we had our breakfast and up came the anchor, our next stop is to be Jackpot Bay.
The weather is a bit grim, overcast and bad light.

Bainbridge Fjord came and went, then into Bainbridge Passage. There were fisherman in aluminium skiffs fishing in the "back eddies", otters lying on their backs eating their lunch......brilliant.....hard to photograph though.

We stopped in one of the inlets to our starboard and had lunch.

Then off we go again, we left the passage behind and came out into the northern section of the passage towards Point Countess................suddenly............................woooooow..................a massive Orca surfaced about 10m on our port side................so quick was it up and down......then out of sight, we never had chance to photograph her / him......................darn it !!!!

So, diasappointed, we carried on into Whittier.

I called the Harbourmaster on Ch. 16. (later i found out you are supposed to call them on Ch. 68, 16 only in emergencies..................no one, anywhere in the world does that. You always call on Ch.16)

"Yes we have a spot for you, but you'll have to raft up to (tie up alongside another vessel) a 70 footer named Oscar Mike on Alpha jetty"....................... ok that's fine says i.

Steve at the helm we enter the harbour.
Where the chuffing eck is this vessel called Oscar Mike ????.................a guy comes down from the office.......
..."here, here against this landing craft".......
...well, holy polony...............the wind was blowing us off and the tide was running.......what a job we had.

Novara is not the easiest vessel in the world to dock, especially in a cross wind and a tidal flow against you.............she has a flattish bottom and no keel.

As we had very little depth to play with, we could'nt drop the centre board to help us.
The bow thruster was struggling (this normally helps to spin the boat on the axis provided by the keel.) Anyway, after much huffing and puffing we managed to get settled.

AND it started raining................and i mean rain !!!
This persisted for the next 2 days...............very, very, heavy.

Whittier is a port built by the American military in WW2, it is ice free all year round and generally covered in cloud, so easy to hide from the enemy..................you're not joking there matey !!!
I went to the ferry terminal and booked my ticket out of Whittier to Bellingham on the 6th July, hoping i could meet up with Larry & Andrea in Victoria
Until 2001, Whittier was accessible only by boat and the railway, cars etc came in on the train. Then they built the new road tunnel, outgoing traffic on the hour, incoming traffic half past the hour................i joke not !!!
The military pulled out in 1968 after the earthquake of 1964...................there is an enormous derelict barracks building still standing......................all a tad bizarre !!!!!!
We managed to get wifi in one of the cafes in the place, did some emailing etc.

We picked up a new "foghorn" (Steve had ordered it earlier last month). This was to replace the one we lost last year in the Bering Sea....whoops scotties.........yes it was a bit rough !!!

It had been posted to the Harbour master's office.....his name......COLE HADDOCK !!!! Again .....i joke not !!!!
Really nice lad actually, about Bryn's age (maybe mid thirties)..............cool dude.

AND IT RAINED SOME MORE.......................smoly hoke.......i thought the Lakes were bad...............streuth !!!
The waterfalls coming down the mountains were just incredible to see................my photos don't really capture them well...........they were just torrents............mega !!!

Weather a bit grim as we passed fairly close to Bainbridge Glacier