A couple weeks of wandering around waterways and sites between Glacier Bay and Tracy Arm… In between we saw Swanson Harbor, the southern Lynn Canal, Auke Bay, Juneau, Stephens Passage, Taku Harbor, plus some more of Admiralty Island. The theme of the last month has been flowers, glaciers, icebergs, whales, and abandoned canneries. Oh, and then there are all the great Alaskans–mostly fishing families–we’ve been meeting at the various state floats out in the middle of nowhere.

Here are some pics of a few places we’ve been in the last few weeks and some of the flowers and ice along the way.

The Reid Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park

We anchored in the Reid Glacier inlet where we could see the glacier to the south and the mountains across the Glacier Bay to the north

Beautiful growth on the shore nearest the Reid Glacier

When a whale visited us in the Reid Glacier inlet, the auto-focus on the camera kept focusing on the boat–not the whale!

But then the whale dove and the camera focused properly sans-whale

Lucky us, our friendly whale popped back up quickly

And again…

Yes, that’s the whale’s snout coming up outta the water

And the birdie just kept chasing this whale

Looking up the Tarr Inlet at the Grand Pacific Glacier

The forecast for 15 kts of tailwinds and nice stormy looking clouds skidding along enticed us to put up some sail

Setting sails almost assures that the winds will die away quickly

Brenda checks out a pretty sight of sea life along the Swanson Harbor public float

And here’s what she’s seeing

The southern Lynn Canal

Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau

Stephens Passage with a fishing boat in foreground, a whale plume behind it in the background.

Auke Bay

Blue Lupine

A freeloading Bald Eagle supervising our sailing along Stephens Passage

The artful ruins of a cannery at Taku Harbor

A bee enjoying the blue wildflowers of a kind I’ve never seen before

Pink Lupine

Chocolate Lily

Buttercups

Motoring along the Stephens Passage during the 4:00 am sunrise

Mahdee-sized iceberg in the early morning sun

Another Alaska sunrise

Blue icebergs are amazingly beautiful

A pair of show-off humpback whales swimming nearby Mahdee

The whales are everywhere but easier to see when it is very calm

The whales pop up near the boat

We see tails everywhere on the Stephens Passage

A slow day at anchor, David catches up on his reading

And Beryl catches up on her beauty rest

Many bergs in Tracy Arm were Mahdee-sized and glowed deep blue

This one looked like it was lit up from the inside

This boat-sized berg was clear ice–and happened to be right in the narrow marked entrance of the Tracy Arm