Alaska 2023 - Day 5

5/18/2023 (Thursday) - Best weather yet of trip, with clear blue skies, little wind, and a forecast high of 75 degrees. We were told that the next two days would be cooler and rainy, which is the expected weather for Southeastern Alaska. But we'd had five days of perfect weather by this time so no complaints. Our view when we woke up:

Went out at 9:30 for a "Forest Poke". This was advertised as a less strenuous option to the "full-contact" bushwack that they were making sound very rugged.  Our Forest Poke turned out to be extremely mild, with only a couple hundred yards of walking. We landed on a beautiful sandy beach near the outlet of a rushing river. We explored the beach for a while and noticed that the tide was coming in very quickly.

The beach was flat so you could see the water crawling in over rocks and shells and advancing up the beach very steadily. We then walked on a game trail into the forest alongside the river, but the trail got a little tougher and some folks in our group were having difficulty with the terrain, so we turned back.

Teri and Mark next to the river

We had a few Bald Eagles and a pair of Barrow's Goldeneyes in the cove. 

Bald Eagle keeping watch

Barrow's Goldeneye pair

Most of the group was content to visit and look in their immediate area, so Teri and I went off to explore what tide pools we could find and spent some time watching the tide come into areas. We could start in a spot with dry feet and 5 minutes later be in three inches of water. We have about twenty years of "sand writing" pictures where Teri will write the location and year of a particular trip in the sand of a beach.  This one was tricky as the tide was coming in so fast she had trouble getting it written before it was washed away!

Alaska 2023

We were picked up about 11:15, at which point the beach was essentially gone. On the way back we pulled up near the base of the waterfall for photos. It was thunderously loud and was dropping massive amounts of water into the bay.  Lots of wind and mist also!

As we returned to the Wilderness Discoverer we saw that the kayaks were ready for the afternoon activities. At each location the crew deploys between two and four inflatable skiffs, and about 15 kayaks. And then has to re-load them at the end of the activity.  Sometimes this happens twice a day if the ship changes locations. A lot of work!

We headed out on our first open kayak of the trip at 2:30. Open kayak is when the paddlers are allowed to go wherever they want, within a designated bay or cove. We enjoy the guided kayak trips, but open kayak lets us go at our own pace, lingering near areas that are most interesting to us. More like we do when kayaking back home. 

We paddled up to the base of the waterfall where there was a lot of wind and mist, not to mention the noise. 

The scenery in this area was amazing. 

After visiting the waterfall we circled a couple of tiny islands and generally followed the shoreline of the cove.  Lots of small (quarter-sized) jellyfish in the water along with huge numbers of small fish, probably salmon. 

We got back on the ship and relaxed until dinner. Every afternoon at 3:00 they put out fresh-baked cookies at the bar. We enjoyed seeing what the flavor of the day would be. Sometimes we enjoyed them with Diet Coke, other times with hot chocolate. 

The evening meal concluded with announcements of celebrations including anniversaries, retirements, and birthdays. It was my birthday and they made me a small chocolate dessert that was very good. 

Later that evening they did the sales pitch for future trips, incentives, etc. We stayed in our room and listened on the speaker and were surprised when they asked who'd been on previous UnCruise trips and someone called out our names. I think they wanted us to speak up, but we weren't there!  Oops.

Next: Tidepool exploration and more kayaking.