To catch up, after a couple weeks' boat work in Wrangell (at a much more relaxed pace than our work on-the-hard this past winter/spring), we again departed Wrangell,, running back down Zimovia Narrows to Thom's Place to join up with Shearwater (which I crewed from Hong Kong last summer) and Honu (which belongs to another of the SW crew from last summer's crossing). SW and Honu have been enroute from Seattle since early June and now joining them, we are officially an armada. Crewing with us for just a few days, was granddaughter Jordanne, down from Anchorage.

From Thom's Place, it's a short run to Anan Bay where one can view both black and brown bears fishing. We appear to be just a few days early (for the fish run / feeding), so saw only one black bear and a few eagles waiting expectantly for the big feed, and a brown bear on the beach settling for appetizers. Another night at Thom's Place, and back to Wrangell via Blake Channel / Eastern Passage, thereby making it a circumnavigation of Wrangell Island.

A couple more Wrangell days and the armada was to head up Wrangell Narrows to Petersburg. Dorothy was a bit under the weather, so SW & Honu went ahead, bound for the Tracey Arm glacier. The following day, Tuesday 1 June, DE got underway, timing the tide for a northbound passage of Wrangell Narrows. Rather than stop in Petersburg (at the top end of the Narrows), we hung a left up Frederick Sound and into the evening.

2200hrs Frederick Sound north of Petersburg, glassy flat waters, sun setting in glorious golds at 330 degrees True (?! must be a far north summer latitude thing).
Off Cape Fanshaw, a crescent moon above 12-20, 30, 40 humpback whales flukeing, spy-hopping, and bubble-feeding across our whole forward horizon, the mist from their exhalations hanging in the still air against a backdrop of snowy mountains in shades of blue-gray. Stunning! I suppose someone else might've figured out how to get all of that into a photo, but we just enjoyed it.

Wednesday morning rain in the anchorage (Cleveland Passage, east side Whitney Island). I was down on the swim step, preparing to take Rusty & Rascal, to the beach for their morning P&P, when a humpback surfaced and blew just behind DE!

Underway from Cleveland Passage, we tried for Shearwater on the radio and, as I suspected, they'd been anchored overnight just 10 miles north of us in Hobart Bay, Stephens Passage. As we proceeded north in a stiff breeze and bouncy 3 foot chop, we could see Honu ahead of us and SW dawdling behind... fishing. Later Wednesday afternoon, Honu and DE entered Holkham Bay and anchored up in the little no-name cove just inside to the north. Off Holkham Bay are Tracey Arm to the Sawyer Glacier and Endicott Arm to Dawes Glacier and Ford's Terror. We've run up to Sawyer Glacier 3-4 times and it is magnificent. SW will do it on Thursday, along with Honu's crew, while DE continues on up to Juneau for (Hong Kong) crew arriving 5 July.

After anchoring inside Holkham Bay, we ran the skiff out to some house-sized icebergs of surreal, alien space-ship shapes and 100 shades of blue from almost white to purple. We picked up a big chunk of glacier ice and ran back again to the boats in pouring rain.

This morning, Thursday, as we pulled anchor, there on the little isthmus / beach where we'd P&P'd the dogs 20 minutes earlier were two brown bears checking out the smells left behind by R & R!

And this is why all the hassle of keeping DE shipshape is worth it...

Lots of photos posted of the past few days on the DavidEllis Nagle Boat account at Facebook.