Tag: Grizzly Bears Alaska
“Things are changing fast in Alaska and our own complex situation changes too. Life on a sailboat is often not easy and the influences of the real world create social and family pressures that are sometimes difficult to ignore. There’s always an intrinsic reason to move on…”
Together we decided to leave Alaska to slowly make our way home. Our upcoming blogs and latest news will reflect our feelings that we must perhaps face things as they really are.
In July the three of us, Marie, Henry and myself left Hoonah for the last time to sail south. We left behind exceptionally good friends we’d made during our three years there, it was a heartbreaking decision but one we deliberated knowing it was time to move on. Partly this was because of the changes in Alaska in the face of relentless growth in huge monster-sized cruise ships that often brings tacky tourism and also because of our ongoing engine issues that finally put paid to our plans to attempt a transit of the Northwest Passage… and after listening to lots of advise it was clear that we must head south to get things fixed once and for all. It’s notoriously difficult to fix an English sailboat in Alaska.
Continue reading “Latest News & Blogs…” →
Our latest VIDEO production details our voyage deep into the Glacier Bay National Park from Hoonah in Southeast Alaska during 2016. Crossing the Icy Straits in gale force winds of thirty-five knots made a splendid change from endless engine work… all three of us relished the challenge of intense sailing to seek shelter in Bartlett Cove, where we needed to validate our permits with Park Rangers who vigorously restrict the number of vessels allowed into the immense Glacier Bay area. With over 3.3 million acres of rugged mountains, frozen glaciers, temperate rainforest and exceptionally wild coastlines of the St Elias Mountain Range, Glacier Bay is an undoubted challenge for any sailing vessel.
We transported photographic and video equipment ashore to find and film Alaskan wildlife at its most extreme. Please take time to view this ten minute film production expertly produced by www.davidungless.com. Continue reading “Wild Alaska” →
“We have been repeatedly warned about the temperamental nature of grizzly bears and so it proved. Our grizzly project, which has been an incredible adventure so far, is on hold after a daunting encounter which Henry and myself are arguably lucky to survive… and Marie isn’t particularly amused either.” Dave.
Of course, at this time, as luck would have it, we weren’t filming anything. We’d anchored in Reid Inlet in extremely remote Glacier Bay, at the foot of the Reid Glacier which comes right down into the sea. We were totally alone, tucked nicely inside the shelter of a small headland spit with no other vessels in the vicinity. We’d only seen a small group of camping kayakers over the other side of the inlet and that was all. The location was about as perfect as we could ever imagine. This is what happened…
Continue reading “Bear Encounter” →
“Do we Brits need to carry a gun? It’s totally alien for us to be armed but the locals here in Hoonah say we are crazy. Not only can we not protect ourselves if we hang out down in Eight Fathom Bight but how have we managed to sail all the way from England without weapons. What about all the other remote bays we’ve anchored in? How do we feel safe? We reply that we’ve never encountered any situation when we’ve felt we’ve needed weapons… and we wouldn’t know how to use them anyhow.” Dave
The standup arguments we have are always friendly enough but most Americans we’ve encountered just don’t understand how we cannot contemplate carrying weapons onboard Sänna. Of course, such discussions are primarily with white, middle-Americans… the regular American guy, but here in Hoonah we’ve been taken to task by a few women too… not the local Tlingit people let me tell you but, well, you know, those more affluent type who somehow feel there’s a threat, the ones who need to carry at least small handgun in their glove compartment ‘just in case’…
Continue reading “Eight Fathom Bight Cabin” →
“The general rule is, if it’s a black bear try to fight back but if it’s a brown bear then hit the ground and play dead. So, remember this if attacked by a bear… ‘Brown go down, black fight back’. Of course, the chances are that you won’t survive in either case but bears are rarely predatory, you’re in their territory and they see you as the threat. Which in most cases is true, in many instances bears are simply shot dead for being where they at the wrong time – as a wrongly perceived threat.” Bear Attacks of Canada
Henry has now joined us onboard Sänna whilst in Sitka and he’s so pleased to be finally out of school for the summer. Braden, our good friend from the fishing boat Icy Queen also stopped by in Sitka to stock us with fresh halibut and he told us the Coho salmon were now arriving in large numbers before heading up the creeks. So Henry and I fished with a fly reel off the head of the Baranoff River and caught ourselves a large Coho for dinner. The bears are gathering beside the creeks for their annual salmon feast so our exciting project can finally get underway…
Continue reading “Grizzly Bears” →
sailing vessel Sänna 