Around 8 am two days ago we realized we had 33 miles to Three Saints Bay and 99 miles to Kodiak City and we would not make Kodiak City during daylight. We did not want to spend a third night sailing, so we decided to stop and anchor. Navigating through Three Saints Bay to our anchorage was a little tricky because there were a few bombies or shallow spots not marked on the chart. Thankfully we were blessed with a shinning sun and we could see any unexpected dangers.
Three Saints Bay is divided into two coves or arms at the end of the bay. As soon as we were anchored in the most southern cove we went fishing and Wade spotted something moving on the northern cove beach. We were so excited to see our first Kodiak Brown Bear eating from the river. We were at least 100 yards away and so we slowly made our way closer to the beach. We stayed about 50 yards off the beach and remained in the water as we watched the bear move back and forth on the beach. What an amazing creature!
As we explored the southern cove we started to notice more and more jelly fish. We wanted to see how shallow the bombies were from the surface and as we passed over the shallow head we saw millions of jelly fish, some larger than a foot in diameter. We did not see any bears in the southern cove as we made our way to shore to explore more. We could not even begin to count the thousands of jelly fish we passed on our way to shore.
We are excited to move on to Kodiak because we learned there is a fair/Rodeo during Labor Day Weekend; however, after spending a lovely day here we kind of wanted to explore more. We discovered at night that we were not able to transmit our noon report; nor, were we able to receive weather reports. We decided to stay anyway because our previous weather reported we had a day to spare before the big low crossed over us and the barometer pressure kept increasing giving us the indication that we were not too close to the low pressure center.
Wade had a brilliant idea of climbing the hill on one side of the ridge to overlook the river so that we might be able to view the bears without coming near the bears. Oh my did we have a view! The terrain was a little rough because everything is rock and bolders covered by moss and ferns that hide the rocks so we made each step very careful because occasionally our foot would go through the ground cover between rocks and into a hole. We found a beautiful viewing area (57°09’32″N, 153°32’34″W) and saw one male, one mom, and two cubs fishing the salmon in the river. We watched for at least an hour and laughed as the cubs would fall over when trying to catch their fish. The male was the best fishermen and started to make his way to the beach. We had anchored our dinghy far away from the beach (57°09’40″N, 153°32’17″W)because we hard that bears like to play with and pop dinghies. As we were making our way down we lost sight of the male bear, but thought he was further inland. Just as we were 40 yards from shore the male bear appeared on the rocks. We were told by locals if we came close to a bear be sure to talk and make noise so the bear is not startled, so Wade said, “Hello Bear!” in a very cheerful voice. Sara started filming the interaction. We were both at a safe distant, but then the bear kept walking not toward us but towards the dinghy. We were in the worst possible situation with a male bear between us and our dinghy and above the shore line where we were hiking the brush was generally thick enough that we could not see more than 20 feet ahead. Where the dinghy was anchored was near a steeper incline so Wade made the safe call to climb the hill and travel higher from shore. We got to a point where we could see the entire shoreline and could no longer see the bear so we started to make our descent. Locals had told us that bears are like people. There are older bears that don’t really care about humans and will pay us no attention and there are younger bears that like to be macho. Our prayers were answered with an older bear because we got back to the dinghy with no other bear sighting.
We are on our way to Kodiak City!
Cheers,
Wade and Sara
Vessel Position at noon (-8 UTC) 57° 09.870N, 153° 32.095’W
