After checking out the bones, we taxied to our campsite, and from there we explored a number of little islands, camping along beaches and clam shell middens. The paddling and scenery were great. We had some fog, but otherwise the weather was ideal. The only bummer of the trip is I found that salt water and electronics don't mix. My camera took a dive the second day of the trip, and hasn't recovered. Fortunately the memory card still works, or I wouldn't have any pictures to share. This is the lunch site at Mamalilacoola where my camera took a swim off the dock.
We took the BC ferry from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy, and it was a very different experience from the Alaska ferries. The boat was new and very swanky, and the food was great. But if you wanted to sit in the front observation lounge, you had to pay. Granted, the lounges along the side of the vessel had great seats, and nearly floor to ceiling windows, so it wasn't too bad. The trip was very foggy, which made the islands looming in and out of the fog more dramatic.
After arriving at midnight in Port Hardy, we spent the night in the curling club parking lot, and then drove to Campbell River, where we picked up another ferry to Quadra Island. In between, we took a hike out to a view over a strait where enormous quantities of dynamite were used to remove a couple rocks that were a hazard to navigation. The trail crossed a creek via a suspension bridge, which was fun to navigate, and only a hazard if more than one person tried to cross at the same time.
We arrived in Prince Rupert, BC at 3:30am after a long ferry ride from Wrangell on the ferry M/V Taku. If we had to do this trip again, I'd have tried to avoid traveling on the Taku. It's a smaller ferry, and besides the awful food, just seems more run down than the others. This is the container port next to the ferry terminal, that was busy loading and unloading containers and was all lit up in the early, early darkness.
While in Wrangell, we took a hike to Rainbow Falls. The falls themselves were not very impressive after our many sunny days, but the trail itself was pretty impressive. It's just under a mile long, but there are over 700 steps to climb. We fortified ourselves with occasional wild blueberries along the trail.
As we were loading onto the ferry in Petersburg we pulled out a camera and were able to get some photos of our journey onto the boat. This is a shot of the harbor from the ramp leading into the ferry. 
Here we are starting to load onto the M/V Taku.
Here we are halfway down the ramp watching the car ahead of us load.
We are parked so that we will be the first ones off the boat in Wrangell. There were not very many vehicles on this ferry with us.
On this journey we travelled through the Wrangell Narrows, in some places the channel was only about 300 feet wide. There were over fifty channel markers the captain had to navigate through.
We're back to civilization after our three day kayak trip to LeConte glacier. We did a guided trip with Tongass Kayak Adventures, and had a great time. The kayaking was beautiful, the weather was remarkable, and the people were great. One of our guides said she'd never done a trip where it didn't rain at least once, so we felt priveleged to have spent several days in the sun.
It was very interesting kayaking with a group instead of on our own. On one hand we felt much more secure, and even paddled in our shirt sleeves for most of the time, and it was also fun to meet and interact with other kayakers. We did a lot of laughing around the fire ring, and it was very decadent to be served excellent food after padling all day. But it felt strange to be a little duckling following the momma duck all day. The picture above is one of our lunch spots showing the power of the tides in the area. When we pulled in, the water was out near that point, and we followed a little creek to beach our boats. By the time we were done, the tide was pushing our boats up the inlet.
The tides also strand small bits of iceberg, called bergy bits (really) on the beach. This one was about 6 feet tall. Our base camp faced out towards Fredrick Sound, and the icebergs that calve off the glacier get trapped at the entrance to LeConte bay because there's a big terminal moraine under water. At low tide, it's visible nearly across the entire mouth of the bay, and so as the tide receeded and the bergs hit the mud, they also tend to turn over or break apart.
By the way, those little black spots on top of the iceberg are a pair of bald eagles. The kayaker is our head momma duck, Marja, taking a moment to look up at an iceberg.
The ferry ride from Sitka to Petersburg was pretty uneventful once we got on the boat. We saw a few orca and some humpback whales along the way, but mostly took a couple of excellent showers, napped in our cabin, and had a halibut burger from the cafeteria. The room was simple, with a couple of bunks and a bathroom, but it did have a window. I was asleep as we approached Petersburg, but Cheri got some great shots of the sunset.
This is a view from the water looking back towards Sitka. The little rock in front is covered with Gulls and Cormorants.
Mount Edgecombe is an old volcano across the sound from Sitka.
The second trip we took, we launched from the beach near our campground at Starrigaven bay and paddled around another group of islands (the name escapes me at the moment) to the north. We were on the water only a few minutes when these four sea lions came to investigate us. They spent several minutes checking us out before moving on.
Lots of eagles in the Sitka area. We saw one catch a fish right in front of us on the water and then carry the fish to its nest.
This is one of the beaches we stopped at. We nick-named it clam beach because the beach was a mix of broken clam shells and black gravel. Each beach we found was different, but it was wonderful discovering these little secluded private spots. I don't think the picture does it justice.
