Tracy Arm and Ford's Terror

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Saturday June 23, 2012 Sandborn Canal to Tracy Arm Cove

There is not a cloud in the sky this morning as BJ and I sit reading and drinking coffee. I was up early enough to watch the bright sunlight spread across the peaks and seep down onto the water to rest on the bright white head of a bald eagle eating raw fish for breakfast. We stick with scones. The current gives us slow, revolving views of mountains beyond mountains.

Back in Stephens Passage we encountered a stiff wind with plenty of chop which we quartered without too much discomfort for the five-hour trip to Tracy Arm. We saw the first icebergs (called bergie-bits around here) while still in the main passage but many ground themselves on the moraines (bars) at the entrance to each arm. A large current sucked us into Tracy Arm and then escorted us gently into Tracy Arm Cove. It’s a nice place off the main iceberg route and we anchored as closely as we dared to a stream in hopes of seeing bears in the grass flats nearby. From here we have a perfect view of the snowfields, the bergie bits floating by like an opening day parade of white yachts and as we swing we scan the shoreline for grazing grizzlies.

Sunday June 24^th, 2012 Tracy Arm

I awoke at 6:00 AM to another cloudless day and warm enough already to sit in the recliner on the veranda sipping fresh squeezed – no, in the cockpit drinking coffee I watch little diving ducks commuting to work in small flights. They require long runways and furious flapping to get airborne and I can hear the reverse thrust of their wings as they land. Otherwise it is quiet with only the caw of the raven and a distant waterfall. An iceberg glides slowly out to meet its fate in Stephens Passage.

I wrote forgoing paragraph twelve hours ago and our quiet little anchorage offers a different picture now. The clouds rolled in with the wind this evening and we may be rocked to sleep rather aggressively. But it was quite a day in between. The first berg showed up at the front door of the cove and stuck on the reef. They became more numerous as we rolled up Tracy Arm and the wind grew stronger. Williwaws would roar out of the deep valleys above us and then we would turn a corner and the wind would be gone. The walls became sheer and high and hundreds of cascading streams keep these sides smooth and clean. There is always an outflow even on an incoming tide. Around a ninety-degree corner my AIS marked a 186 meter ship and I heard him call that he was comin’ round the mountain. It turned out to be a mid-sized cruise ship. Whether it had spent the night in there or not, I couldn’t say.

By the time we reached the fork in the arm we were moving slowly and dodging ice all around. When a speedy tour boat went past I followed him onward into the south arm of Sawyer Glacier and he seemed to know a path close to the wall that was clear enough. Between us and the face of the glacier was about a mile of moving ice flow (covered with seals) so I dropped the dinghy and Kira and I went further into the ice flow where we could turn off the motor and hear the seals grunting and the glacier calve. It was as close as we needed to get to its rugged face. My guess is the harbor seals give birth here on the ice in order to be safe from predators. We saw lots of cubs. The face of South Sawyer Glacier is jagged and pieces constantly crack and fall. It takes a second or two to hear the roar and then look to see the pieces slide into the water. Then you can feel the mini-tsunami roll across the floating ice. BJ stayed with the mother ship in more open water. On the way back the ice had moved and we had to push our way through the bergie bits to make a path. The chunks of ice push back and we were careful not to get between the big bergs. The 36 degree water is a milky blue while the sun is warm. We packed warm clothes for glacier watching but today we needed only sweatshirts.

Monday June 25^th, 2012 Tracy Arm Cove to Ford’s Terror

I think the wind blew all night. I got up once and we were rocking but we were also stuck tight so why worry when you can sleep. By morning the low clouds and rain made us question our plans to see the tall beauties of Endicott Arm but since Tracy Arm Cove holds no memories of calm comfort (or bears) we decided to take a look and the clouds are lifting as we enter the broad avenue of Endicott Arm. We never made it all the way to the glacier up Endicott. Ford’s Terror is a smaller watery canyon seldom entered by boaters because of its very narrow, shallow entrance and tidal currents.

We used the Douglass cruising guide to determine when to enter Ford’s Terror and because it’s all unsurveyed we were dependant on a hand drawn map in the guide. Low slack was an hour and a half after the tide change in Holkham Bay and we hung out at the entrance until it was slack then proceeded dead slow calling out depths and looking for evidence of rocks in the opaque water. As it turns out low slack may be easier than high slack because you can see the rocks and shoals that are not visible at high tide. The channel was perhaps only 100’ wide and 10’ deep at its shallowest and it was frankly nerve-wracking. Charts are worthless and I will mark what I remember on the Douglass map for next time.

Past the entrance the depth drops off and the kelp becomes a better marker of the edges so we could look up at the sheer granite walls rising thousands of feet above us. Countless waterfalls cascade down and one stream in particular has cut a deep channel in the face. We slowed in order to absorb what we could. The narrow path ends in a tee and “not knowing which was best we took the one less travelled by” which before long ended in a beautiful bowl with snowfields and steep forests to the waterline. We scouted depths along the edges for a place to anchor and dropped it in 60’ off a stream bank at low tide, which we also marked on the map for next time. Efforts like this deserve a nap and afterwards Kira and I took kayaks over to the mud bank, which was rapidly disappearing under the incoming tide. Kira watched clam bubbles, and poked around in the shallows until they disappeared. Back in the kayaks we pushed up the stream and rode it back out – several times. Kira then returned to her 495-piece puzzle with five holes.

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Photos

Sandborn Canal
A peaceful morning.

Tracy Arm Cove
Polar Bear on a surfboard

Glacial Valley inside Tracy Arm
From whence the williwaws come.

South Sawyer Glacier
Panoramic view of South Sawyer Glacier in Tracy Arm

South Sawyer Glacier
The face of the glacier is a dense blue.

South Sawyer Glacier
Would you like your bergie-bits blended or on the rocks?

South Sawyer Glacier
Seals on ice.

Ice flow in South Sawyer Glacier
Little Isa

Fords Terror
This "little" Fiord is inside Endicott Arm.

Kira in Fords Terror
Kira is our explorer/marine biologist.

Ford's Terror
Returning from wilderness exploration.

Ffords Terror
Snowfiled. Site of an old avalanche.