The Crossing

Tuesday afternoon July 6th;
As we hit the ocean swell, our inside passage ends and our outside crossing begins. As we go through Crossing Sound, one can look up into Glacier Bay providing there is visibility. Unfortunately although not “pea soup” we have only about a half mile visibility.

Wednesday July 7th

After a quiet night of rocked gently to sleep by a gentle swell, we arrived for a short stop at Yakutat. Yakutat is a small fishing community that is slowly upgrading now that the Alaska Marine Ferry stops here. Clearly much of Alaska has changed in the last few years as tourist dollars bring new vitality here.

Thursday July 8th

A 7AM arrival in Whittier and lo and behold the weather is exactly the same as Bellingham when we got on the ferry, cool and drizzly. All day yesterday there was a mixed swell of 3-5 feet and about a 20knot breeze on our stern. I thought it was both typical and tolerable, but quite a few people seem to stay in their cabins or generally in a prone position.

We decided to get on through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel right away as we had reservations in Seward and did not know for sure our plans for the next few days. Seward has also gone through some changes in the last few years, and we were delighted to find a new Safeway there allowing us to forgo getting to Anchorage right away for supplies. The rest of the day will be spent resting up and mapping out plans.