Basket Bay

6-24-06 PAVLOV COVE AND BASKET BAY: Our last full day in Northeast Akaska. It is typical weather for here, calm, 50’s and showery with cloudy, overcast skies, low lying clouds and fog. We have not seen the moon or any star in a week. Low tide has been in the am and high the usual six hours later with a rise and fall of about 6-8 feet. We have seen very little current except in Cross Sound by the Inian Islands where we were riding the Pacific rollers. Sunrise is about 4 am and sunset at 10 pm, twilight is about 2 hours long before and after. At one am last night, the midpoint between sun up and down, it was not dark, but still dusk.

This morning we kayaked again in Pavlov, yes that Pavlov, Cove. Judy and I are pretty good now in calm, flat water. The water, sea water, is quite clear. The cove is on the eastern side of Chichagof Island in
Chatham Strait. We paddled up to a low waterfall, took pix, watched fish jump and then back to the boat for a lecture, lunch and a short hop to the next stop, Basket Bay, about which the staff are being secretive, but hinting that it is great.

Basket Bay had to be done in the afternoon at high tide. Many of the staff had never been there. It is a small squarish bay with a river input at one corner. There are unusual grey rocks all about the banks. Entering the river immediately discloses a cave, short with a open back, actually a tunnel. There are fallen trees and rain forest growth beyond the tunnel. It is a limestone formation. At another spot with a deep, narrow river-cut ravine bedding can be seen in the limestone at the entrance to the ravine. The bedding is vertical indicating that the whole formation has been tipped up on its side probably when it was accreted to Alaska. The limestone shows a lot of karstic, water caused, erosive changes.

Before the captain’s farewell dinner, one of the naturalists, David Stephens gave a lecture on Tlingit, native, art and culture. He showed us reproduction pieces that he makes that were beautiful—museum quality.