Juneau! Boom!

Can’t believe we are in Juneau! Arrived yesterday early in the afternoon. It was around 120 miles from Wrangell and took us 8 days. This has been a really fun section! The views, weather, and wildlife sitings have been AMAZING! Lots of encounters with shallow waters also known as tidal flats haha. Got a leg workout in the day we left Wrangell. I can’t remember how many times we had to get in and out of our boats to drag them! Would have been pretty entertaining to watch I’m sure. They may call it Dry Straits for a reason haha. After LeConte Bay we headed into the Frederick Sound and found some great campsites. At a spot near Pt Vandeput we saw several humpback whales in the area and they were breaching and vocalizing. The sounds were really cool, and we had one breach within 20 feet of us and fluke! It almost seemed like they were following us because as we paddled out of the sound toward Stephens Passage and the Seymour Canal and they continued to be everywhere. We counted 17 flukes within a two hour period one day. As we crossed over to Admiralty Island we passed through the Five Fingers Islands and stopped at the lighthouse there. We paddled up to the lighthouse just to check it out and saw a lady, Janet, waving at us. She invited us up, and we got to check out the views from the light! That night we camped on Gambier Island just south of the Seymour Canal entrance! Definitely wanted to camp on islands during this stretch because Admiralty Island has a larger population of brown bears than people. The ratio of bears and humans is 2 to 1! A fun little fact. Alaskan brown bears are larger than grizzlies that you see in the lower 48! Just saying haha. We paddled up the Seymour Canal rather than taking the Stephens Passage because its a bit shorter and we wanted to do the tram portage over land into the Oliver Inlet. We are all about doing more work apparently, ha! Of course true to Kelly and Brooke fashion, when we arrived at the end of the canal at the Seymour Cabin the tide had become too low and we couldnt paddle up the creek to the cabin so we did a little boat dragging as far up as we could without destroying our boats. Good thing we didn’t arrive any later because when the tide went all the way out it was at least a mile from water to the cabin! Probably one of our only truly scary moments of the trip was when we got out of the boats to scout out the situation and find the cabin. There were giant and I mean giant bear prints everywhere along with bear scat and fish remnants all along the shore. We immediately started making lots of noise which means lots of singing! It took 3 long trips to get the gear and boats up to the cabin. Found the tram tracks and walked the boards over to the Oliver inlet to retrieve the tram for the morning haul. It was super cool, and exciting to be in the interior a bit since we are always on the coast. Next morning we loaded the boats up and pushed the tram over. Another crazy bear moment. Right as we started to push the gear we walked past a freshly wet bear print on the boards. We probably just missed it which we were happy about and the loud singing began again! The paddle out of the inlet and into Juneau was awesome. At the end of the inlet was a tidal rapid. We were paddling along in glassy, lake like waters when we hear the roar of the water. We both looked at the charts and were like there is no river coming out ahead?! Then we rounded the corner and boom! There was a downhill rushing mini river. We weren’t scared of the rapids but it looked super shallow and with loaded fiberglass boats you worry about busting a hole in the hull. Didn’t have much of a choice though. The current was sucking us in! It ended up being awesome. We shot down through there. There was a large standing wave/rapid at the bottom we avoided! Going to be in Juneau a couple of days. Staying at a friend of a friends house. Thanks to Autumn and all her roomies for having us. Super excited about doing a radio interview today on KXLL then seeing a movie! We have been dying to see a summer movie. Going to see The Heat, woo! Also plan to stop at the Alaskan Brewing Company for a brew tour perhaps! Next stop Glacier Bay then Skagway!

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