Cleveland Passage, AK

Exiting Sikumi, minus dignity

[Sept. 1, 2013] Today, after a morning of fishing off Cape Fanshaw, we anchored in Cleveland Passage and climbed into kayaks - laboriously, off an inflatable dock, and with a lot of help. When you're bundled up in rain fowlies and lifevest, it's nearly impossible to bend in the middle. We had to be rolled into our vessels like sausages into a pan.

Floating over a salmon graveyard

Cleveland Passage is a sound about two miles long tucked between Whitney Island and the Alaskan mainland just northeast of Cape Fanshaw. It's a beautiful, protected place to kayak: lots of bald eagles, seals, and a salmon stream on the mainland.

Once situated in our tippy boats we headed to the stream. At its mouth, fanning out like alluvial deposits, were hundreds of dead salmon lying in mere inches of water. We were directly atop them. It was a little eerie. These were pink salmon who had completed their short life cycle of two years, returned home, spawned, and died. Coho and king salmon live longer than pinks, from three to seven years. We learned that pink salmon are not considered good eating in Alaska; they're used for canning (i.e., to feed us in the lower 48) and for bait.

Pink salmon swimming upstream 

Inside the stream we could see the fish straining forward and occasionally leaping. Three of our party went ashore to take closer pictures. "Watch out for bears," said Mike M.

Sea lion possibly attacked by orca

Further down the beach we came upon a dead sea lion with an orca-sized bite taken out of it. Our theory is that it got away and swam ashore to die. Ashlee, who enters medical school this fall, went ashore to do a post mortem.

Heading south, Cleveland Passage

Everywhere we looked there were bald eagles, both mature and juvenile. They were perched in trees, flying overhead, chasing each other, and crying out.

Don't watch

We continued south, paddling against the incoming tide. The waterscape was liquid pewter. The palette in Alaska, at least the part we saw during September, was almost entirely shades of blue and silver, with accents of dark green and mustard.

Then it was back to the boat, where we learned that getting out of the kayak onto the floating dock was possibly even more undignified than getting in.

And then it was time to head north to Windham Bay, where we were to anchor for the night. On the way the captain called us all on deck to watch humpback whales. When we finished watching them, and looked at the water behind us, it looked like this:

Late afternoon, Stephens Passage

At Windham Bay we set crab and shrimp pots, which we'll return to haul in two days. And then it was off for one of those glacier drinks.

Setting crab pots in Windham Bay