Sandy Cove and Endicott Arm
Yet another brilliant sunshiny day greeted us as we awoke this morning on our way to the first stop at Sand Bay. After breakfast we subdivided into two groups—the kayakers and bushwhack hikers. There is no trail at Sand Cove, only bear trails and a creek navigable on foot in our now much appreciated rubber boots. The first thing we noticed after taking off our life jackets were tracks across the sand. “Wolf” said Linda, our track expert. A short distance away were bear tracks and moose tracks—seems like there is a lot of animal traffic around Sand Cove. The long hikers sloshed their way up the shallow creek bed, accompanied in places by numerous humpback salmon heading for the spawning beds. Heading into the woods for a brief excursion, the short hikers found possibly the best huckleberry bush in Southeast Alaska. The prolific berry crop provided a nice snack for ten of us with lots left for future visitors. In the woods we advanced our botanical skills by examining several unusual plants, including a rattlesnake plantain (an orchid!), pink wintergreen and one-sided wintergreen.
After we all returned to the ship, the next event was a polar swim in frigid waters of Stephens Passage. Altogether 27 intrepid bathers took the plunge with a variety of immersion techniques ranging from a reluctant splashdown to enthusiastic flips and cannonballs. A few even went back for more!
The afternoon was spent working our way up Endicott Arm towards the Dawes Glacier. This was also a geological venture through rocks formed progressively deeper in the crust revealed only by the profound uplift and erosion that has occurred in the Alaska Coast Range. We began with slates and semi-schists, followed by phyllites, schists and gneisses. Approaching the glacier we encountered outcrops of granite that were once a pool of molten rock 25,000 feet below the surface. All of these rocks formed the near vertical walls of the fjord that soared from sea level to nearly 6000 feet. Just as we arrived, the Dawes Glacier greeted us with a thundering sector collapse of a couple hundred linear feet off the front face. This produced a shock-wave tsunami that gave the National Geographic Sea Bird a roller coaster ride as it reached our ship. It elicited a wave of cheers from those of us hanging out on the front deck.
