We’ve been hearing about Excursion Inlet for some time. Located on the eastern boundary of Glacier Bay National Park, it is reported to have spectacular scenery and wildlife without the hassles of dealing with park bureaucracy.

The weather continues to be wonderful. Flat calm and warm if the wind is not blowing. But if you look closely at the sky in the photo above there are cirrus clouds – and you know what that means (frontal weather on the way).

These white marked porpoises have a totally different style of swimming than what we are used to seeing. Rather than leaping clear of the water, they plane on the surface, with about a third of their hull form immersed. There appears to be a lot of turbulence associated with this. It might be a fishing technique, as we observed them doing this away from our bow as well as close in.

These porps also use a different bow riding technique than we’ve observed before. They work the pressure wave swimming directly forward, and then shoot off to the side, as shown above, for a breath of air.

We are seeing more orcas this summer than last. There was a large family working the same current shear lines as the porpoises. Apparently they live in peace. These are the smaller members of the family.

That looks like a male, showing off his physique. There was a huge male at a distance, with wonderful white spots, but he did not come close enough for us to get a photo.

This chap was within a boat length, and we had to zoom out all the way to make the fin fit in the frame!

We’re anchored in Sawmill Creek, on the western arm of Excursion cove. The mountains to the east are the normal Alaskan breed of spectacular.

But as they are at more of a distance than what we’ve been used to the last few days, they are not so awe-inspiring (maybe we’re getting a bit jaded).

These three photos have all been taken with a 200mm zoom lens.

Both arms of Excursion Cove are quite deep. However, the Sawmill arm, where we are presently, has a small bite at the head of the bay, with depths of 60 to 100 feet (18 to 30m) before it goes to a drying mud flat. We’ve got the big ROCNA anchor set with 225 feet (67m) of chain. The bottom sounds like rocks, and we’ve got a bite pulling up hill that stands up to 1000 RPM in reverse on both engines, the equivalent to a moderate gale.

The beach at the head of the bay has lots of logs on it, indicating in frontal weather this would not be a good spot to be. But our little cove shows no sign of problems.

Just so you don’t think the sun always shines in Alaska during the summer, we’ve got high clouds now, and the feel of an approaching warm front.

There’s even a hint of virga hanging from the clouds.

Without sun it is a lot harder to get good photos, as we’re sure you know. But we could not resist putting this critter in for your analysis. We were told we’d see lots of wildlife here. The otters have been by to visit. This is the first ungulate of this type we’ve seen from Wind Horse. Can you identify the species? (Hint – there used to be one of these walking through town in a popular TV show about ten years ago.) We had first spotted her across the channel, and then watched as she walked and swam around the circumference of the bay, right to our little cove.

After checking the air she went to some close-by low-hanging branches for brunch, and then disappeared into the forest.

We’re starting to think seriously about the passage across the Gulf of Alaska to Prince William Sound. Although summer weather is mild (relatively speaking) in terms of gales, and the distance is not much over 300 miles, we still treat this as a serious ocean voyage. There is usually a favorable current, and the winds ahead of the fronts tend to be east to southeast, behind us in this case.

The weather of the past week would have been perfect. A nice high sitting over the Gulf and no wind. But we’ve been seduced by some lovely spots in Southeast Alaska. We’ll just have to see what the future weather has in store.