A Rainy Visit

While in Juneau we picked up Marcia’s cousins Chris, Diane and Diane’s husband, Ron, for a 2-week cruise from Juneau to Sitka with a visit to Glacier Bay National Park.  Chris and Diane have lived in Arizona for over 40 years so we warned them that Alaska weather would be radically different.  It turned out the weather was a bit more “Alaskan” than even we expected.

Below is a table showing the Juneau Airport weather summary for the first 3 weeks of July.  Our guests flew in the evening of July 7 and departed today, July 22. The highlighted dates coincide with their full days visiting.

Date	Max Temp	Min Temp	Avg Temp	Precip
July 1	64	46	55	0.42
July 2	57	52	55	0.20
July 3	58	48	53	0.09
July 4	74	44	59	0.00
July 5	76	48	62	0.00
July 6	84	53	69	0.00
July 7	76	55	66	T
July 8	63	55	59	0.64
July 9	66	55	61	0.01
July 10	61	54	58	0.34
July 11	62	54	58	0.40
July 12	63	56	60	0.92
July 13	58	54	56	1.26
July 14	60	52	56	0.66
July 15	59	52	56	0.38
July 16	59	52	56	0.04
July 17	59	53	56	0.26
July 18	67	54	61	0.08
July 19	59	51	55	0.63
July 20	66	50	58	0.04
July 21	76	46	61	0.00

While our local weather as we cruised certainly varied from that of Juneau, this isn’t a bad representation of what we saw along the way. Fortunately, they heeded Marcia’s warnings and brought their rain gear.

We ended up cutting short our visit in Glacier Bay by two days (using 5 days of our 7 day permit) because Marcia & I felt we had hit the highlights given the weather we were experiencing.

The left photo is Chris, Diane & Marcia at the Bartlett Cove NPS dock.  The right photo is Chris, Diane and Ron at the end of Tarr Inlet with the Margerie Glacier in background.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fortunately, wildlife viewing isn’t adversely impacted by rainy weather. The birds around South Marble Island were abundant and we had a wonderful “whale dance” outside of North Sandy Cove.

 

 

 

 

 

From Bartlett Cove we headed to Sitka via Chatham Strait and Peril Strait.  Along the way we stopped at some of our favorite anchorages.  We shared anchorages with other boats, adding to our impression that this has been a busy cruise season in Alaska.  In Douglass Bay in Hoonah Sound, the other boat there was David Cohn’s Diesel Duck Shearwater which he brought across the Pacific on its own bottom from China in 2013.

The weather began to clear a bit as we headed into Sitka from our last anchorage.  Low clouds hovering above the hills outside Sitka provided a dramatic back drop as we headed into to conclude Chris, Diane and Ron’s cruise with us.

From here, we’re starting our trip south to Puget Sound.  For a number of reasons, we’ve decided to wrap things up early and hope to be back around the third week of August.