Shane and I just returned from a trip to Snowbear country. We had two days diving in Prince William Sound out of Whittier and two days diving Resurrection Bay/Gulf of Alaska out of Seward. We camped for five nights, two in a gravel patch outside of Whittier and three nights on Fox Island in Resurrection Bay.
The scenery is incredible! High peaks surrounded us and the glaciers came right down to the water in places. Snowbear took us out to one of them so Shane and I could swim with the baby iceberg for our tourist photo.
In Whittier we heard wolves howling in the night and saw river otters catching salmon in the stream during the day. Sea Otters floated in the bay on their backs and eagles perched in the trees near our campsite.
Snowbear has a 13 Avon inflatable with 25hp outboard that we used diving. We dove Smittys Cove from the shore but took the inflatable out to dive Esther Island in PWS as well as the Rookery just across from Whittier.
Snowbear had heard that there was a wall at the Rookery (so named because of all the birds that inhabit the cliffs by the waterfall there.) We were diving the other half of our tank from the Esther Island dive but figured that we had enough gas since that dive was only 43 minutes with a max of 75 (we were using single steel tanks with about 120cf of nitrox each.)
Well we found the wall the top was at 100 and it went straight down from there. With the 100+ viz it was an awesome sight. We only stayed at max depth for a few minutes and then started moving our profile up getting in another 45 minute dive.
In Seward we had to hire a water taxi to take all of the camping gear and scuba tanks out to Fox Island in Resurrection Bay. Shane went with the gear while Snowbear and I went to launch the inflatable at the other end of town. We were able to drag this out long enough that by the time we got to Fox Island all the gear was unloaded on the beach.
We were the only ones camping there and though private fishing boats and charters would come out during the day for the most part we were on our own. We did have some nice folks that recognized Snowbears boat come by and give us a fresh caught salmon.
Most of Resurrection Bay is steep slope to the water with no beach/shore but the gravel spit on Fox Island where we camped is an exception. We were happy there were no bear on Fox Island until on the way back we found out there are bear on Fox Island then we were happy that the bears didnt raid our camp and eat us. Right out in front of our camp there is a huge sunken barge and we saved that for our last dive of the trip.
The diving was awesome! Particularly cool was the dive out at Barwell Island in the GOA. With open ocean swell coming in it made for a fun ride in the 13 boat. We found a little semi-protected bight to anchor the inflatable and dropped in to find ourselves in a underwater pocket surrounded by house sized boulders. One option would have been to swim up, over and out. The other option was to swim down and underneath the boulders through passages. We took the second option and dove the Gulf side of Barwell. The swim throughs were a lot of fun and fortunately they were not covered with MEB since the surge was noticeable even at 50. Visibility was 100+ and the water at its coldest was 48F which is about the same as here in Pugetropolis during the winter. The top 30 of water was in the 60s! Between the sunshine, great viz and warm water I thought I was on a tropical dive trip!
After a week diving in Alaska I dont know if I will be able to get myself back into the water around here I might just have to give up diving for a couple of days.
The scenery is incredible! High peaks surrounded us and the glaciers came right down to the water in places. Snowbear took us out to one of them so Shane and I could swim with the baby iceberg for our tourist photo.
In Whittier we heard wolves howling in the night and saw river otters catching salmon in the stream during the day. Sea Otters floated in the bay on their backs and eagles perched in the trees near our campsite.
Snowbear has a 13 Avon inflatable with 25hp outboard that we used diving. We dove Smittys Cove from the shore but took the inflatable out to dive Esther Island in PWS as well as the Rookery just across from Whittier.
Snowbear had heard that there was a wall at the Rookery (so named because of all the birds that inhabit the cliffs by the waterfall there.) We were diving the other half of our tank from the Esther Island dive but figured that we had enough gas since that dive was only 43 minutes with a max of 75 (we were using single steel tanks with about 120cf of nitrox each.)
Well we found the wall the top was at 100 and it went straight down from there. With the 100+ viz it was an awesome sight. We only stayed at max depth for a few minutes and then started moving our profile up getting in another 45 minute dive.
In Seward we had to hire a water taxi to take all of the camping gear and scuba tanks out to Fox Island in Resurrection Bay. Shane went with the gear while Snowbear and I went to launch the inflatable at the other end of town. We were able to drag this out long enough that by the time we got to Fox Island all the gear was unloaded on the beach.
We were the only ones camping there and though private fishing boats and charters would come out during the day for the most part we were on our own. We did have some nice folks that recognized Snowbears boat come by and give us a fresh caught salmon.
Most of Resurrection Bay is steep slope to the water with no beach/shore but the gravel spit on Fox Island where we camped is an exception. We were happy there were no bear on Fox Island until on the way back we found out there are bear on Fox Island then we were happy that the bears didnt raid our camp and eat us. Right out in front of our camp there is a huge sunken barge and we saved that for our last dive of the trip.
The diving was awesome! Particularly cool was the dive out at Barwell Island in the GOA. With open ocean swell coming in it made for a fun ride in the 13 boat. We found a little semi-protected bight to anchor the inflatable and dropped in to find ourselves in a underwater pocket surrounded by house sized boulders. One option would have been to swim up, over and out. The other option was to swim down and underneath the boulders through passages. We took the second option and dove the Gulf side of Barwell. The swim throughs were a lot of fun and fortunately they were not covered with MEB since the surge was noticeable even at 50. Visibility was 100+ and the water at its coldest was 48F which is about the same as here in Pugetropolis during the winter. The top 30 of water was in the 60s! Between the sunshine, great viz and warm water I thought I was on a tropical dive trip!
After a week diving in Alaska I dont know if I will be able to get myself back into the water around here I might just have to give up diving for a couple of days.
