Anan Bay & the Anan Wildlife Observatory

July 2, 2021

What a great morning. Ok, it’s overcast and there are few dozen pesky gnats flying around, but hey, did I mention that I’m unemployed and don’t have to worry about work?

The tides looked favorable for launching and we headed to the Anan Wildlife Observatory around noonish. The guide info said to enter the lagoon – bad idea! The tide was such that we got in but quickly realized the tide was out fast. We decided to abandon the lagoon though not before the current launched us in the wrong direction getting us stuck on rocks! Christian and Tonia hopped out to lighten the load and help maneuver. Matt also got out and realized his Alaskan sneakers (aka Xtratuf boots) were not quite high enough. We did manage to get free and Tonia and Christian rock climbed up to the trail, which was thankfully not too far overhead.

We hiked the trail (just about a mile from trail head) to a lookout station over the freshwater creek passing old and fresh bear dung. We hung out for a long while with no bears in sight. We finally decided to call it and head back. Shortly into the return hike, Tonia halted the group as she spotted one momma brown bear with her two cubs wandering on the other side of the lagoon. The rest of the observatory was pretty sparse of bears – mostly because the salmon are not yet coming upstream. A lady we passed also said that all the trails were recently upgraded, and it has temporally moved the bears farther away because of the noise.

It felt great to finally get a real hike in!

Momma bear with two cubs: 1st pic shows we were at a distance; 2nd pic cropped to show one baby crawling on mom and other jungle-gym playing on fallen trees (same for zoom-in below)

Upon getting back to the dinghies we found that the trim was stuck up and we couldn’t get it the prop back in the water. With no tools Capt. Steve towed us back over to the mother ship. It took forever! And once back and equipped with screwdriver the trim was fixed in about 5 minutes. [Note to self: add screwdriver to dinghy cubby.]

We had a wonderful dinner of homemade pizza. Steve made a foe hamburger, Barbara made spinach Italian pizza, and we made taco pizza a la Happy Joe’s style.

After dinner we went back to the observatory to see if any fish were coming in at high tide and thus bring in the bears. The fish weren’t running but we did get to see one solo bear and the mother and two cubs on the shore entrance to the stream.

Here are a bunch more pics from the day: