Lots of Bears

After writing the blog last night, Abby and I went to dinner and then drove around the sound to see if any bears showed up to feast on the thousands of salmon.  We were not disappointed.

There were a "Sow" and her cub.  The "mom" had her cub standing at the edge of the forest while she would walk to the water, grab a salmon and bring it back to where her cub was standing.  She ate the salmon and then repeated the process so often, we wondered how she could eat so much.

We watched for close to a hour before the bears wandered into the forest.  We drove down to the hatchery to see if any bears showed up.  Unfortunately we didn't see any.

The tide was out and the exposed ground was littered with carcasses of salmon.  The seagulls were having a field day.

In the picture above an interesting dynamic is going on.  If you look carefully (double click the picture to enlarge) you can see the water runs from right to left and the seagulls are floating backwards.  When they get to a certain point, they take off and fly back upstream, land and float backwards again.  They are looking for salmon they can peck on while they are floating.

We left the hatchery and drove back to where we had seen the bears..  This time there were 4 bears.  A sow with 2 cubs and a male bear on the other side of the stream

This is the male.

These are the mother and cubs.  Sorry the picture is fuzzy but we were taking these photos from probably 50 yards with the zoom function.  Abby and I also kept people between us and the bears.  Can't be too careful!

We drove back to the RV around sunset just in time to see the moon rise over the mountains again.

The top picture is the daytime view and the bottom is the nighttime view.

Abby took this great photo.

We had a leisurely morning and drove over to see if the bears were back.  They were!

This time a sow with 2 cubs were roaming the stream and a male 20 yards away.  There were several professional photographers with their $6,000 lenses  mounted on tripods snapping away.  This stream empties into the sound through a big steel pipe that goes under the road.

The tide was coming in so I crossed the road and climbed down to the entrance of the pipe and observed this action.  The salmon were trying to enter the pipe but there were so many salmon they could hardly move.

We left for the hatchery looking for bears but they still were not there. 

We went back to the previous spot and noticed this genius standing nearly in the same spot where the bears had been less than 20 minutes ago.  The photographers told me he simply drove up, got out of his car and walked to the area without a word to anybody standing around. 

After he walked out I asked him if he realized just how dangerous it had been for him.  He said there was nothing there.  I pointed out the bears coming out of the woods and he turned white.  I suggested to him the next time he rolls up on a site and there are a bunch of people with cameras mounted on tripods, they probably are not taking pictures of seagulls.  No wonder people get mauled by bears.

When we got back to the RV we noticed this boat entering the harbor.  Notice the name.  It is one of the boats showcased on the show "The Deadliest Catch".  In the summer these boats transport fish from the trawlers to the fish processors for a fee so the trawlers don't have to come into port.

The wind is blowing very hard so I don't think we will be fly fishing tonight.  Time for a glass of wine and start the steaks cooking.  We are taking a break from seafood.