Prince William Sound Day 4 ~ Mallard Bay Tide Pooling

 From the sailing log: "Variable winds 5 kts or less. Mostly cloudy. Seas around 2 ft. Raised anchor at 0940. Heading to Squire Island. Sailing unlikely. We motored out of Mallard Bay, but quickly realized there was enough wind to sail. After the sails were raised, I pinched the wind trying to avoid an island. I lost the wind, Ulu was stopped and I had no control. Sean turned the boat around, we regained control and then went back into the small passage area to Squire Island. Anchored in Squire Island Cove at 50 feet. I did a terrible job anchoring too. The wind was behind me and it just felt backwards." 

We woke at 0630 and headed to shore for tide pooling.

We had 3 or 4 seals very curious about what we were doing, but also, very shy.

Although it is called Mallard Bay, this Harlequin Duck is the only duck I saw.

Autumn pointed out that rock in the center sort of resembles a fish. I quite agree!

There were white sea anemones near this spot, but I could not get a good photo of them.

Can you spot the crab? It's almost in the center.

There were SO many leather sea stars.

Do you spot the sea stars? How many do you count?

Leather sea Star left and a Sea Ochre right.

An anemone consuming some fry shrimp.

Closer view of the shrimp.

The sea anemone was still moving even though the tide was out and there wasn't any water.

Sean spotted this sea cucumber. We were reluctant to touch it because we were not sure if it was poisonous. 

We thought the sea cucumber was much more interesting when the tide came back in, but that presented its own challenges trying to get a good photo.

I finally just plunged my phone under water and took the picture.

Autumn found this broody chiton and yes, I know what it looks like. 

Broody chiton under water. Chitons are part of the mollusk family.

Sean crabbing around! I was glad that we were all enjoying this time together.

Sea urchins.

I forget what kind of star this was, but I had not seen one this color before.

Shrimp!

I really was surprised by how much shrimp were in the bay. I guess this is part of the reason there were so many seals in there eating this morning.

There were a lot of hermit crabs too.

A ton of crabs too. There were obviously at least two different species. I did not think crabs were red until they were cooked. The other species were very spider looking and really blended in to the kelp.

Once the tide really started coming in, we knew we needed to head back to Ulu.

I made breakfast:

We had scrambled eggs, pilot bread and orange slices.

I was truly surprised by how much we all liked the pilot bread. It was also nice to know it wouldn't go bad during our trip.

After eating, we pulled up anchor and headed to Squire Cove.

Coming up: Squire Island.