Inian Islands and Cross Sound, Mile 1028

Noticeably wilder and rougher than places located on the protected inner waters, here the force of the winter seas has scraped the rocky shore clean of trees or vegetation, for fifty feet above sea level.
Big ships pass through here without a second glance, bound for Seward, Whittier, or Hubbard Glacier. But the sheltered harbor between the islands is a popular one for salmon fishing boats in July and August.
Small ships - typically with 75 passengers or less - often anchor there when the seas are relatively calm, and send passengers by Zodiac inflatables to explore the storm wracked western side. We launched in such an inflatable from the Wilderness Explorer in May, 2019 to visit the big sea lion rookery. The big 2000 lb. bulls didn’t exactly welcome us..
Sea Lion bulls run up to a ton or more, and it turns out they are very territorial, especially when they are guarding their harems - the females they protect and mate with. Our guide knew this and explained it to us, so we approached the rookery (also called a sea lion haul out) giving it plenty of space.
But we hadn’t figured on this one bull who it turned out, was a little more territorial than his buddies, and all of a sudden he popped up right next to the boat flashing his sharp teeth next to the rubber air filled side of the inflatable.. Time to get out of there.. NOW. Also sea lions are not afraid of people - maybe they know that they are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. So.. another thing that they might want to to which also would not be a good idea is to JUMP INTO THE BOAT! And don’t think they can’t.. if they can jump 3 feet out of the water to land on top of a buoy, they can certainly jump into an inflatable..
Inian Islands was also the place when as a lad of 19, I had my first experience with an iceberg. We spent most of August, 1965, anchored up there in our big fish-buying boat or tender, round tripping the 220 miles to the cannery at Metlakatla, when we were full.
Once something bumping gently against our boat woke me deep in the night. I went out on deck, thinking one of the fishing boats had dragged his anchor into us.
But it was something very different: an iceberg. The size of a small house, it had drifted all the way down from Glacier Bay, 40 miles away. Today, such an event is extremely rare; the glaciers have all retreated miles back up the bay and almost all the bergs melt before they even get out into Icy Strait.
But not this one. The moon broke through the clouds then and the iceberg shone as if it was lit from within. I could see some gravel embedded in the ice, probably scraped off the bottom of some canyon a hundred years before I was born, tried to scrape it out, but the berg was too smooth and moved away in the tide. Then the moon hid behind a cloud again, and all was dark. But it was a totally magic moment that I still remember clearly.