Turnagain Arm with a Bore Tide

An annual Korean festival was being held in Anchorage today, so you know we needed to attend. We stopped by and saw a martial arts demo, Korean Folk dancing,   and food being prepared.                                                                          This was like a waffle iron with fish shaped griddles being filled with a batter & sweet red bean filling. yum!                                                             The food was so good and I was able to try things I have never heard of before.                                                  This cutie little girl will be presenting flowers to the Mayor later and acted as a translator for the women she was with.      

After the festival we were off to Potter Flats, an accidental marsh, that was created when the railroad was built. The land was altered, creating and filling a pond of fresh water. Now the wetlands are home to many birds. A boardwalk was built around an area of the marsh allowing us an opportunity for bird watching.

Beluga Point,  at Turnagain Arm, is where we will try to see a bore tide and Beluga whales. A bore tide is a wave of water, just after an extremely low tide, moving rapidly landward into a constricted inlet such as Turnagain Arm. The bore tide can reach heights from 1 to 6 feet. With todays negative tide at –1.3 feet we should have a bore tide. Well, we waited  and waited. We could see the water changing as the tide started to come in. The water started to swirl. The swirl grew to what looked like a whirlpool. The rocks that we once saw in the silt were now covered with water. Unfortunately, no bore tide today, or Beluga whales, but it was neat to see how fast the tide moves in here. We are used to having a 5 or 6 foot tide, here it is 33 to 38 foot, so you know that water moves fast to bring that much water in.  After about an hour we drove up the road towards Portage and what did we get to see? Yup the bore tide! It needed room to grow. From where we were watching for it, to where we saw the small 1 foot wave, was about 3 miles up the inlet. When we caught the first sighting of it, it looked like the wake off a small boat (waves the boat puts out). We were able to get to a pull over and could watch the wave of water move in.                The bore tide  may not look like much but we were very lucky to get to see this. Yes another lucky day!

Isn’t is pretty here even on a cloudy day                                                

The dead trees that you see here are a result of the 1964 earthquake. When the ground shifted and dropped, the saltwater hit the spruce trees, killing them in time. I think it is amazing how long ago that they died and that they are still standing today.

Turnagain Pass, a great recreational area at mile post 70, will be home for us tonight. This is a beautiful valley with fog rolling in on top of the snow covered mountains on either side of us. What a beautiful place to boon dock.