A Sheet of Glass

There are days when the water looks like a sheet of glass.

When you describe boating in Alaska to someone who has never been here, they think of wild water and towering waves. Television shows like The Deadliest Catch reinforce this vision of terrible conditions.

While the outside waters may occasionally match the stories, with seas often well over ten feet, inside waters are different. Here bad conditions are anything over four feet, with two to four foot seas rather typical. Three to four foot seas are not all that dangerous to a vessel with any substantial size. Not dangerous, but rather annoying to drive through.

When listening to the marine forecast each day, the magic words every mariner loves to hear are “two feet or less”. The forecasters never predict anything less than this, the “or less” part can include flat.

There are those magic days, when you motor over a sheet of glass reflecting the mountians and trees that soar overhead.