Our Adventures on Cosmo Place

Echo Bay, BC to LaConner, WA September 4 - 12

2011-09-12T16:27:00.000-07:00

Raindancer at Echo Bay Marina

While we were in Echo Bay we also met Jim and Kathy on Raindancer, a lovely 60 foot Selene. Jim and Kathy are apple farmers from Wenatchee, WA, and have been boating and coming to Alaska for years. In fact, Jim came to Alaska as a teenager. They had lots of great stories to tell and we’re always ready to hear boating adventures. They were also headed south Sunday morning, 9/4, so we travelled together for a ways. swapping stories.

Beautiful scenery in Blackfish Sound

Sunday morning we headed southwest through the edge of the Broughton’s and out into Blackfish Sound. We had lovely weather and some spectacular scenery. This photo is taken of the mainland BC mountains to the east. Obviously, they are high enough so that they are always snow covered. Our route took us out into Queen Charlotte Strait, which has the reputation of being windy and rough. We were fortunate, though, and fairly smooth water and not a lot of wind.

Our destination for anchorage on Sunday night was Douglas Bay in Forward harbor. Ironically we had thought we would anchor here on our way north in May, but had lots of daylight left when we arrived at this pont so we kept going and eventually anchored in Baresides Bay, Port Neville. That was a particularly ugly anchorage!

Forward harbor is just on the north end of all those rapids we went through on the way up with Chuck. (Do you remember that story? We thought we had 3 sets of rapids to traverse. We knew we needed to arrive at the first set of rapids just before “slack water” and check and rechecked our calculations. We ended up following “Georgia Lee”, a big cruiser through the rapids and, after successfully making through those three sets of rapids we were feeling pretty smug. The Georgia Lee captain really burst our bubble when he told us we had two more sets of rapids to go!)

Sunrise in Forward Harbor

Our anchorage in Forward Harbor, near Rainmaker, was lovely. We dropped the dinghy so we could join Jim and Kathy for dinner. What a treat to “eat out” in the middle of nowhere! Eventually there were four boats in addition to ours anchored here for the night. Yep, a pretty place! The photo is of Forward Harbor at sunrise on Monday morning.

Monday morning we pulled out of Forward Harbor, turned south, and almost immediately were in the first set of rapids…Whirlpool Rapids. Our plan was to go through the rapids at high water slack…and we would chase this perfect condition as we proceeded south. The five sets of rapids cover a distance of about 30 miles…almost four hours of travelling time for us, at 8 knots an hour. Our goal, as always, was navigate the rapids in calm water and avoid the whirlpools that can form in these areas…and we did just that! We had no problems at all. Hmmmm, maybe we’ve learned a thing or two in our travels this summer.

Dahl's porpoises in Cordero Channel

Jim, Kathy, and Raindancer left us after Green Point Rapids, choosing to spend another night in this lovely country. We continued on. The most exciting event through the rapids was seeing this flock? flotilla? herd? bevy? of Dahl's porpoises headed north in the channel. There must have been 3 or 40 of them swimming past us...arcing and jumping through the water. Quite a site!

Resort in Big Bay

About halfway through the run, we came to an area called Big Bay…just after Dent Rapids. This area has several big resorts, complete with docks, power boats, and golf courses crawling up the steep hillsides. Since this was Labor Day…both in the US and Canada…everyone seemed to be frantically packing in a last day of fun on the water. This photo shows you one of the more spectacular resorts.

Sunset at Squirrel Cove

We spent Monday night (Labor Day) in Squirrel Cove. We had stopped here on the way up, but had moored at the small dock. This time we proceeded into the cove and a very quiet, but busy anchorage. I counted 16 other boats anchored here. Although pretty, it wasn’t the isolated, serene anchorages we’ve become accustomed to. This anchorage is on the edge of Desolation Sound, a very popular cruising destination and very accessible from Canada and Washington. We didn’t explore Desolation Sound itself…it’s supposed to be beautiful…and put it on the list for next year.

Pulp mill at Powell River, Malaspina Strait

We made a fuel stop in Powell River, on the Malaspina Strait. Powell River has a huge pulp mill and this is the mill that replaced the pulp mill at Ocean Falls, that sad little abandoned town we had visited. We resolved to never stop here again…the fuel dock was difficult to get to, tiny and very expensive. At this point we were sooooo ready to get back to the US!

Pender Harbor houses

The folks on a sailboat next to us in our slip in LaConner recommended stopping in Pender Harbor. They love this spot, just half an hour or so north of Vancouver, and we decided that would be our stop on Tuesday night. Since we’ve become big fans of anchoring out, we did not even consider using one of the many moorages in Pender Harbor, and there were lots of marinas! It’s a very crowded place with lots of houses on the hillsides. Our boating book references directed us to an anchorage in front of a park with “good holding in sticky mud”. We had a difficult time anchoring…could not get the anchor to bite! We could hear it dragging over the rocks. Never good! Finally we got the anchor to hold and it was a good thing…we had lots of boats anchored around us…took everybody several times to get a good anchor set. Although we had a warm, sunny afternoon and a quiet night, we both slept with one eye open, worrying about our anchor holding. We left at daylight the next morning and were glad to leave!

Tuesday our destination was Prevost Harbor, Stuart Island, in the US! Yippee!! We crossed the Strait of Georgia with absolutely no problems. The seas were flat and the winds were calm. I love it when it’s like that! We chose Prevost Harbor because we’d been there before with both Jill and Bob and Donald and Dorothy. We remembered it to be a quiet little anchorage, well-protected and out of the way. Well, apparently the Canadians have discovered it…it’s only about 5 miles over the border! I think there were 20 boats anchored there around us! It was a lovely, warm, sunny afternoon so we didn’t really mind all of our neighbors. We’ve had so few sunny days that it was a pleasure to sit in the cockpit, read our books, and watch the dinghies buzz around the harbor.

Smokey exploring the neighboring nordic tug

Our slip in LaConner would not be available to us until the end of the weekend (we had sublet our slip for the summer) so we took off for Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes. Greg, the boat broker we used to purchase Cosmo Place, has become a good friend and he can always find a slip for us on his Nordic Tug dock. As it turned out, we rafted to another Nordic Tug and sat right next to the shore. We had a great view of the bark park, and the marina. Smokey really enjoyed wandering the decks of the boat to which we rafted.

We were able to walk to the grocery store and get wonderful fresh produce…something we didn’t see much of in Canada! It was great to be back inn contact with friends and family through cell phone and Internet service. We even went to the movies one night and saw “The Help” about black maids in Mississippi during the 60’s. It was excellent!

Sunset bonfire in Washington Park

Saturday we were invited to a potluck supper/bonfire in Washington Park on the north side of Anacortes, facing Guemes Channel. It was a clear, crisp evening and we watched the full moon rise over the trees. Magic!

Sunday morning we went to church at Anacortes Lutheran and caught up with the many folks we’ve become acquainted with there. It felt like we were home!

Monday afternoon our slip was free, so we brought the boat back to LaConner. I’m working frantically to get the last entry to the blog finished. Jerry is changing oil and then we begin cleaning the boat, inside and out. The cat fur alone will keep me busy for a few days. We’ll also wax the outside of the boat and winterize it, so that we can leave it for several months.

So, there you have it…the whole story of our trip. We were gone 16 weeks and one day and put 357 hours on the engine. How many miles? Well, I don’t know since the boat doesn’t have an odometer. Figuring the distances is a winter project using the navigation software. That will take me awhile! Had I been a little more on the ball, I would have been figuring distances since we departed…oh well!

We are already talking about next year’s trip to Alaska and hope you will be able to come along!

Shearwater, BC to Echo Bay, BC. August 20 - September 3

2011-09-04T09:41:00.000-07:00

Ocean Falls harbor mermaid

On the morning of August 20 we had hoped to head south toward Queen Charlotte Sound and get set up for crossing that corner of the open ocean on August 21, but this was not to be! Our friends, Doug and Jill on “Passages” have an Internet weather service that told them there were gale warnings in Queen Charlotte Sound for several days. Yikes!! Didn’t want to go there! Apparently it wasn't time for us to start the last leg of our cruise. We decided to go instead to a spot only about three hours away…Ocean Falls. We went through Gunboat Passage and Cousins Inlet and, as we turned the final corner could see Ocean Falls in the distance. It looked like a considerable town! We could see the falls coming off the dam, what looked like a sizable hotel and lots of houses. We were even greeted by a mermaid as we came into the harbor!

Ocean Falls in its declining glory

When we got closer we could see that hotel windows had no glass, the houses, were falling down and the town was deserted. Ocean Falls began as a paper mill town in 1912 and was eventually owned…yep the whole town…by Crown Zellerbach. In 1970 or so, C-Z decided that the paper mill was no longer profitable and sold it to the Canadian government. The government limped along with the paper mill for a few more years, but by 1980 even the government said it was a losing proposition. They shut down the mill, and since that was the only major employer in the town, shut down the town, too. The government decided to tear down all the buildings, houses, the pool, the theater, the civic center, etc. and return Ocean Falls to nature. The few remaining citizens prevented the total destruction of the town and what we saw were the decrepit remains of a town that once had 3500 people, five apartment buildings and a hotel (that tall tan building that you see) with over 300 rooms!

Amazing what an inch of rain will do!

The dam and power plant are still functioning and provide power to Shearwater and Bella Bella. While we were there they were hard at work resurfacing the dam and doing some serious maintenance. We spent four days in Ocean Falls, waiting out the storm in Queen Charlotte Sound and enjoying robust Internet access. This non-town has a direct connection to a satellite for their Internet service. Amazing! Ocean Falls has a handful of residents and about 40 people live just down the road in Martin Valley. We had a great time wandering the crumbling streets, visiting the dam, and talking to the few remaining residents.

Declining Ocean Fals Co-op

We met Herb and Lena, the unofficial mayor and first lady of Ocean Falls, even though they live down the road in Martin Valley. Herb is a retired crab fisherman (yep, he was doing “The Deadliest Catch” before it became a TV show!) and Lena runs a little gift shop at the "Marine Way" boat works. She’s there to catch the traffic off the ferry and the occasional tourist that comes to the marina. We met Neil, the marina manager, who had been there about four years and seemed perfectly content with the “small” life to be had there. We met Nearly Normal Norman (Yep, that’s his name!) who has a museum full of scavenged artifacts from the deserted Ocean Falls homes and businesses. Quite an interesting crowd!

Fresh-caught salmon

Jerry and Doug from "Passages" went fishing one afternoon. Doug had a Canadian license so he fished and Jerry learned techniques for catching salmon. Doug's freezer was full of salmon...and Doug and Jill are vegans...so we got the filets from three lovely salmon. Sure pays to be in the right place at the right time!
Thursday, August 25, we departed as soon as we had enough light (at 0620, the days are getting shorter!) determined to cross Queen Charlotte Sound and anchor somewhere south of Cape Caution this evening. This body of water provides our second exposure to the Pacific Ocean on the trip south and we were concerned about winds, waves, and swells. Any combination in even modest size can make for a pretty rough trip. We did fairly well…only had about an hour and a half of starboard beam swells that rolled us back and forth. Once again, the cat was not happy, nor was I. Too much coffee on an empty stomach and the rolly seas gave me a touch of seasickness…my first. Fortunately, Jerry has a stomach made of cast iron, I think! We arrived at another pretty little niche of an anchorage, called Miles Inlet, about 1615. This day’s cruise was our longest in quite awhile! This little anchorage had room for three boats and we were the last one in. Sweet!

Crossing Queen Charlotte Strait

Friday we planned to cruise across Queen Charlotte Strait to Port McNeill for some Internet time and to catch up with Jill and Doug on “Passages”. Queen Charlotte Strait can be a nasty crossing, too, and we did see some swells and fog as we exited our anchorage, but they soon disappeared and we had an uneventful crossing. As we pulled in to our moorage, there was our friend Jill waiting for us. So nice to be greeted! We had dinner and breakfast with Jill and Doug and then we were off again to some of the anchorages in the Broughton's that they had recommended.

On our way north last May we did very little sightseeing in Canada. We were determined to get to Ketchikan ASAP and bypassed many lovely spots. On our way south we planned to correct that oversight! So, first on our list to explore was the Broughton’s. Saturday morning, we cruised northeast across Queen Charlotte Strait, through Wells Passage and into the beautiful Broughton’s. There are lots of tucked away anchorages, a few resort-type marinas, but no towns. Sweet cruising! Our first destination was Jennis Bay in Drury Inlet. This little bay also has a resort marina, but we chose to anchor behind the little island further into the bay. We’ve become big fans of anchoring, rather than mooring at a marina and choose these quiet little out of the way spots every time. As you can see from the photo, we had a bright, sunny, warm afternoon and could even sit outside in the cockpit and enjoy the scenery.

Whirlpool in Stuart Narrows

Sunday morning we were off again...but just a short distance to Claydon Bay, basically just around the corner. We’re gradually making our way east, as we have a reservation at “Pierre’s at Echo Bay” on Friday and Saturday. This resort marina is famous for their pig roasts and the last one is Saturday, September 3. We thought this would be a great way to celebrate Jerry’s birthday and our anniversary. We should have checked the tide tables a little closer when we decided to through Stuart Narrows at the head of Drury Inlet. Unfortunately, we crossed the narrows at half flood…maximum current! These narrows were every bit as bad as those we saw in Canada on our way up. Although we weren’t in any danger, we throttled up to gain steerage to get through the swirly water. My picture doesn’t do the agitated water justice…you’ll have to see the photos in the 8-hour slide show!

Claydon Bay as the skies clear

Smokey on lookout!

Claydon Bay in Grappler Sound was yet another pretty, quiet anchorage and we spent two nights there. We did the usual chores…laundry, baking bread, and tending Smokey. She really enjoys being the center of attention…when she’s not on guard duty!

Sullivan Bay Marina Resort

Tuesday morning we were off again. This time we decided to try a resort marina and enjoy some Internet access. Every few days we simply need to touch base with family and friends to see what’s new. This marina was really something. It’s all on floats…the restaurant, the laundry, the store, and many fancy floating homes. Soon after we arrived a Bell Ranger helicopter landed on the roof of one of the houses. What a way to commute! We had a delicious, sunny afternoon and wandered the docks to see the houses. We spoke with an older lady that I assumed as one of the owners of the resort. She told us that their busy months are July and August and they shut down and leave the first of September. She was from San Francisco and had a very pretty little “float home” with lots of flowers and a glassed in gazebo. She said they have 600-700 boats moored in their marina during the two months and have seen more large cruisers…the 100 + foot ones…this year. While we were there we saw “Crescendo” come in. We’d seen this “large cruiser” in Ocean Falls while we were there.

Jan at Sullivan Bay Marina signpost

I thought this signpost was kind of fun. We really aren’t that far from home! Anacortes is only 265 miles away. There was a sign at the very top pointing straight up…”1,500,000,000 km to the sun”. Hmmm, do you suppose that’s right?

Cohorts in crime?

Anyway, it was an enjoyable afternoon wandering around this funny little place. Of course, Jerry had a hard time staying out of trouble… Wonder what the other guy in the brig did? Looked like he’d been there awhile.

Wednesday, Jerry’s birthday we took off once again to anchor in Berry Cove in Cypress Harbor, about an hour east of Sullivan Bay Marina Resort in Sutlej Channel. Yep, we’re taking our time! This anchorage was one of the places Jill and Doug recommended and they weren’t wrong. It’s a pretty little spot and across the bay we saw a log ramp and evidence of tree harvesting. We hopped in the dinghy and parked at the ramp so we could go exploring. We followed the rough road that had been built to bring the trees out…about 1.5 miles or so. What a lot of hard work!

Beautiful scenery in Sutlej Chanel

There’s also a fish farm here, and we’ve seen lots of them since we’ve been in Canada. These enterprises are fairly controversial in Alaska, since they raise Atlantic salmon for release. The other concern is that parasites grow around the fish pens and essentially kill off the other marine life.

Overgrown logging road

Our anniversary, Thursday, started off foggy and rainy and we decided to stay put in Berry Cove for another day. Pierre’s is about an hour away, so it won’t be too much of a cruise to get there sometime tomorrow. We caught up on chores again. Jerry vacuumed and ran the watermaker, while I baked a new bread recipe (crusty Italian that I’ll slice and freeze for bruschetta) and did a couple of loads of laundry. The sun finally came out in the afternoon and we had another lovely, quiet evening.

Cosmo Place at Echo Bay Marina

Friday, September 2, it was time to pull the anchor and head to Echo Bay and Pierre’s Marina. This stay will be our last big “event” of this trip. It was a short 2 hours to Echo Bay and as we approached we could hear and see two other big boats pulling into their slips. Looks like a good crowd for the weekend!
Obviously, the number one recreational activity here is fishing. Most folks put their dinghies in the water and go search for the elusive Coho. Also in this little Bay is a Canadian Marine Park, with hiking trails and some primitive campgrounds. We thought about exploring the park until someone told us about the wildlife. The bears and the cougars also find the trails a convenient way to get from point A to point B. We decided against that hike!

Billy at his museum

We awoke on Saturday, to some serious fog but hope it will burn off before the day progresses. We put the dinghy in the water and explored the island a little bit. We saw several small cabins scattered along the shoreline. It would take a special person to live so remotely and be so independent. We saw evidence of serious logging here, too. I know the lumber is needed, but the harvesting process sure scares these beautiful mountainsides. Instead, after lunch we took a short hike through the forest to “Billy’s Museum. This place reminded me of Nearly Normal Norman’s museum back in Ocean Falls. Billy has lived here for all his life and has picked up quite a collection of bottles, lures, old logging equipment, etc., etc. He’s even built a logger’s cabin (as he remembered them from his childhood) out of a single cedar log. Billy is 77 years old and going strong!
Finally it was time for the famous pig roast! We sat with a couple and their adult daughter from Nanaimo. He works for the BC ferry system, she's a dressage trainer, and the daughter is a medical student at the Royal Dublin University's satellite campus in Dubai. Wow! They had some great stories. Some pictures:

Jerry, Jan, and Pierre, the pig chef

You will notice that Pierre has an official Pig-roasting apron and a can of Budweiser!

I'm sure each is necessary for the pig perfection that he achieved. The roast pork was amazing!

The pig, Pierre, and Mad Dog

Can you tell that the pig is wrapped in chicken wire? He cooks the pig in a "weber 8 million" over charcoal and starts it about 4:30 AM. The pig comes off the fire at 6:00 PM. That's a lot of cooking!

Pierre, the pig on the Weber and Mad Dog

Yep, that Weber 8 million is quite a barbecue!

We hope to leave Echo Bay Marina around noon today, Sunday, 9/4. Hopefully the fog should be gone by then. We'll make a direct run down Johnstone Strait and, if all goes well, we'll anchor in Blenkenship Bay or somewhere near there. We should be back in the US and cell phone coverage on Friday or Saturday.
As always, we wish you could be with us as we enjoy this beautiful country!

Ketchikan, AK to Shearwater, BC August 11 - 19, 2011

2011-08-19T16:51:00.000-07:00

Downtown Ketchikan from Tongass Narrows

We departed Ketchikan on Thursday, August 11, bound for Judd Harbor on Duke Island. I think I can count on two hands the number of days we have had bright beautiful sunshine since May, and I sure wouldn’t count this day! It was at least clear when we cruised by the city of Ketchikan on our way to the fuel dock, and I was able to snap this photo of the city. The church in the right foreground is the one we attended in June. Just to the right of all that along the waterfront are the cruise ship docks.

Halibut carcasses at Judd Harbor

Our weather soon got overcast/misty/foggy and our six-hour cruise to Judd Harbor on Duke Island proved to be our roughest trip yet. I’m certain we were in 6 – 8 foot seas. Although I know the boat can take it, it is quite disconcerting to see the bow rise up on top of the wave and then come crashing down again. Needless to say, poor ol’ Smokey was on my lap, decidedly unhappy. We were relieved to reach our anchorage in Judd Harbor. We chose this spot because it would have us all set to cross Dixon entrance early in the morning. It proved to be a quiet, lovely anchorage and we chatted over the radio with the other boat anchored there…Doug and Jill on “Passages”, a 50-foot Ocean Alexander. We had seen them out on the water, but had not talked to them. We all commented on these filleted halibut carcasses hanging from a tree on the shore. No one had a good guess why they were there!

After our rough trip to Judd Harbor, we were a little concerned about our cruise across Dixon Entrance…known for its rough water. So, we were up early on Friday and hauled anchor at 0545, knowing the winds and seas are usually calmer early in the morning.

Imagine our surprise and delight when the crossing was very calm, not much wind and just a light chop. Whew! We cruised with “Passages” and “Royal Sounder”, owned by Linda Lewis and Dave Parker, whom we’d seen in Ketchikan. Everyone agreed that we had a great trip across and enjoyed cruising through Holliday Channel and passed this lovely lighthouse on Green Island. Canada certainly knows how to build beautiful lighthouses!

We safely arrived in Prince Rupert, BC, cleared customs, and were safely moored at the Prince Rupert Yacht Club by 1330. “Passages” and “Royal Sounder” were also here, so we met them for dinner and had a wonderful evening listening to the stories of these two seasoned cruising couples. They’re all from the Seattle area, and I’m sure we’ll see them again.

Grenville Channel waterfall

Saturday our cruise took us down “The Ditch”, as Grenville Channel is known by the cruise ships. This long, fjord looks like it could have bee manmade, it’s that straight. Tall, forested mountains are on both side of the channel, so we saw lots of waterfalls. When we came north through here it was cloudy and overcast so we hoped our southbound trip would be prettier, but no such luck. We had the usual rain/mist/fog and even ran the radar periodically. We also saw many lovely waterfalls. No drought here!

Canadian Coast Guard boat in Lowe Inlet

Cosmo Place at anchor in the rain at Lowe Inlet

Saturday night we stayed at Lowe Inlet, a lovely spot that we had missed on our way north. We knew “Royal Sounder” would be anchored there, as we had chatted with them over the VHF on the way south. We didn’t know how many other boats we would find in this popular anchorage. There were a total of 8 boats anchored here, including this Canadian Coast Guard boat.

In addition to “Royal Sounder” we saw “Osprey” owned by Steve and Elsie Hulsizer. We met them in Juneau where we had Elsie autograph our copy of her book about Alaska. We all congregated on “Royal Sounder” for a visit and a glass of wine. Thankfully, Linda and Dave’s tender, “Green Devil” was already in the water, so Linda came and fetched us. That saved us the hassle of getting our dinghy down from the boat deck and into the water…yes, it was raining again!

On Sunday, August 14, we slept in and awoke to a nearly empty little cove! Both cruising couples were in a greater hurry to head south than we were, and it was lovely to sleep until 0800! Our destination was Hartley Bay, an Indian village that was reputed to be very friendly and have wonderful moorage. We had skipped this spot on our way north and we wanted to stop and take a look. The rest of our passage down Grenville Channel was misty/rainy/foggy (of course!) and we didn’t see much of the pretty mountains and many waterfalls. Three hours later we moored at the last open spot on Hartley Bay’s dock and felt pretty smug about our good fortune. This little community is primarily a fishing village and, although the docks are public docks and maintained by the government, they are covered with fishing paraphernalia!

Canoe Journey arrival

One of the canoes decorated with cedar.

As we were finishing a late lunch we heard what sounded like drums and chanting. We popped out the door to see five native canoes coming into the bay! Totally amazing! We dashed over to the central dock and learned that this “Canoe Journey” had taken place over the last 10 days and 300 kilometers. The stop in Hartley Bay was the end of the journey. Through a lot of organizing and support, this journey was created to celebrate the Indian heritage of these small communities and help the young people connect with their backgrounds. The Canadian Coast Guard boat (that red and white one) we had seen anchored in Lower Inlet was one of the support boats for the travelers. This is something I’m definitely going to look up on the Internet, whenever we return to civilization!

That evening, the Canoe Journey participants had a huge celebration in the high school gym, complete with chanting, dancing and native costumes. A few photos:

The little drummer must have been about 3 and did a great job! The dancers in the red and black were the hosts and invited other groups to step in and do a dance amid their drummers. That’s what the folks in the white T-shirts are doing. We were sitting next to the crew from the Coast Guard boat and were invited to join them in their dance. It won’t surprise you to know that Jerry declined but I jumped right in there!

It was a most impressive evening and something we’d not experienced before. You will notice that not everyone participating is a Native American. In fact, the leader of the “red and black crowd” looked decidedly Scandinavian! It seemed that this cultural celebration was supported by many folks in these little communities. Way cool!

Boardwalk thoroughfares in Hartley Bay

One more interesting tidbit about this community: Although we did not venture too far in the rain, it looked like there were very few roads in the village. Everyone got around on quads over many, many raised wooden boardwalks. Hmmm, gonna have to do some research into all of this…my curiosity is piqued!

Monday morning, August 15 we were off once again. We crossed Wright Sound and entered Princess Royal Channel to continue our travels further south. These steep sided fjords don’t offer a lot of stopping places so, even though we wanted to stay in new places on the way south, we decided to stay in Khutze Inlet. We had anchored even here with Chuck on the way north. The good thing about doing a repeat is that we know exactly where to anchor. In my little logbook, I record the latitude and longitude of the spot where we drop anchor as well as the depth and amount of chain we put out. Sure makes the second time around easier! This was not a huge day for us and dropped anchor about 1430. Jerry changed the pencil zincs in the engine and I baked bread. Yum!

Salmon jumping in Khutze Inlet

We could see the salmon jumping like crazy in this little inlet. At the east end of the inlet is a stream and these poor little fish were doing their best to get to that stream to spawn. It was almost comical though…sometimes there would be 6-8 fish in the air at once!

Well, don’t tell Canada, but we just couldn’t stand by and ignore all these salmon jumping around. Surely one of them needed to be our dinner! Jerry fished for half an hour or so and had several hits. One big one even broke his line and took off with his new lure! I took over while Jerry went up to the boat deck to retrieve the net and look what I caught!

Jan and a pink salmon

I have no idea what kind of salmon she is nor how much she weighed, but she was 22 inches long. We managed to filet her and will have her for dinner one of these nights!

Tuesday morning we set off again, down Princess Royal Channel and into Tolmie Channel. Our destination was Alexander Inlet, to a very protected anchorage about 5 miles from the opening to the inlet. We decided we must be spoiled! This winding channel included a mediocre narrows, some steep cliffs and a lot of wooded hillsides…we thought it was a yawn! Hardly worth the 4 miles it took to get to the head of the inlet. We anchored in a quiet spot and watched it rain and rain. We didn’t even cook our salmon…too wet to uncover the BBQ! The best occurrence in this dreary spot was our discovery that our TV and satellite receiver work once again. We’ve come far enough south for our satellite antenna to “capture” satellite signals. We won’t get local coverage until we’re further south, but we can watch the national network feeds once again.

Gulls in Rescue Bay

Jerry dinghying in Rescue Bay

Wednesday morning we were off once again and crossed Mathieson Channel to proceed further east through Jackson Passage and Jackson Narrows. We had chosen a different route going north and wanted to see what this pretty little route had to offer. We certainly weren’t disappointed…a narrow channel, beautiful clear water, evergreen forests on the hillsides and sunshine! Our first sunny day in quite awhile. It’s amazing how rejuvenating a little sunshine can be. We even got the dinghy down ad took it for a spin…hadn’t used it since Beth Was with us at Swanson Harbor! It ran like a champ and the most interesting thing we saw in this little bay was this collection of gulls. I have no idea why they were congregated on this log or what they were waiting for!

Cosmo Place on left, Passages on right

The next morning as we were pulling our anchor, we heard an announcement over the VHF from “Passages” that they were coming east through Jackson Narrows. We had last see Jill and Doug at Prince Rupert, where we’d had dinner together and gotten acquainted. They were also bound for Shearwater and invited us to join them in Mouat Cove, Berry Inlet, that night. The plan was for them to drop anchor in this little, rocky cove and we would tie to them…rafting, it’s called. This sounded great to us! We’d not done this before and were eager to learn how this all worked. Jill and Doug have been cruising Alaskan waters in their 50’ Ocean Alexander for 12 – 15 years and are old hands at all this stuff. We had a beautiful, quiet night in this little cove and awoke to amazing calm water. Look at this beautiful reflection!

Rock and reflection in Mouat Cove

We were off again the next morning and arrived in Shearwater about 1230. When we stopped here on the way north, this little marina was literally a wreck…no power or water on the docks, very little activity, and frustration all around as they worked madly to recover from a severe winter storm. Well! Quite a bit of difference today! The docks are repaired and packed full, the store and restaurant are open, and we realized we were lucky to find moorage without a reservation. Passages came in as well, so we’ll spend another night telling tall tales with Jill and Doug.

Jan, Jerry, Chris, & Jim on "Mariah", April, 2009

A boat from our past is also moored here…”Mariah”! That’s the 42’ Nordic Tug that we rented in the spring of 2009 and took cruising in the San Juans with Jim and Chris Munch. We’ll have to catch up with the crew…another story or two to hear!

As always, we wish you could be here with us to enjoy this amazing trip.

Wrangell to Ketchikan, August 4 - August 11

2011-08-10T10:20:00.000-07:00

It has not been that long since my last blog, but we’ll leave Ketchikan tomorrow on our way to Canada, so I’ll post a short “catch up”.

In my last blog, I think I’d said we would take off for Anan Creek Bear Observatory on Thursday, August 4. That assumed that we would receive Jerry’s medicine on August 3, as planned. Well, it did not arrive until about noon on August 4, so we decided to wait to leave until Friday the 5^th. By this point we had crossed the observatory off our list. The weather was less than ideal and we had received several conflicting reports about the feasibility of anchoring near Anan Creek. We’d looked around for an anchorage close by, but they just don’t exist. Finally, I went on the observatory web site to cancel one ticket…I’d purchased 3 anticipating a guest…and inadvertently cancelled all three reservations! It seemed like divine intervention! So, long story short, we didn’t go. We’ll try again next year.

Thom's Place. Sunny!!!

So, on Thursday, we headed down Zamovia Strait and anchored in Thom’s Place, a pretty little cove near the entry to Ernest Sound. The weather was overcast and foggy/misty so we were perfectly happy to park and swing on the anchor. We stayed there through Saturday. We did such ambitious things as finish a jigsaw puzzle, read, and watch a lone eagle watch us from a tree on shore. You’d think we would get bored with this, and we probably would after several days, but a day of quiet relaxation seems to suit us just fine!

Shot of navigation screens

Sunday morning dawned with pretty weather and light winds, so we pulled the anchor and proceeded south. Anan Creek was just around the corner so we decided to take the detour to see what the little bay in front of the creek looked like. There was definitely very little good anchorage. The bottom went from 100 feet in depth to 20 feet very quickly. We did see one medium-sized tour boat anchored, but there wasn’t room for more. We did explore the shorelines a little but, again, found no good anchorage. We’ll have to figure out plan B for next year. It was a busy spot, though, with a tour boat parked, as well as this floatplane loading up and taking off.

Float plane leaving Ana Creek

After our inspection of Anan Creek, we proceeded down Ernest Sound and out into Clarence Strait. This is one of those bodies of water that connects to the Pacific Ocean, so we listened to the weather on our VHF radio…our primary source of weather forecasts. Since we don’t have Internet access or TV reception, getting solid weather information can be a little dicey. Fortunately NOAA broadcasts forecasts throughout SE Alaska. The information we got was that we would have winds out of the NW at 15 knots and seas of 3 feet. That sounded doable to us! We had decided to head to the east side of Prince of Wales Island, which borders Clarence Strait on the east. We cruised to Thorne Bay and Thorne Bay City Marina.

Jan and "The Claw"

Thorne Bay was heavily logged in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s and, at one point, had a city entirely built on a float. The hillsides still show the scars of logging…no reforesting here! The little town of about 100 people is quite proud of its logging history and even bought this huge claw when the logging industry pulled it. It sits on the edge of town and greets motorists who are approaching Thorne Bay City.

Beautiful Tollycraft and a curious little dog

We took a walking tour of the town to enjoy the beautiful sunshine. We realized we could probably count our sunny days in SE Alaska on one hand! It seemed strange to be out walking without a raincoat! We chatted with our marina neighbors in the transient slip behind us. They were from Canada and had spent hundreds of hours restoring this beautiful Tollycraft cruiser. They had two cute little dogs in life vests running around the boat’s decks. Apparently they were show dogs so, both got a good grooming on the dock.

Smokey even ventured outside in the sunny weather!

Monday morning we had a decision to make…. continue on exploring the east side of Prince of Wales Island or head to Ketchikan. Because of our concern about Jerry’s brother-in-law Danny we decided to forego further wandering and made our way down Tongass Narrows to Ketchikan. We wanted to hear about Danny’s doctor’s visit and what the plans were. Our passage across Clarence Strait was calm and uneventful. We made the trip in about 3.5 hours and our “hour meter” turned over 1100 hours. To put that into perspective, when we bought Cosmo Place it had 600 hours on it. We’ve logged a lot of boat time in the last 14 months! One more little statistical tidbit…it took us 90 engine hours to get to Canada.

This barge is carrying all kinds of stuff!

We moored once again in Bar Harbor, the working harbor in Ketchikan. We are well north of the cruise ship docks, although we watch them go by out in the channel. While we’re here we will do some serious supplying for our trip through Canada, check the boat systems, and be sure we’re ready for an ocean crossing through Dixon Entrance. Our slip is very close to the entrance to the channel so we have a great view of all the boats. We watched this barge tow go by this morning. It’s amazing all the things the load on these big barges. It makes sense, when you think about it, though. To get everything from backhoes to kitchen sinks to these islands, they have to arrive by boat.

We’ve been amazed during this cruise that we usually see folks in our new moorage that we’ve seen in previous harbors. Coming into Ketchikan was no exception. Across from our slip on float 11 was “Royal Sounder” facing us on float 10. Royal Sounder is piloted by Linda Lewis and her husband Dave Parker. It was Linda’s “Cruising to Alaska” class that we attended at the Seattle Boat Show last winter. We’ve seen them before…Petersburg and Cannery Cove…and here they were again! We had dinner with them Tuesday evening and had a great conversation about backgrounds and histories. Linda is a retired U of Washington nursing professor. Well, come to find out, she grew up in Chicago, went to Michael Reese Hospital School of Nursing, worked in Peoria, learned to sail on the Illinois River, and worked as a nurse practitioner in London Mills during the 80’s! Yikes!! (Note: London Mills, Illinois, is the little town nearest the farm where I grew up and where my folks lived after they retired. I’m sure they both knew Linda!). What a teeny tiny world we live in!

Linda and Dave are heading south as well so we were able to confirm our planning about crossing Dixon Entrance, that little corner of the Pacific Ocean, to get to Prince Rupert, BC. We will leave Thursday and get as far as Judd Harbor on Duke Island Thursday night. If the weather on Friday still sounds promising, we’ll leave early and be in Prince Rupert before the winds and seas pick up. After that we’ll spend a month or so in Canada, seeing all those pretty places we missed on the way up.

Not sure when I’ll be able to add more travels to this blog. Internet access in Canada is sketchy at best!

As always, we wish you could be here with us to enjoy this amazing trip!

Petersburg to Wrangell, July 25 - August 4

2011-08-03T18:21:00.000-07:00

As anticipated, we left Petersburg on Monday, July 25, heading south down Wrangell Narrows. Our eventual goal was cruising and exploring the west side of Prince of Wales Island and eventually arriving in Wrangell on August 2 or 3.

Foggy in Wrangell Narrows

Our cruise down the narrows was anticlimactic, due to our good planning. The tide was on ebb all the way down the narrows so we were carried along with the current. It was misty/rainy/foggy and not very pretty. Luckily when we had come north through the narrows, on June 17 (yikes, more than a month ago!) we had decent weather and could enjoy the scenery. We met a few fishing boats, but no big ones so the transit of the narrows was rather boring – just the way the cat likes it!

Jerry and Smokey piloting Cosmo Place

It took us about 4.5 hours to make the trip and we arrived in Totem Bay at 1340. We anchored in about the same spot as last time and found the bay to be lovely and calm, if overcast and rainy. There’s a lot of grassy shoreline and we think we should see at least one bear, but no luck!

Tuesday morning, July 26, we were off at our usual leisurely pace, leaving at 1040. Our destination was

Fish Camp at Point Baker

Point Baker, only about 2 hours away. We had stopped there before and spent a couple of days moored at the US Forrest Service float there. This is the little community built on the float – from the post office to the general store. Once again we found moorage and caught up the news from Herb and Judy. They are the unofficial mayor and first lady of this 40-person community and are always good for conversation. The good news – the restaurant was open and we had yummy cheeseburgers and pie (!) for lunch. The bad news – business is way down, and even the two fish camps across the little cove were struggling.

Wednesday morning, July 27, we were off again to begin our exploration of the west side of Prince of Wales Island. We didn’t have far to go…cruised about 1-½ hours to a little inlet called Hole in the Wall, just south of Port Protection. As we turned south we were facing winds up to 35 knots, according to anemometer. We had about a 3-foot swell and a few white caps. Yuck, not cruising weather that we enjoy. We weren’t even sure we could make it into the inlet.

Entrance to Hole in the Wall

As we approached the very narrow entrance to this little anchorage, the wind and water calmed quickly so we decided to go for it and we were glad we did. This turned out to be a lovely spot to anchor. Overcast and misty/rainy and not wonderful cruising weather qualities! Fortunately, we were well tucked in and well protected from any wind. We anchored in about 50 feet of water, tucked in near the shore at the entrance to the cove. No one else was there! We had this lovely little cove all to ourselves.

Thursday morning was still overcast with foggy/misty/rain. Yuck! The weather forecast (thank goodness for marine weather broadcasts on our VHF radio!) was for worsening weather out in Sumner Strait – where we had to go. So, since we weren’t in any hurry, and we were enjoying this spot, we opted to stay yet another day.

You might wonder what we do when we cannot cruise and the weather is too crummy to get the dinghy down. It’s amazing how we can while away the time! We read, of course. I’m so glad I stocked the boat with books from home that we had not yet read. I think I’ve mentioned before that every harbormaster’s office has a book swap – take one, leave one – and I try to keep our little library fresh. Jerry particularly is enjoying having the time to read. He can quickly become immersed in the latest Clive Cussler or Tom Clancy novel, but has also just finished “Hungry Ocean” by Linda Greenlaw. She is the captain of a fishing vessel out of Gloucester, MA, and her ship was in the same fleet as the “Andrea Gail”, the boat that went down in “The Perfect Storm”. Definitely a good read! Jerry also works a lot of Sudoku puzzles, while I, on the other hand, am a crossword puzzle fiend. We finally pulled out jigsaw puzzles, too. We had received as gifts a couple of those mats that let you roll up a partially completed puzzle so that it can be stored until next time. We got the first puzzle about ¾ of the way done and have yet to pull it out again.

Since I’m the photographer I spend a fair amount of time shooting, storing, editing and captioning photos. I try to download pictures everyday so that I don’t forget what it is I’ve shot! After awhile some of these lovely little coves all start to look the same. I keep a daily log, so that helps me identify the scenery shots, too. I’ve taken about 2600 pictures so far! Thank heavens for digital photography. Anyone who says they are interested in seeing out pictures should really think twice! It’s going to be tough to edit my fabulous photos down to some reasonable amount.

I’ve been doing a lot of knitting and should have several baby sweaters ready for Lutheran world Relief when we return to church in Anacortes. I brought all my scrap yarn to make these sweaters and I’ve enjoyed having this handwork to pick up while we are cruising. While we’re anchored, I like to sit on the bench seat in the pilothouse and listen to a book on tape while I knit. I can watch all the shore activities and enjoy a book at the same time.

I also brought all my knitting and crochet needles and a few patterns, which came in handy while Beth was here. She didn’t have room to pack crocheting, so she dug through my stuff and made headbands and scarves! Cooking takes up time, too. We haven’t been able to barbecue as much as I’d anticipated, so I’m usually putting something together on the stove. The oven and I definitely have a love/hate relationship. It’s small and slow to heat. I’ve been baking bread and I think I’ve finally figured out how to produce a halfway attractive loaf in that ornery little oven!

Juvenile eagle in a pine tree

One juvenile, two adult eagles on the shore

Hole in the Wall cove has been a wonderful place to watch eagles. In the photo on the left, you can see two adults and a juvenile. The juveniles don’t get their adult plumage until they’re about two years old. The juvenile on the right looks like he’s having a really bad day! Actually, they were all pretty wet, although it did not slow down their fishing! When the tide was out, we saw as many as 12 eagles on the mudflats looking for dinner. Exactly what that was, I’m not sure.

Black bear strolling on shore

We also saw three or four bears. They, too would wander the shore at low tide. These were black bears, travelling alone. Each one would pop out of the forest and amble along the mud flats for a few moments before disappearing into the trees. None of them were remotely interested in fishing although we saw fish jumping along the shore. Incidentally, none of those jumping fish were even remotely interested in jumping onto our hook! We haven’t caught a fish since the halibut outside of Hoonah…a long time ago!

Maintenance is also an activity to be pursued while we’re not cruising. Unfortunately our ESPAR heater decided to not deliver heat on Thursday morning. With an outside temperature hovering around 52 degrees, this was just annoying. Jerry, clever guy that he is, figured out that the glow plug needed to be replaced and we had brought a spare! Yippee. This is the third repair to the ESPAR unit (our primary heating source) in the 13 months we’ve been on the boat. Surely we’ve replaced every critical part now. It would be really difficult to be on this extended cruise without Jerry’s knowledge and skills for fixing stuff. Sure makes my life a lot more pleasant.

Chart shot of map down El Capitan Passage

Saturday, July 30, the weather finally sounded better out in Sumner Strait: seas 2 feet, wind out of the south at 10 knots, rainy but clearing. So we left our cozy little anchorage and pointed the boat southwest toward El Capitan Passage. Our destination was an anchorage at Devilfish Bay. Quite a name, huh? An old Native American legend says that a giant devilfish rose out of the bay and washed away an entire village. Locals from Point Baker had told us that the place definitely was haunted and people who stayed there noticed “something eerie” in the air. Wow! Of course we needed to check this out.

Route thru passage

El Capitan Passage proved to be quite interesting. Our Anacortes boating friends, Dale and Anita, had recommended this route and our “bible”, “Cruising SE Alaska” said this route was well marked and do-able in any weather. Yay! Sounded good to us, since our rainy weather was persisting. This route turned out to be delightful although it required close attention to rocks and depths. There were a total of 28 route markers through the tightest 6 or so miles. In a couple of spots it was evident that a channel had been blasted through the rock and it was quite tight. Not the place you would want to meet another boat! We went down the passage at almost at high tide. Imagine what these rocks would look like at low tide – with the water level 12 or 14 feet lower!

Bitter end of Devilfish Bay

Devilfish Bay proved to be beautiful. One of the prettiest anchorages we’ve been in. By late afternoon the sun was peaking through the clouds, the seals were fishing in the waters around the boat, and we saw 10 or 12 bears amble along the shore and across the streams.

Port Protection

We reluctantly left Devilfish Bay Sunday morning, July 31, to make our way back up El Capitan Passage. We wanted to be in Wrangell on Tuesday afternoon, and have a couple of more stops we want to make before we leave this part of SE Alaska. Our destination was Port Protection, just around the corner from Point Baker. We’d heard a little bit about this community on Prince of Wales and wanted to take a look. Like Point Baker it has a state float for moorage and the town has grown up around the float. As we entered the bay, the sun broke through the clouds, we saw a motorboat pulling skiers up and down the bay, rock and roll music was blaring from a couple of fishing boats and we saw fishermen walking on the docks visiting and drinking beer. Felt very much like a resort! We easily found a place to tie up on the state dock, grabbed our books and sat in the cockpit to watch all the goings-on. Unfortunately the state dock is detached from shore, and we chose to not get the dinghy down to motor over to the little store. It just felt god to sit in the sun and watch this little community at play.

Monday morning, August 1, we were off again. Rather than anchor out one more night, we decided to cruise to Wrangell, which was about 7 hours from Port Protection. We were ready to have cell phone and Internet connections to catch up on news. Jerry's brother-in-law is quite ill and undergoing diagnostic test to determine if he has pancreatic cancer. It's tough to be so far from family when a worry like this surfaces.

A mat of seaweed and debris

Do you imagine that the waters of the straits and sounds only contain water and wildlife? Not so! Anything that floats can be seen, and, hopefully avoided! Of course, seaweed of all kinds may break loose from the ocean bottom in a storm and coalesce into big floating mats. Although not dangerous in themselves, the big mats sure could get tangled up in all that equipment on the bottom of the boat. Logs, trees, boards, and any

Seaweed, logs, birds and trash in Sumner Strait

other kind of wood are our biggest worry. Hitting a floating log would do some serious damage to our prop so we're very vigilant to watch for any debris. Seagulls are quite enterprising in their use of these floating "islands" and we often see several seagulls standing out in the middle of a channel. Yup, a standing seagull is a sure sign of a big log in the water!

We arrived iin Wrangell Monday afternoon and were surprised to see the transient dock in Reliance Harbor almost empty. Where are all the cruisers? It was great to have internet and telephone connections again. It was also good to get off the boat and do some walking. We haven't been able to do that since we were in Petersburg. Here are some of the funny things we've seen since we've been here:

This little fishing boat has its own personal guard dog! We later saw this dog and his owner on the dock, along with this little dog's sister. The dog's owner says she loves to go out in the boat!

Now that's a halibut catch! The two bigger ones laying there were bigger than the one that Jerry caught. How'd you like to clean all that???

We walked over to the new harbor to do some dock walking and looking. We saw this old ocean-going tug sitting there. Elegant, even in her decline. I'm sure there are some stories to be told about this boat's life!

   This is Chief Shake's house on the little island just across from our moorage. Wrangell was initially an Indian village and had quite a collection of totem poles, and the island still has several impressive ones. Also of interest in this photo is the extensive mud flat in front of the island. I'm standing on our dock taking this shot, so there's not a lot of water between us and land. In fact, during the new moon tides, or spring tides, we've seen huge drops, at least 20 feet. The morning that I took this picture our depth gauge said we had 6.6 feet of water under our keel. Yikes! We draw 4.5 feet and were certainly ok, but still.....
   We're off to Anan Creek tomorrow. We'll anchor there tomorrow night and go to the Anan Bear observatory on Friday. From there we'll make our way down to Ketchikan, anchoring in some of the pretty little ays that we missed on our way north. We expect to be in Ketchikan by August 10 or so to reprovision, gas up, and check all the systems for our trip through Canada. We plan to enjoy the sights of Canada on our way south, since we rushed through on the way up. We think we should be back in Washington the middle of September, assuming the weather holds.
   As always we wish you could travel with us. We're already discussing where to go next year when we come back to Alaska!

Sita to Petersburg, July 16 - July 24

2011-07-25T01:57:00.000-07:00

Time to catch you up on our travels. As you can see, we’ve made it from Sitka to Petersburg since I last wrote. Actually, we’re officially heading south. Our furthermost northern point was at Swanson Harbor on the south end of Couveden Island: 58^o11’27”N. Our most western point was in Sitka: 135^o21’96” N. To put that in perspective, here are the coordinates for LaConner, Washington: 48°23′26″N 122°29′44″W. There’s some math to be done, there, to figure out the distances…..

Saturday morning, July 16, our route from Sitka retraced the route we had to Sitka, so we departed in good time with an eye to the currents in Sergius Narrows. Although the day was overcast, we didn’t have fog and could see some of the beautiful scenery. We met the fast ferry, Fairweather, once more, in Neva Strait and were prepared for the huge wake we had to bounce through. Our diligent planning resulted in a smooth passage through the narrows. Although this is a good thing, I think it gives us a false sense of security. We haven’t really had a bad passage through any of these narrows since we plan well, so we start to think that there’s not much to them!

We cruised east through Peril Strait and once again saw whales in the distance. You may remember, we came upon a sleeping whale as we cruised west through this area, but didn’t hear any “whale snores” this time! It took us about 7 hours to reach our anchorage for the night, at Hanus Bay on the northeast side of Baranof Island. We didn’t have good information about this anchorage, but decided to give it a try and it turned out to be lovely! We anchored in 40 feet of water. Jerry and Beth tried fishing, again, but absolutely no luck! But, even better, we saw bears! This is the first time we’d seen bears of any consequence. We watched the sow and her two cubs forage through the grass at the edge of the cove for a good half hour! Must be a lean year…they looked rather scrawny.

We went to bed after enjoying a glorious sunset and on Sunday, July 17, we awoke to a beautiful sunny morning. We were a little concerned about the tides so we hauled anchor about 0650. That probably doesn’t sound very early to you, but it seems early to us. Our preferred departure time is closer to 1000! We had a beautiful cruise south along the east side of Baranof Island. The day was bright and sunny and the water was absolutely flat…pretty cool for Chatham Strait, which is a big body of water with an ocean entrance at its southern end.

We stopped at Warm Springs about 1030 to explore the area and enjoy the hot mineral springs. This is one of those places where Alaska’s geothermal activity is capitalized upon. Boaters can tie up to the dock and have a soak in a hot tub, filled with naturally supplied hot water. We all decided to give it a try! The view out the window is of Baranof waterfall. We later hiked up to the lake and wandered around this little “boardwalk town.” Our travel book said to be sure and wear boots to hike these trails. Well, I think the book was written before someone came in and put in lovely boardwalk trails. So. to put them to good use, I waded out into the water to stand on a rock for this shots.

Our destination anchorage on Tuesday was at Red Bluff Bay, where another waterfall greeted us. Once again, the fishermen tried to catch dinner, but no luck! We did have a lovely anchorage in a little cove, and in one of the trees on the shore was an eagle’s nest. We watched mom and dad come and go to feed the chicks. We’ve seen lots and lots of eagles, but being so close to the nest was a first. Our view off the back of the boat was of the lovely falls in this delightful cove. Lots of "photo ops"!

Monday, July 18, we awoke to overcast skies in Red Bluff Cove and, once we got out into Chatham Strait, we found 4 foot waves against our beam and rain. Yuck!! Our destination was Cannery Cove in Pybus Bay on Admiralty Island We had stayed there with Jim and Chris Munch a few weeks before and knew that this was a beautiful anchorage. It seemed like a good place to stop on our way to Petersburg and we wanted Beth to see this lovely little spot. Well, we had quite a trip across the Strait. The cat was pretty unhappy and was glad to have Beth there to hold her. We made it safe and sound…we’ve got a tough little boat here. However, it wasn’t the lovely cruise we had hoped it would be.

We pulled into Cannery Cove about 1300 and couldn’t even see the tops of the peaks the surround this anchorage. It rained and rained and rained. I don’t think the fishermen even ventured outside! Three other yachts much larger than us were also anchored in the cove, and I’m sure they had pulled in to wait out the bad weather. On these days when there isn’t much to see and less to do, everyone usually reverts to reading or napping. While Beth has been on the boat we’ve had many games of Mexican Train and Phase Ten (a card game Jill gave us last summer), but we save those for evening pursuits. Fortunately, we’re well supplied with books and it’s rather pleasant to swing on the anchor, listen to the rain, and settle in with a good story. No phones, no internet, no TV of course…just lovely peace and quiet. A rainy day on the boat just isn’t all that bad!

When we awoke this next morning, we had lifting clouds and clearning skies, although we never did quite see the tops of the peaks around the cove. Beth is a persistent fisherman and threw out a line once more. Again, she got skunked, but did see eagles all around the cove. She has a photo of five eagles sitting on a rocky outcropping in the cove. Imagine! We’ve seen so many that they’re becoming hum-drum, if that’s possible. We can even readily identify the eagle’s funny, high-pitched cry.

Tuesday’s afternoon’s destination was Petersburg. Although Beth didn’t fly out until Thursday morning, she wanted a day to explore this cute little fishing town. We had much better weather as we crossed Frederick Sound, after we cleared the fog coming out of Pybus Bay. As we approached the northeast side of Kupreanof Island, we saw whales again. This time they were breaching! I wish I could insert a fabulous photo but they were just too far off and too fast for me. This was the first time we’d seem them jumping out of the water so we stopped, floated and watched. I told Beth that the subtitle for her visit with us is “Whales!”

We settled into our berth in North Harbor in Petersburg. The photo at the left is our view off the back of the boat. The cannery that you see is “Icicle Foods” and is very busy place! When the fishing boats and the fishing boat tenders are in, they are off-loading fish 24/7!

We met our next door slip mates – a couple from Australia who have been cruising since 2007 on “Betty Mc”. Can you imagine bringing your motor-sailer all the way from Australia?!?

We’d been to Petersburg about a month ago, Father’s Day weekend in fact, so we could show Beth all the hot spots. Fishng is this town’s primary industry and North Harbor is where all of the canneries are. It’s a little aromatic here, but quite interesting. I’m certain everyone in town is a fisherman. We watched a mom and two kids jig for herring right off the dock. Hilarious!

This young man was more interested in feeding this poor, gasping herring salmon roe (bait) than catching more herring. Mom was the epitome of patience! We even watched a sea lion dine on a salmon, right off the end of our slip!

We’ve had several slip neighbors, and several have been fishing boats. The one in the photo is a purse seiner style of fishing boat. We ran across one of the crews at the pizza place at the head of the dock. The captain was quite an interesting fellow. He and his boat were out of Everett, Washington, just north of Seattle. His crew consisted of his son, his two adopted sons, and another young man. It was quite apparent that he was feeling the pressure of having such a young crew. He said he was captain, cook, and nursemaid! His biggest complaint was that he couldn’t get anyone interested in cooking for the crowd…apparently everyone was quite content to eat cereal for every meal!

Beth left us (doesn’t that sound sad???) on Thursday, July 21. Alaska Airlines services all of these little towns and the service is quite good. She flew to Juneau, then Seattle, then Victoria, where she caught a ferry to Vancouver, BC. She has a cousin in Vancouver and will spend a few days with Ann and her family. We will miss her! We love having company on the boat…anyone, any time! Beth is not company, though, she’s family….and such a good friend. She retired from teaching this year so we’re looking forward to seeing a lot more of her.

After Beth left, it was back to boat chores! We decided to stay in Petersburg until Monday and then head south. We needed to capitalize on phone and internet access and catch up with family and friends.

Being in a marina, near a decent-sized town is such a luxury. We enjoy getting off the boat and walking through neighborhoods to see what everyone’s garden and yard are doing. The growing season here in Alaska is short but intense. I suspect that folks with well-manicured lawns mow twice a week or whenever it’s dry enough. According to the Chamber of Commerce brochure, it rains 105” per year, although half of that is in the winter.

On Friday, July 22, Jerry and I did the five-mile loop around the north end of the island. I always take my camera along on these hikes...looking for the funny little shots...like this unique yard art! Petersburg, as small as it is, has lots of parks and outdoor spaces. Perhaps that is due to the Norwegian influence of the town. We’ve also noticed that the town is very clean…the streets are swept every Wednesday morning! Obviously Alaska has more money than California!

I think I mentioined that when we were in Wrangell…seems like 100 years ago…that we went to a movie at the museum theater. We’ve noticed since then that every small town has a similar shoiwng. First-run movies are shown on the weekend at the local auditorium Petersburg is no different. Northern Lights Theater, at the middle school, had a showing of “Super Eight” so we went Friday night. This Steven Spielberg movie was great fun and we’re glad we went. Sadly, not many from town were there, but we had a great time.

Saturday we walked south of town. Because Petersburg is on Mitkof, a relatively small island, there aren’t many roads. The only way to get here is by water or by air. Wrangell Narrows separates Mitkof Island from Kupreanof Island so that channel sees a lot of traffic. It’s the only way to come north on the “inside” and that’s our route of choice. Walking south out of town put us right along the narrows…a lovely walk. As we returned to town, we had this amazing view of the moutains just north of Petersburg. This is the first time we’ve had such a amazing view. I wish we could say that the harbor in the foreground is ours, but no….this is South Harbor and we’re in North Harbor. The red-roofed buildings in the background are the Sons of Norway Hall and another commercial building.

Sunday we were back at the Petersburg Lutheran Church. I’ve mentioned previously that we enjoy going to church whenever we can. It’s a great way to meet the folks who actually live and work here. Plus, after thirty years of church every Sunday in Visalia, it seems strange to not be in church on a Sunday. We met Lila and Grant, who have recently retired from commercial fishing and found that we have much in common. They have friends from Edmonds, WA, who have a Nordic Tug, and Grant gave us their contact information. We’ll have to look them up in the fall.

So, we’re taking off in the morning to head south down Wrangell Narrows. If the weather cooperates we’ll explore the west side of Prince of Wales Island with the ultimate goal of Wrangell on August 3. We have an appointment on August 5 at Anan Creek Bear Observatory to watch the grizzlies consume the spawning salmon.

We depart in the morning to head south down Wrangell Narrows. If the weather cooperates we'll explore the west side of Prince of Wales Island and stop in to visit the friendly folks at Point Baker. We will be in Wrangell on August 3 to prepare for our visit to Anan Bear Observatory on August 5. Yup, we're gradually heading south...our adventure is half over.

We hope all is well with you and wish you could be here with us!

July 7 - July 16; Juneau to Sitka

2011-07-16T09:52:00.000-07:00

July 7 – July 16

Beth arrived right on time on Thursday, July 7, with supplies for plenty of gin and tonics! We took her on a touristy walking tour of downtown Juneau, to those last remaining spots we had missed: the Russian Orthodox Church, way up on the bluff, and Wickersham home. Judge Wickersham was instrumental in Alaska’s becoming a state and had a lovely home even higher up on the bluff. We were so glad to h=see her and talked and talked and talked! We’d planned to take her dinner to a favorite spot downtown near the cruise ship dock. We had had great grilled halibut sandwiches there with Jim and Chris. Ironically, no cruise ships were in and no floatplanes parked in front of the restaurant!

Friday morning we were off by 0900, which is good for us, and were bound for Swanson Harbor at the south end of Couverden Island. As we approached the north end of Admiralty Island, near the Point Retreat light, we saw a pod of humpback whales. We could see them spouting in the distance and could see them surfacing and diving. We stopped the boat and just drifted as we watched them. We were close enough to hear them blowing. Totally cool!!!

The name “Swanson Harbor” sounds like a developed marina…not so! This sheltered cove has two Forest Service docks that are detached from the shore. It’s a very popular stopping point for boats headed to Glacier Bay, which is basically just around the corner. This was a good stop for us since we planned to go to Elfin Cove the next day. Once again, we met several other boaters on the dock, including a couple from France in a beautiful sailboat. They’d been many places that we had been and they were as impressed with the beauty of Alaska as we. They also commented on how friendly everyone had been to them. How nice!

Soon after we were settled, one of the boaters came by in his dinghy and told us that they had spotted a pod of humpbacks out in the entrance to our little cove. We quickly unloaded the dinghy and went whale hunting. Our efforts were wonderfully rewarded. We floated and watched for half an hour or so. Again, we could hear them blowing! Two amazing whale sightings in one day. Beth is quickly checking off items on her Alaska to do list!

When we pull in to one of thee little state run marinas, we are very conscious of tying up as close as comfortable to the boat ahead of us. We are in prime cruising months and know other boats will probably come in after us, looking for moorage, too. We had lots of help as we used the lines to pull Cosmo Place forward, snugged up to the fishing boat ahead of us. We felt good about leaving enough space behind us for another good-sized boat. We were soon to learn that maybe that wasn’t a good idea! About half an hour later here comes a 65-foot cruiser coming in wayyyyyy too fast. I thought he was going to beach his big beautiful boat before he got slowed down. He did throttle back at the very last moment and then rotated the boat 180 degrees and headed back toward us…uh-oh; he’d spotted the open space behind us! After a couple of fast, exciting passes, including almost hitting the sailboat across the dock from us, and barely missing our dinghy, we got him moored. There were probably 10 people on the dock trying to help this guy and his frustrated wife get settled into the moorage. He was clueless to the concern he caused!

We awoke on Saturday, July 9, to winds upwards of 20 knots. Marine weather did not sound promising and the other boaters on our little dock thought going to Elfin Cove might not be a great idea. So, we decided to go whale hunting in Icy Strait. According to our charts, this would be prime humpback whale sighting areas. Cool! We slugged (is that a boating term?) through the waves until we were abeam the entrance to Hoonah and decided to pack it in. It was getting rougher and windier…no fun, even in a cruiser. As we approached the entrance to Hoonah (or Port Richardson inlet, as it is called), we saw a pod of 15 orcas. They were blowing and breaching and showing us their big dorsal fins. Again we stopped to watch. Unfortunately we didn’t get photos, but thoroughly enjoyed the show.

The depth sounder was showing a lot of fish in the area, so, since we were already stopped, we decided to try some fishing. Beth and Jerry put lines out and I stood watch at the helm (made sure we didn’t drift into anything significant!). Beth had no more than got her line down than she caught a 30-lb. halibut. Wow! You cannot imagine the thrill of this! The look on her face says it all. Our professional boat pilot friends had given us specific instructions on how to deal with a halibut. Primarily, don’t bring this big fish on the boat until it’s dead. We had even bought a “club” specific for doing in the poor thing. Jerry was assigned to the task, of course, and probably “beaned” the fish 5 or 6 times.

We docked in Hoonah and chose to clean the halibut at one of the cleaning stations on the dock. Jerry and Beth were both happy that I was interested in the dissection project. Actually, Anita (an Annacortes friend) had given me good directions and so I felt like I knew what to do. I thought it was interesting to see how the fish was put together. Actually, I’d rather clean a fish than catch one. We watched another fisherman clean some really big halibut and I learned a few tips. Basically, I need a sharper knife!

Hoonah is an Indian fishing village. No cruise ships stop here. There are about 600 residents and very little to explore. The harbor, however, was great! The docks were convenient and comfortable, althouth we did not have access to water or power where we were. We saw lots of eagles, though.

The next morning we took off for Tenakee Springs and intended to anchor in Saltery Bay. As we approached Tenakee Inlet, we once again stopped the boat and Jerry and Beth tried their hand at fishing. My job is to record the catches (photos) and watch the boat’s position, so that we don’t drift too close to shore. Beth caugtht about a two pound rock fish, which we kept, and hoped to figure out how to clean! Jerry caught a beautiful 55-60 pound halibut! It was quite a struggle to get him to the surface and onto the boat, but Jerry loved every minute of it!

We pulled into the little Tenakee Springs marina to clean this guy at a fish cleaning station and decided to stay moored, rather than pick up and anchor on down the inlet. As you can imagine, we are making every halibut recipe we can think of: halibut chowder, halibut cakes, halibut sandwiches, grilled halibut, even halibut ritz! We’ve frozen a lot but have a lot to eat! Yum! The interesting part of all of this halibut catching is that Beth and Jerry have been using salmon lures…guess they should have told the halibut!

Monday morning we entered Peril Strait, on our way to Sitka. We had a lovely cruise down this wide channel, although the wind picked up in the afternoon. Fortunately we were cruising into the wind and the white caps were not a big problem. The afternoon brought us whales!!! We even watched a humpback napping on the surface of the water. One whale decided to make his/her presence known to us, about 15 feet off our port side. Yikes!

Monday night we were in Appleton Cove at a lovely little anchorage. We were the only ones there in this beautiful little spot and wondered where everyone else had chosen to stay!

Tuesday morning we up and off at our usual 1030. We didn’t have far to go on this day, just about 15 miles further west in Peril Strait to Baby Bear Bay. We did not go further because we had to wait to pass through Sergius Narrows at high water slack and the easiest time to go through was the next day. So, we had another leisurely cruise and pulled into this beautiful little cove. It was even smaller and more tucked in than the night before.

Wednesday morning we had to get up and get with the program to be at Sergius Narrows in time for slack water. This narrow part of Peril Strait, although not as exciting as the narrows and rapids we’d been through in Canada, could cause us some grief if we did not plan well. We knew high water slack was at 1030 and we got there just before hand. We had a parade of boats behind us headed west, as we were, as well as a parade of boats in front of us. We made it through with no problems but did hear that out in Salisbury Sound it was foggy with a visibility of about ¾ mile. No problem! We flipped on the radar and continued to lead the parade. Too bad we had such poor visibility because I think we missed some beautiful scenery. We cruised through both Olga Strait and Neva Strait, two narrow channels with wooded, steep hillsides. This is a major route for cruise ships, ferries, commercial boats, and pleasure cruisers like us. This route avoids going out into the ocean and south along the coast of Baranof Island to Sitka. We’re pretty sure we’re not ready for that!

Always good to listen to the radio! About halfway down Olga Strait we heard an announcement from the fast ferry “Fairweather” that they were enroute to Sitka and basically any traffic ahead of this big boat should get out of the way! Yup, don’t have to tell us twice! This ferry runs about 30 knots and has a considerable wake, as you could imagine! That was the worst part…the rolling we got after he passed. Nothing broke this time, but we had our Mexican Train dominoes all over the floor!

Originally we thought we’d anchor in Krestof Harbor for a night or two and explore another pretty little spot. We thought it might be nice to be in Sitka on Saturday and Sunday and attend church there…yet another Lutheran church! However, our Ray marine auto-pilot all of a sudden quit working as we made our way down Olga Strait. Jerry did some quick trouble shooting but could not find a reason for it to quit. Although this piece of equipment is not critical to the safe operation of the boat, it sure makes life easier by allowing the auto-pilot to steer the vessel from one place to the next.

We arrived in Sitka without difficulty and parked at the transient dock. Apparently this harbor is quite popular for summer cruisers and there were no berths for us. So, while we waited for a slip assignment, Jerry called the Ray marine tech and they tried more trouble shooting ideas to no avail! Lo and behold, the crazy thing just started working all of a sudden! No idea why or how! But……Yippee!!! If it fails again I hope it’s closer to home.

We walked to the center of town along the waterfront and were somewhat dismayed to see how poor the area looked. The homes were small and ramshackle, the sidewalks were overgrown, and there were very few businesses along a busy route. We learned later that when the Russians took Sitka from the natives, it was this area that was granted to the native Indians and they continue to reside in this area today. All over Canada and Alaska we’ve noticed the disparity between native and non-native residents in terms of prosperity. I don’t really know all of the politics behind this fact, but it is quite apparent. On the other side of that sad conversation is the fact that the flowers here, in every yard, are amazing. Look at these peonies!

Thursday and Friday we explored Sitka. We made our way to the Raptor Center, where raptors of all kind are rehabilitated after injuries. The eagles that cannot be rehabilitated and returned to the wild are kept at the center and used as “educators”. We listened to one of the trainers talk about “Hali”, a juvenile female bald eagle, who sat on her arm. The eagle was perfectly calm and quiet until she decided she needed another piece of raw meat! It was quite amazing to see how big these birds are. In the photo you can see her deformed beak – the reason she won’t be returned to the wild. She cannot feed herself.

Friday we made our way to the totem park and museum, where we learned some more about the significance of totem poles. The Tlingit and Haida people, first settlers of Southeast Alaska, carved many beautiful totem poles and each tells a story, although we did struggle to "get" some of them! The park we walked through had lots of reproductions of the original clan totem poles along with an audio presentation at each viewing spot. Not only interesting but we came away with a strong impressionof the complex society the native people developed thousands of years ago.

We also visited museums, shopped downtown, and visited a salmon hatchery. On our way back to the marina Friday afternoon, we took a shortcut through the Russian Orthodox church’s cemetary. Quite a sight to see an old cemetary in the middle of a rain forest! There must have been more than a hundred graves and some headstones were over 100 years old. It was interesting and a little surreal…all these graves in this forrest, seemingly untended and forgotten.

We left Sitka in the morning, Saturday, July 16, and will make our way back through Peril Strait and down the east side of Baranof Island. We want to explore Warm Springs Bay and Red Bluff Bay before we turn east to take Beth to Petersburg. We’ll arrive in Petersburg on July 19 and explore the town more on July 20. Beth flies out of Petersburg on July 21. We aren’t sure what our plans are after that until our reservation at Anan Creek Bear Observatory on August 5.

Wish you could join us for these amazing adventures!

Juneau, June 27 - July 6

2011-07-06T12:34:00.000-07:00

Juneau June 27 – July 6

Our great plans to head for Skagway didn’t come to fruition. It just got rainier and rainier and windier and windier! Skagway is NE up Lynn Canal, basically a fjord, about 110 miles from Juneau. Our cruising info told us that the wind could be a challenge heading back south from Skagway, since prevailing summer winds are from the south. Last Monday our weather station reported winds from the south up to 30 knots, so we decided to stay put and have a maintenance week. Jerry had a few things he wanted to do and I certainly needed to some cleaning and laundry. Going for another cruise is always good but sometimes we just need to stay home and do chores!

We also knew we hadn’t seen much of Juneau yet. The capital itself and the older parts of the city proper are easily within walking distance, so that was a second incentive to stay put. Finally, we’d heard that Juneau does a bang up job of celebrating the Fourth of July and we wanted to join in community activities somewhere for this holiday. So, stay put we did! We sat parked right next to the pump out stations and every time I stepped off the boat my foot landed on the sign that said "No moorage"! Yep, that's where they put us.

Jerry has fought with his laptop for ages due to software conflicts. Since we had a week and a good Internet connection, he decided to tackle the problem. Of course our biggest worry was totally messing it up and not being able to run the Nobeltec navigation program. We rely on it heavily to get us safely from point A to point B! The boat has it’s own Ray Marine navigation software, too, but redundancy in that vital system is critical! Long story short, after a couple of days of phone calls and frustrations, he scrubbed his hard drive, reinstalled Windows XP and all is well. Yay! He fired up Nobeltec and everything was there. Double Yay!!!!

While Jerry worked on his laptop and later while he changed the impeller on the engine, I knitted and baked bread. I’ve still not perfected the sourdough starter recipe, but I can always make pretty decent yeast bread.

Chris brought me some yarn for slippers that are knitted and then felted. Because the yarn is wool, when the slippers are washed in hot water they shrink considerably and when damp, conform to your foot. I’ve had a pair, Jerry has a pair, and we love them. They’ll make great gifts…look out! Anyway in the photo you can see a before slipper…really huge…and one of Jerry’s. They actually are quite lovely when they are done!

Between rain showers we wandered downtown and visited the Juneau City Museum. Once upon a time Douglas, just west across Gastineau Channel from Juneau, was the largest city in Alaska and had a huge gold-mining complex in operation…the Treadwell Mines. The stamp plant, where the ore was crushed ran 363 days a year…not operating on Christmas and the Fourth of July. The local residents complained they could not sleep when the ore-crushing machines were not in operation. Must have been quite a racket. The tunnels of the mine complex eventually intersected and flooded, causing a huge collapse of the hillside and a fire. So much for the heyday of the town of Douglas!

The capital building isn’t what you would expect. It was originally the territorial seat and, as such, did not have a dome. Apparently Alaskans aren’t interested in funding a domed capital and even argue about whether the capital should continue to reside in Juneau. The tour was quite interesting and the best fact we walked away with is that the best place to see the Fourth of July fireworks is from the roof of the library!

At the marine park downtown they’ve got a little shelter where the Juneau Volunteer Marching Band was giving a concert of marches and patriotic music. Because both Juneau and Douglas have Fourth of July parades, this group of hardy souls marches in both parades. As you can see, some of these folks aren’t exactly spring chickens!

We even wandered into the library, which is kind of interesting in itself. The city built a four-story parking garage on the site of an old cannery, right in front of the cruise ship docks. The local folks were up in arms that a rather unattractive building would greet Juneau visitors that pretty much destroyed the history of the location. So, some smart city leader, realizing that Juneau really could use a new library, put it on the top floor of the parking garage. So, the new library has a lovely view south down Gastineau Channel. The only problem is that during the summer months, there are always cruise ships in port and when the tide is in, library patrons are eyeball to eyeball with cruise ship balcony suites! Kind of an interesting view, though! We sat there and read newspapers for probably an hour. We hadn’t seen a newspaper in weeks and weeks…not counting the teeny town papers that were mostly ads!
Sunday we walked two blocks up the street to Resurrection Lutheran Church. We’d met Pastor Sue in Wrangell, when we attended the church there. Sue and her husband Bill live in Juneau where she’s the pastor at the “downtown” church. It’s been interesting and enjoyable to visit the Lutheran churches as we travel through Alaska. We’ve met some wonderful people and certainly have felt welcomed.

Usually we’d linger over coffee after church to visit, but this day we were meeting the sister of a Visalia friend after church. Helen and her husband live here in Juneau and she promised us a tour of Juneau, beyond what we’d seen as we walked. She took us north of town to Mendenhall glacier, which was truly amazing. Imagine driving up to a glacier! She said it had receeded quite a lot in the thirty years that they’ve lived here and son it will become a hanging glacier, no longer reaching the water’s edge.

Juneau takes great pride in their Fourth of July activities and begins the celebration at midnight July 3^rd with fireworks. Rather than being one of the last places in the US to have a fireworks show, they’re the first! They park a barge in Gastineau Channel so that everyone has a front row seat. We walked about half a mile down the street and watched, and we glad it was only sprinkling! The parade the next morning was delightful! The theme was celebrating all the emergency services people…policemen, firefighters, coast guard, etc. Of course there were lots of kids in the parade and I particularly liked this little guy who looked like he’d not recovered from the fireworks from the night before! We stood next to a family of five, three kids under 6. The little girl, about 2, was hilarious as she took in the amazing sights, scrambled to grab candy tossed from the passing floats, and was totally enthralled when Spongebob Squarepants walked by!

After the Juneau parade we made our way over to Resurrection Lutheran church, where they were barbecuing free hot dogs for all the parade attendees. Apparently they’ve done this for several years, since they’re only about 2 blocks off the parade route. They ply everyone with hot dogs as the parade goers return to their cars. What a sweet idea! Tasted good, too!

We caught a shuttle across the bridge to catch the second parade of the day at Douglas, across the channel. Lots of other things were happening at Douglas, too: a sandcastle contest, races, bands, dogs catching Frisbees…yep, these folks take Fourth of July seriously! We wandered through all of the activities and thought we’d be right on time to see the parade at three. Nope! Apparently the paper had it wrong and the parade happened at two, while we were at Sandy Beach watching castle construction. Rats! Glad we caught the one in Juneau. The photo at the left, taken at the Juneau parade, is of the mascot for the University of Southeast Alaska…a whale, I think. The kids in the crowd were quite taken with this guy.

The shuttle back to Juneau, across the bridge quit running before we were ready to leave, so we walked back…a good way to work off all those hot dogs! We were able to see Juneau from the other side of the channel and enjoy a new perspective. What lovely country this is! Monday must be a big cruise ship day because we saw three parked at the docks and one hovering in the channel. We wondered if any of the cruisers joined in the Fourth of July festivities.

Tuesday we took a city bus north of Juneau to go to Costco and do some serious re-supplying. As of Wednesday, July 8 we will have been cruising on the boat for 7 weeks, and although we’ve certainly been to grocery stores along the way, we needed to re-stock big stuff like paper towels and meat. We think Costco has some of the best meat! This Costco is the only one in Southeast Alaska so we took advantage of the opportunity. Our plan was to take the bus to Costco and call a taxi to take us back to the boat, since we knew we’d have too many bags to manage on a bus. Taking a taxi isn’t something we do very often and we weren’t really comfortable with the idea. But, we just didn’t see any other way to get all our purchases back to the boat. Imagine our surprise when we ran into Pastor Sue and Bill at Costco! They were there shopping, too, and they offered to take us back to Harris Harbor. It was a huge relief on my part and it gave us a chance to visit with them some more. We gave them the tour of the boat and told them some of our cruising stories. What nice folks! It was fun to learn that Sue plays the flute in the Juneau Volunteer Marching Band…this band, that we’d been listening to for 2 days!

So that brings us to today, Wednesday. We’ll clean the boat and get the laundry caught up. Beth arrives tomorrow morning…lands at 11:15. Our plan is to do a little sightseeing tomorrow afternoon (we still haven’t made it to the Russian Orthodox Church here in Juneau) and take off on Friday morning. Our tentative route to Sitka:

v Friday we’ll head north and west and stay in Swanson Harbor. We hope to see lots of whales as we cruise through Icy Strait.

v Saturday we’ll head west along the north end of Chicagof Island and anchor in Elfin Cove. This is supposed to be a beautiful spot.

v Sunday we’ll explore Elfin Cove, fish and stay another night there.

v Monday we’ll point the boat east and back track, looking for more whales! Monday night, we’ll stay in Hoonah and explore this little fishing village.

v Tuesday we’ll head south down Chatham Strait and explore Tenakee Hot Springs and anchor in Saltery Bay in Tenakee Inlet

v Wednesday we’ll enter Peril Strait (what a great name) and that night we’ll anchor in Appleton Cove, Baranof Island

v Thursday we’ll continue west in Peril Straight and anchor in Baby Bear Bay, Baranof Island.

v Friday we’ll go through Serguis Narrows on our way to Krestof Sound and anchor in DeGraff Bay on Krestof Island.

v Saturday we head for Sitka and stay at a marina there.

v Sunday we’ll explore Sitka. There’s a Lutheran church here, too, so we’ll go to service on Sunday.

v Monday we’re off again! We’ll backtrack through Serguis Narrows and eventually explore the east side of Baranof Island.

Of course the itinerary is subject to change at a moment’s notice! Beth flies out of Petersburg on 7/21, so we’ll be tied up in the Petersburg on 7/20. Lots of beautiful country to see and so little time!

We continue to love our travels and wish you could join us. After Beth leaves, we have no company coming at all. Lots of room for you!!

Petersburg to Juneau June 18 - 26

2011-06-27T14:47:00.000-07:00

Saturday, June 18 found us in Petersburg and our goal was to prepare for the Munch’s arrival on Sunday morning. We walked up the hill, almost to the airport, to the post office and ran into the 90^th celebration of the big grocery store. They were holding a huge BBQ for the whole town…what a great place to have lunch. While we ate we visited with the local folks and learned about things to do on a “walking tour” of the area (it’s all walking for us!) This grocery store

provides a wonderful service to anyone

in any of Petersburg’s three harbors: a free shuttle to and from the grocery store. This is quite a big deal when you’ve purchased two weeks’ worth of groceries. Even our magic little cart would struggle with that load! The grocery store was fun just to walk through since they've really picked up on Petersburg's Norwegian heritage. Even the coffee!

We watched folks fish off the docks and out in the channel, just beyond the entrance to our marina catching herring by like crazy. The current in the channel was fairly significant, so we’d see boats go floating by the entrance, with five or six fish on their line, and then motor back up the channel so they could drift and fish some more. We even saw this boat of kids fishing float by several times. We could hear them yelling and talking. They got really excited when this little “bergie bit” (a tiny piece of glacier) went floating by!

On Sunday morning, June 19, in keeping with our goal to find a church, we walked up the hill from the harbor to the Lutheran Church. They were having a pancake breakfast in honor of Father’s Day so we joined them. Again, we met some lovely local folks and learned more about Petersburg. Since the town was settled by Norwegians in the early 1900’s, the Lutheran church is well attended. They’re quite proud of their Scandinavian heritage! The pastor, a former Roman Catholic priest, was full of energy and his vibrant personality radiated through the whole congregation. It was a rockin’ morning, in a Lutheran sort of way!

Jim and Chris were waiting for us at the marina when we returned from church. It was s o good to see them! They had flown on Alaska Airlines from Seattle to Ketchikan to Wrangell to Petersburg, and never got off the plane. Chris said it was quite a commuter run! They will be with us for a week and will fly out of Juneau on Sunday, 6/26. Jim is an avid fisherman so we're hoping to get our skills tuned up.

We’d been watching all kinds of folks fishing off the docks and out in the narrows just off the harbor, catching herring by the hundreds, so of course we had to try our hand. These crazy little fish will bite on a teeny bare hook and call all of his friends to join him! Hilarious! In this photo you can see Jerry has a couple of herring on his line, but it wasn’t unusual to catch four or five or six at a time! In the space of about 30 minutes we had 50 or so. Why so many? you ask. Because they’ll be bait fish for halibut tomorrow! Hope spring eternal. (The building off the end of the dock is a fish cannery. We had canneries on each side of the harbor where we moored. The abundant fishing, access to glacier ice, and temperate weather were the reason the town was founded.)

We went for a walk in the evening, to the little park on the edge of downtown. I mentioned that Petersburg is very Norwegian; well the little park celebrates that heritage! The hall in the background is, of course, the Sons of Norway hall and the shutters are covered is rosemaling.

Surrounding the little park and on the pedestal of the statue are memorial plaques to those who have died at sea. There were some pretty funny ones:

Monday morning, June 20, we were off at our usual leisurely pace of 1120! We did not have far to go, though. Our destination was the northeast side of Mitkof Island (Petersburg is on this island at the north point) to Sandy Point. We’d gotten good advice from the clerk who sold Jim a fishing license at the hardware store that this area would be good fishing. So we parked in about 150 of water and floated while Jim and Jerry fished. (Have you picked up on the theme of the week with the Munch’s?) The guys caught several fish…1 small halibut, 1 small flounder, 3 cod and several Cabazon that chose not to keep. Once the fish were cleaned we were underway again to visit the parents of Jim and Chris’s friend, Aaron.

Don and Jenny Cummins, Aaron’s parents, live on the east side of Mitkof Island, across Frederick sound from the entrance to Le Conte Bay. They built their log cabin about 20 years ago, the fourth one that Don had built! Originally from Missouri, they fell in love with outdoors of Alaska and have a very unique lifestyle. They have no electricity – turn on the generator a couple of times a week to do laundry! They use propane lights, and a lot of by-hand labor.

They describe their place as the last house out of Petersburg, but they walk to the road and their car, which is a mile away through the forest. When they need ice for their coolers, they hop in their dinghy and zip across to Le Conte Bay and grab a bergie bit that has calved off Le Conte Glacier! In the winter they usually have bergie bits in their front yard, due to the prevailing northerlies. In summer, the “cubes” have to be fetched. They’ve built a boardwalk from the beach to the house, over swampy land. They bring the bergie bits up to the house in a wheelbarrow, so the board ramp makes that process so much easier. Along the boardwalk is part of the garden…troughs made out of panels that have been formed, filled with dirt and planted. The cover acts as a greenhouse and as a means of keeping the critters out.

The inside of their home is lovely. The ground floor is work space and guest rooms and their living area is on the second floor. As you could imagine, the views are spectacular! Don built all the furniture and Jenny did the upholstering! You can see the many, many books, tapes, and DVD’s. No TV to watch here!

We had anchored in the bight in front of their home, across from Le Conte Bay and dinghied in to their beach. We had a lovely quiet night in beautiful surroundings.

Tuesday morning we departed for Cannery Cove, which took us north up Frederick Sound, west across Stephens Passage and into Pybus Bay on Admiralty Island. This was our longest run of the week. We had our eyes peeled for whales, since we were in big bodies of deep water, and we were not disappointed. We saw many, many humpbacks, seals, and orcas. Did we see them “up close and personal?” No. But we could see spouts, tails, and backs. All good. My picture isn’t the greatest, and I used a telephoto lens. We weren’t very close at all!

Cannery Cove was another suggested destination from our Anacortes boating friends, Dale and Anita and it was magical! We were in a bowl surrounded by beautiful mountains and trickling waterfalls. There had been a fish cannery at the entry to the cove, but it had been converted/removed and a beautiful fish camp sat there now. As we approached the cove we recognized “Royal Sounder” and their skiff “Green Devil”. We’d seen these folks in Petersburg and visited with them the night before Jim and Chris arrived. Small world! We tried fishing again but didn't catch anything worth keeping. It was certainly a pretty place to fish, though!

We departed the next morning for Tracy Arm and No Name Cove. We did stop along the way to fish and Jim caught this strange looking critter. We found out later that it is called a basket star, related to starfish. That was the most interesting thing caught. We’re still looking for the elusive 60-pound halibut!

We arrived at No Name Cove at the entrance to Tracy Arm in beautiful sunshine. This the prettiest afternoon we had had so far, so it was time for cocktails on the boat deck. Even Smokey joined us outside!

We were up at 6 AM on Thursday morning to take Cosmo Place up Tracy Arm, about 20 miles, to see the face of Sawyer Glacier. We wanted to be sure to have plenty of time to make the transit and to enjoy the scenery. We had to maneuver around many bergie bits. Some were tiny and some were scary but they were all beautiful! We were surprised by the color of the ice - many were beautiful shades of blue. the compression of the ice deep inside the glacier drives out all the air and results in this pure blue color. We also saw lots of white ones, and even crystal clear ones. Those were the trickiest to see and navigate around. The day

was overcast and cool, but no wind and only an occasional spit of rain.

We think we got within half a mile or so to the face of the glacier. We could hear creaks and groans and then big booms as a piece of the glacier fell into the water – calving, it’s called. When one of the bigger pieces fell, we got 4 – 5 feet swells as the surge rippled down this narrow channel.

We took a zillion pictures...next time we see you we can put you in a coma by showing them all to you!

We could see seals resting on the ice in front of the glacier face. They looked like big slugs. This guy looks pretty relaxed, doesn't he?

About 11 AM, we started back out Tracy Arm and did not have nearly the bergie bits to maneuver around. We did meet a couple of huge (almost 1000 feet long) cruise ships on the way out. One was a Carnival ship and the other was Disney Wonder, which we’d see a couple of times before. It was quite something to watch these big boats maneuver around the bends. Tracy Arm has three or four pretty sharp dog legs. These big ships don’t worry about the bergie bits like we did.

Chris and I had to see if we could capture some bergie bits. We always need ice for our afternoon cocktails! So we put that brand new fishing net to good use. It hasn’t brought in any fish yet, but we have caught several bergie bits for the freezer!

We anchored again in No Name Cove along with 9 other boats that evening. This cove is a lovely, protected, quiet spot with lots of room and is perfectly located as a staging area to go see the glacier. We were sitting in the pilothouse after dinner and heard Juneau Coast Guard announce that there had been a 7.3 earthquake in the Aleutians and to anticipate a tsunami warning. They expected the wave effects to be in Juneau and Ketchikan about 2345. Good grief!!! We thought we were fairly safe. The Aleutians were 1000 miles away and we were several islands removed from the Pacific. However, it certainly gave us pause. Eventually we heard from Juneau Coast Guard that SE Alaska would not be affected by a tsunami. Whew! I had visions of pulling the anchor and heading out into deep water in the middle of the night. We’d do it if we had to, but it wouldn’t be fun.

We saw lots of birds sitting on bergie bits, mostly gulls, as we left Tracy Arm this next morning. The photo at the left has an adult bald eagle on the left and a juvenile eagle on the right. We also saw one eagle sitting on a next as we cruised down the channel.

From Tracy Arm cove we cruised just a short distance north to Taku Harbor. Jerry and Jim tried fishing at Midway Island, but didn’t do any good. We did see more seals along the shore though and they’re always fun to watch!

Taku Harbor had a Forest Service float that was just lovely! Several other boats came in while we were there and it’s always great fun to meet other boaters and hear their adventures. Several of the boats that came in had anchored with us in Tracy Arm, but we had not a chance to meet them. We were all headed to Juneau and knew we’d see them again. Taku Harbor had an old fish cannery on the shore and gave us some place to explore.

We continued north the next morning, Saturday, and saw lots and lots of whales out in Stephens Passage as we approached Gastineau Channel, on which Juneau is located. Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough to get any photos!

Once we were settled in Harris Harbor we left the boat and walked downtown. We found the Red Dog Saloon and the Twisted Fish Restaurant. It felt really good to do some walking. Jim and Chris didn't leave Sunday evening so we had all day to continue our explorations. We avoided all the touristy stuff designed for the cruise ship crowd and went to the Alaska State Museum. It was once of the best museums I've seen! They had a really interesting "hats throughout the history of Alaska" collection. Everything from Eskimo parkas to Russian Orthodox priest miters. We found a lovely place for lunch in the harbor mall...grilled halibut, sandwich. Yum!

Jim and Chris headed to the airport about 6:30 PM. All of a sudden the boat was very quiet! We decided to stay in Juneau on Monday and get some chores done. It's lovely to have an internet connection! Tuesday morning we'll head further north for Skagway, if the weather will cooperate. We'll be back in Juneau on July 6 to pick up our friend Beth Bream from Visalia.

Ready to come and join us? Jump on a plane and we’ll meet you!

Wrangell to Petersburg: June 10 - 17

2011-06-19T17:21:00.000-07:00

Wrangell to Petersburg: June 10 – 17

We spent three nights in Wrangell, June 10, 11, and 12. We basically had a week to kill before we go to get to Petersburg to pick up Jim and Chris Munch on Sunday, so we weren’t in any hurry to leave Wrangell. We emptied a propane tank on Saturday morning and couldn’t get more until Monday, so that pretty much made up our minds!

So….a little about the cute little town of Wrangell. It has a population of about 1500 people and obviously less in the winter. The winters are moderated by the ocean but they still get snow, wind, and freezing temps. They used to have big cruise ships come in, but the cruise ships basically wanted to buy the town for themselves, and the town said, “No!” The town also said no to the cruise ships’ request to have 15% of all the merchants’ profits! Good for them!

Wrangell is obviously a fishing town. The king salmon season for Commercial boats was to open on 6/13/11, so there was a lot of activity getting ready. We were fortunate to moor at Reliance Harbor, the commercial dock so we got to see lots of activity! There are lots of fishing and sightseeing charters out of Wrangell. Anan Creek Bear Observatory is not far. It’s a great place to see grizzlies, especially in August when the salmon are running. We’ve got reservations to spend the day there on August 5.

It looked like the fishermen were converting their boats from crab fishing to salmon fishing. The crane on the dock near us was busy all day every day! The baskets at the end of the boom are crab pots…huge ones! They are cone shaped mesh baskets with the top opening about 3’ in diameter and bottom of the cone about 8’ in diameter! As you know the king crabs in Alaska get quite large!

A large fishing boat came in Friday afternoon and parked behind us, called “Savage”. LaDonna, the secretary in the harbormaster’s office knew the boat and was friends with the captain – a petite Japanese-American woman from Seattle! The captain, her crew, and LaDonna cooked hot dogs on the boat deck on Friday night…sure smelled good! Savage is a salmon tender, which means they offload the salmon catches from smaller boats to allow them to continue fishing. Quite a process!

We were parked right in there with all the big boys! The white yacht in the foreground left Friday afternoon. The dock with the crane is just forward of that white yacht, so the rest of the weekend boats were in and out of there. Like I said, it was really fun to watch all the activity.

This marina has a tidal grid at the head of the harbor. This is a do-it-yourself means of hauling a boat out of the water. At high tide the captain moors the boat at the dock above the grid and then the boat settles onto the wooden beams as the tide goes out. Lots of boats were in and out of here, mostly having their hulls power washed. It was a busy spot! It looked like a tough, dirty job and one that needed to be completed in a few hours, since the tide changes about every 6 hours. The boat owner is charged by the foot per tide, so finishing during one low tide would be half as expensive as requiring two tide cycles.

Do you notice in these marina pictures how tall the pilings are that hold the piers in place? Alaska can have tides that change as much as 25 feet! We see tide changes of 10-12 feet in LaConner and think that is quite a lot. When we were sailing with Chuck in San Francisco Bay, a tide swing of 5 feet was pretty typical! Knowing what the tides will do is really important to us when we anchor. If we find a lovely spot in 25 feet of water at high tide, low tide can mean we’ll be sitting in 5 feet of water. Yikes! Probably wouldn’t be a problem since our draft is 4’6” but that’s cutting it pretty close…too close for us! As we approach summer solstice, the tides are increasing and then new moon and full moon tides are always bigger too…so many things to keep track of! The folks who built this house on the dock across the channel from apparently forgot to figure in all those issues! Kinda funny, but sad, too.

Since we were in Wrangell for 2 ½ days, we got a lot of chores done. We did all our laundry on the boat since we had access to power and lots of water. Our little washer/dryer combination isn’t very big so two regular loads is 4-5 in this little machine. We were within walking distance of “downtown” Wrangell so we got groceries…they have two grocery stores! In this photo, you’ll see how we transport our purchases back to the boat!

When we checked in at the harbormaster’s office on Friday afternoon, LaDonna told us that there would be a showing of a first-run movie that night at the museum’s auditorium. Well, this we had to see! We saw “Thor” – sort of like a Scandinavian superman! The auditorium was pretty impressive – had portable stadium seating and a VERY LOUD surround sound system. What a hoot!

We returned the next day to walk through the museum. It had been developed through a private donation and gave an excellent history of the area, Tlingits, loggers, fishermen, and everyone in between. The museum sits right on the bay

in Juneau. If you look east you can see the mouth of the Stikine River, which drains British Columbian glaciers and the water in Wrangell was milky green with all the glacial melt.

When we were in Ketchikan, we found the First Lutheran Church to attend on that Sunday morning and we were so glad we did! Everyone was very friendly at coffee afterward and we learned a lot more about the area and the “real” folks who live there. So, we went looking for a Lutheran Church in Wrangell. Sure enough, found one there, too. There were about 30 folks worshipping and they’d recently lost their part-time pastor, so the Cluster Dean was there to officiate. This lady pastor was quite a dynamo and we learned she has a congregation in Juneau so we’re determined to find that church, too. She told us that Petersburg and Sitka, both on our list of destinations, have Lutheran congregations. Cool!

We departed Wrangell on Monday morning at 1045 and headed west. Jim and Chris Munch were all set to join us in Petersburg on Sunday, June 19, so we had a few days to go exploring before we headed to Petersburg. Anita and Dale Neifert gave us some ideas of places to explore and off we went…headed to Totem Bay on the SW side of Kupreanof Island. Anita had said this was one of their favorite anchorages and they liked to explore nearby Agate Beach.

We dropped anchor, and watched the wind come up, and the rain begin to fall. Oh well, so much getting the dinghy down today. We tucked in, read our books and caught up on the letter and our notes. No cell service, no Internet connection, no TV…wonderful! In fact, we stayed put until Wednesday morning. Jerry did some boaty maintenance and I cooked and cleaned. Just another day at home!

We pulled in to an interesting little marina, called Point Baker, at the NW corner of Prince of Wales Island. We found plenty of room on the public dock and decided to stay. We were so glad we did! We met some very interesting folks and heard some amazing stories!

The “community” of Point Baker is all on the public float…the post office, the community building, the fire-boat station, the restaurant, the little grocery, etc., etc. Herb greeted us as we pulled in and we learned he and his wife are the go-to people in this settlement of 14 homes. Herb and Judy are getting the restaurant ready to open on June 19 and Herb was busy cleaning the stoves and grills! He convinced us to come back when we head south again for some of his famous pie!

We noticed a lot of activity at the other end of the dock and wandered down to see what was going on. Stuart, another of the community’s colorful people, had taken some visitors out fishing – gill-netting – and they were cleaning all the salmon they caught. Apparently we looked pitiful enough to warrant being given a lovely fillet for dinner. It was delicious! We discovered that a bag of homemade peanut butter cookies would produce salmon too. The gill-netter parked behind us gave us half of a fish!

A little otter lives in the marina and he kept us quite entertained. He fished for crabs and starfish right along the edge of the pier so I got several funny shots.

While we were in Point Baker, we learned about bear hunters. Apparently there’s quite a business for hunting guides to load up a boat full of folks and go looking for bears along the shore. Stuart called these bears “beach bears”. The hunters shoot the bears from their boat and don’t put a lot of effort or “sport” into the kill. While we were in the marina, a boat moored and off came a whole family dressed in camo! Notice one little girl in her camo outfit and pink boots! Well, they were a whole family of bear hunters from Fresno, CA! During our transit east on Sumner Strait to the start of Wrangell Narrows we saw a State Police boat “pull over” this bear hunting boat. Of course, we don’t know the story, but the State Police boat paced Bear Adventures as long as we could see them. Obviously somebody will have a bad day!

We checked and rechecked charts, tide tables, and routes so that we could complete the 21 miles through Wrangell Narrows easily. The tide change meets about in the middle of the narrows so our intent was to enter at the end of the tide flooding north, hit slack about in the middle of the narrows, and then ride the tide as it ebbed north to Petersburg. And we did it! Because we are used to piloting through Swinomish Channel, the narrows didn’t seem that intimidating, but our planning had to help. The chart shot at the left shows the first section of the route. The red boxes are “go to” points that the automatic pilot could follow.

We didn’t have a pretty afternoon to enjoy the scenery. It was overcast and sprinkled occasionally, but no wind to speak of. Wind is our nemesis, making boat handling a challenge.

We saw this big Coast Guard ship tending one of the buoys along the channel - #5. We think they were changing the light bulb! Since Wrangell Narrows is a major north/south route, we thought we’d see all kinds of ships, perhaps even a cruise ship. Meeting a really big ship in these narrow passages could be interesting. Fortunately, Cosmo Place is equipped with an electronic system that identifies the location of big ships on our chart and gives us identification information. We’d be able to “see” them coming long before a problem occurred. The wonders of the electronic age!

We saw lot of fishermen along the way, but I thought these fishermen had done it right. Even if they didn’t catch a thing, they had a beautiful spot in which to fish!

We arrived in Petersburg about 4:45 Friday afternoon and moored in North Harbor. We discovered this is the oldest dock, located between to fish canneries. It’s a little rustic…makes LaConner Marina look like the Ritz!

Saturday’s plan is to clean the boat, get groceries, and get ready for the Munch’s arrival on Sunday morning. We’ll get in a little exploration of the town, too. Petersburg is known for its Norwegian heritage…maybe we can find some lefse!

That’s all for now. The next installment will cover Munch’s week with us as we make our way from Petersburg, through glacier country to Juneau.

The Woodall's in Alaska, June 4 - June 10

2011-06-10T16:45:00.000-07:00

June 4 and 5, 2011

Our friend Chuck left by way of the water taxi, at 0730 to go to the Ketchikan Airport and return to California. We were sorry to see him go. Chuck and Jerry connect really well and problem solve similarly. While I piloted/watched for logs, they dug deeper into the boat’s RayMarine navigation system. We can now plot routes, rather than just proceeding from waypoint to waypoint. This allows the autopilot to steer the boat. As we’ve all said “Otto” is much better at holding a heading than any of us. This doesn’t imply that we turn the boat over to Otto and walk away. Nope. Always gotta be watching for those pesky logs in the water!

After Chuck left it was time to do some chores! Even on a boat they never end! One of the items we checked off the list was a Coast Guard Auxiliary inspection of the boat. This volunteer arm of the Coast Guard does voluntary vessel safety inspections. These volunteers are usually retired guys with lots of boating experience, and, although they work from a checklist, the conversations are usually full of a wealth of information. Of course we passed easily and now have our 2012 sticker.

The low-pressure pump in the watermaker failed so we had a new one shipped to Ketchikan. (This was remarkably easy to do! Frontier Copy and Shipping Services is only about ½ mile from our marina and they’ll receive shipments and mail for a nominal fee). While Jerry worked on that I defrosted the refrigerator! Yup, back to doing that little chore. I cannot remember the last frig I had that required such attention!

June 6

We left the Bar Harbor Marina at 1030, heading up the west arm of Behm Canal to Naha Bay, on the recommendation of our boating friends, Dale and Anita. Heading north up Tongass Narrows, we passed right by Ketchikan Airport, where we could see both the little ferry parked as well as a floatplane waiting to transport passengers to some distance spot.

Our destination today was up the west arm of Behm Canal to Naha Bay. It was a bouncy ride north past Ketchikan in Tongass Narrows. Six foot seas and gusts of wind up to 25 knots. This makes for a bouncy ride which none of us enjoy, but poor Smokey really hates all the motion!

Once we turned into Naha Bay the seas settled down and we went all the way to the head of Naha Bay where we found a little US Forrest Service dock. Given the wind, we thought this would be a great place to spend the night!

The CCC came through in 1937 and built wonderful trails…clear back to Heckman Lake and a fishing cabin. It was amazing to see the amount of work that went into these boardwalk trails! The bears seem to like the trails, too! We saw 2 separate piles of bear scat and saw some “bear scrambles” down the hillside, but didn’t see any bears.

It would have been quite an experience if we had met one on this boardwalk trail!

June 7

We were up and off early, hoping to miss windy conditions in Behm Canal. We didn’t have too far to go, just a little further north and into Neets Bay. The day was sunny and calm and we left on a rising tide, so the water current pulled us along…always a plus!

As we entered Behm Canal from Naha Bay we were contacted by SEAFAC Range Control. This Navy department conducts sonar testing in this side of Behm Canal. So somewhere under us…wayyyyyy under us…there might have been a submarine. The canal is quite deep along here, almost 2000 feet deep according to our charts. We were asked to idle for about 10 minutes at one point while underwater testing occurred. Not a ripple on the surface, though!

Coming into Neets Bay we met a tug pushing a small barge full of construction equipment. Wonder where he’s been and what he’s been working on! Without roads, a lot of transportation and just day to day living are supported by all kinds of boats.

This is a fairly large bay so we also saw several fishing boats at work. The boat in this photo is a gill netter and when we talked to him, he told us he was fishing for king salmon. Hmmmm, might be time to try our hand at fishing!

We stopped in the middle of the bay and just floated. Jerry tried his hand at fishing but didn’t have a nibble until he was reeling in his line to stop and eat lunch. All of a sudden he got a serious pull on the line and actually pulled up a king salmon! Of course, it was way too small to keep, but our first salmon, nonetheless!

We pulled in to Fire Cove, off Neets Bay after lunch and found another magical place. We pulled into the cove at low tide and it was a good thing! There, right in

front of us, was a huge rock that wasn’t on our charts! Okay, note to self: when pulling in to a small area, entering on low tide is a plus. This will let us see all the hazards. It was particularly important for us since we planned to anchor here overnight.

We situated Cosmo Place in the middle of this little cove and anchored in about 40’ of water. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! Once we were settled, we got the dinghy down and went for a ride. We drove to the head of Neets Bay to explore the structures we could see in the distance. We found a fish hatchery…the sign says it all. It contained a large area at the head of the bay. We spoke with one of the folks maintaining the logs to support the nets. They hatch fish here and then release them into the ocean to maintain the fishing industry. Amazing industry in this very remote corner of SE Alaska!

Here’s a great photo of Jerry driving the dinghy with the snowy Alaskan mountains in the background. On the water, behind Jerry, you can see the fish hatchery dock. As you can see we had a glorious afternoon…sunny, beautiful blue skies, and the temperature must have been approaching 70!

Back to the boat for a peaceful evening watching the eagles hunt for dinner. We’re approaching the summer solstice so our hours of sunlight are amazing. Sunrise was 0406 and sunset was 2130! Pre-dawn light starts about

0330…sad that I know that!

June 8, 2011

We were off at 0630, again anticipating wind in Behm Canal and interested in getting to our next stop, Meyers Chuck, before the weather kicked up! SEAFAC was quiet this morning, so we wouldn’t have to worry about subs and their SONAR testing. About 0900 as we moved south down the canal, we heard from the US Coast Guard Cutter, Anacapa, telling us that they were “protecting” a naval asset and everyone must stay at least 1000 yards off. Hmmmm, very curious! It wasn’t long before we could see both the cutter and the “asset” being protected…a sizeable submarine on the surface of the water! It was rather interesting to watch from afar! The cutter and the submarine casually cruised back and forth on the west side of Betton and Grant Islands. Do you think the submariners just needed a breath of fresh air?

Today’s destination is Meyer’s Chuck, up Clarence Strait. We’ve heard that this is a lovely little stop on our way to Wrangell and we’re always curious to see these little stops.

As we cruised up the strait, we saw an active logging operation on Cleveland Peninsula. This is the first logging operation we’ve seen in business. Looks like a lot of work! We could see the tower on the ridge that they use to move the logs around, as well as the little barge receiving the logs.

One of our biggest worries as we cruise down the waterways is hitting a log. We’ve heard lots of horror stories about bent props and damaged hulls. Because logging is so prevalent in the Northwest, British Columbia and Alaska, we’re always watching. The photo is really one of a floating TREE and we've seen lots of those, too. It could ruin our whole day if we hit one of those!

We arrived in Meyers Chuck shortly after noon and tied up to the (free, yippee!) public dock. We saw our old friends from Punch Bowl Cove, Sea Wolf, anchored in the little bay. We had no electricity available but plenty of water. After a 10-minute tour of the little community, we came back for lunch. Jan worked on her blog and Jerry washed the boat.

Notice the very tall pilings holding the dock? Huge tides here! Even more so now as the summer solstice approaches. Just to the right of Cosmo Place, you see the open dock parallel to ours. That's the float plane dock! We saw one come in, stop for 5 minutes to pick up one passenger, and off he went again. Rather impressive flying!

The boat parked in front of us is a 42’ Rockport, made in British Columbia. Only two exist. According to the owner, the company went out of business. Too bad! It’s a pretty boat…looks a lot like an American Tug. The owners are headed home to Blaine, WA, after cruising up here since the first of April. Hardy souls!

A Meyers Chuck-ite walked by as we were looking at the community bulletin board and very proudly pointed out this phone booth with the working phone. Notice the birds nest on top…can you place a call if mama is sitting on her eggs?

Meyers Chuck also has a post office, across the little bay from the dock where we are moored. There is a postal drop box next to this little phone…very convenient for visiting boaters. Pick up is every Tuesday!

Jerry is standing by a tidal grid. This is an open platform that is underwater at high tide. You position your boat over the grid and tie to the uprights, at high tide. The tide goes out, and your boat is now sitting on this open platform! A cheap, simple way to haul your boat out of the water. Work fast, though! You’ve only got a few hours until the tide comes in again.

June 9

We departed Meyers Chuck about 0830 and proceeded up Ernest Strait. Our destination tonight was Frosty Bay on Seymour Narrows. We had a bit of a bouncy ride for the first hour…2’ seas hitting us on our aft port quarter…makes for a rather rolly ride. The cat was decidedly unhappy!

We anchored in Frosty Cove about 100’ from shore in about 40’ of water. We think we’ve got this anchoring thing down pretty good, but always worry about whether the anchor will hold. We’re so used to the muddy, grabby bottom of the San Juans and the deeper anchorages up here have sand and gravel bottoms. So, we diligently survey the bottom in the area where we will anchor and swing. We set out at least 4:1 scope…that’s a lot of chain! Then we track the GPS coordinates for awhile to be sure we’re not dragging the anchor. After we’ve shut down the boat systems and settle in, we have many conversations that go like this:

Jerry: “I think we’re closer to shore.”

Jan: “Let me check the GPS coordinates. (Pause as Jan runs to the pilothouse). We’re only 0.003 off the coordinates I wrote down when we anchored.”

Jerry: “Yeah, looks okay, I guess. I’m sure we’re fine.”

Ten minutes elapse.

Jan: “We’re sure swinging a lot. Do you think we’re getting closer to shore?”

Jerry: “Let me go check the GPS numbers again. (Pause as Jerry runs to the pilothouse). Nope, numbers are the same as when we anchored. Must be the tide going out.”

You get the idea, I’m sure! This goes on until bedtime. At this point Jerry is either exhausted from all Jan’s fretting or truly believes we’re ok and goes to sleep! Jan spends a semi-restful night wondering if we’re dragging the anchor!

June 10

We were up at 0530 and on the way by 0545 to catch the tide as it flooded north to Wrangell. We were tied up at the Reliance Dock by 1000 in Wrangell and are ready to explore the town. That exploration and points beyond, including our next stop, Petersburg, will be in the next blog.

The Woodall's in Alaska, May 24 - June 3

2011-06-03T16:11:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, May 24

We decided to spend a second night in Shearwater Marina. We’d hoped to wash the boat since it is literally caked with salt and to enjoy an Internet connection. According to the lady at the grocery store, the marina suffered a devastating storm early this spring which tore up the docks. They lost water and power to the docks and they haven’t yet been repaired. We were able to get an Internet connection but it was $10 per computer! Jan did get the first installment on the Alaska trip blog posted and had some email communications. We had not realized how hard it would be for us to be away from Internet access for so many days. Not only do we miss the communications connections, but also a random question will arise that we cannot answer. The immediate solution is to Google the problem, but, of course, we cannot.

We did get the dinghy down and to take a look at Shearwater’s sister community, Bella Bella, just across the channel. It looks like a tough life up here. Obviously the winters are severe and the economy is at the subsistence level. We did see a couple of fishing resort places and the locals say that salmon and halibut fishing are good in these waters. There are even two airports near Shearwater! If this were your destination, flying here would be the way to come.

Wednesday, May 25

We departed at 0800 with a destination of Kynoch Inlet. We cruised through Fjordland Recreation Area. Beautiful, stunning, breath-taking! Not only were the peaks around us beautiful but also we saw waterfalls everywhere. If we’d had a bright, sunny day, this would have been stupendous.

We arrived in Khutze Inlet about 7 PM and saw a black bear on shore, just as we entered. We watched a bald eagle watch us from his perch in a tree on shore. Smokey the Boat Cat stayed in side! Jan has heard too many stories about small pets being carried off by bald eagles!

These channels we’ve been cruising through are amazingly deep – as much as 1500 feet. Anchoring can be a bit of an issue, but in this little inlet, we anchored just off sand spit in about 40 feet of water. Sweet! We had a quiet, restful night on anchor…much better than our last anchorage in Baresides Bay!

May 26

We were off again this next morning at 0800…early for us! We decided to take a detour to Kitamet Bay and MK Marina. Our two info books both made this place sound like an interesting little spot and we were still interested in washing the boat. We had a bouncy ride as we entered Kitamat Channel…broke a second glass in the cupboard. One of Chuck’s scotch glasses…rats!

We got to the marina about 1530 and were glad to dock. It was quite a unique place. Their “breakwater” was a string of logs! We parked on the outside of the guest dock, so there wasn’t much between the bouncy waves and us.

It was a short walk into the town of Kitamet Village, a First Nations village. The larger town was about 4 miles down the road. On the other side of the bay is a large ALCOA aluminum plant, which must be the primary employer in the area. We saw a huge ship moored at their dock…unloading or unloading, we couldn’t tell.

Kitamet Village showed evidence of lots of government support. The houses looked fairly new and had lovely new siding. In spite of a drizzle, we walked to a restaurant that had great seafood and ringside seats for eagle watching!

May 27

After the rock and roll ride we had going north through Kitamet Channel yesterday, we decided to blast off early and dodge the afternoon winds blowing through Douglas Channel as we headed south to Grenville Channel. We had a beautiful passage all the way down and were once again entertained with innumerable waterfalls along both shores. We arrived at the south end of Grenville Channel about 1200. This big channel, called “the trench”, is the major route to Alaska for the cruise ships. We’re expecting to see lots of them as we approach Ketchikan.

Grenville Channel proved to be another quiet, lovely cruise. We saw high peaks and many waterfalls all around us. We did not see a single cruise ship but did see a tug with a tow. Our AIS info told us he was headed for Sitka…quite a ways away…and the barges looked to be carrying construction stuff complete with a crew trailer and a boat! I think that captain earns his money!

Our destination for this night was Baker Inlet, an inlet off Grenville Channel. Originally we thought we would anchor at Lowe Inlet, but our early start resulted in the decision to go a little farther. We were glad we did! Although the entrance into the inlet, Watts Narrows, was a VERY narrow channel and had a couple of doglegs we made good use of our navigation equipment and had no trouble!

About five miles up the channel, we found a lovely little cove and anchored in about 40 feet of water. We were basically in a bowl, surround by mountains and waterfalls. It was warm enough to sit outside for awhile and enjoy the scenery. The only wildlife we saw were a couple of Canadian geese grazing on shore, but we were greeted by four harbor seals sitting on a big log as we entered the cove.

The next morning we were up at 0500 to catch calm water as we exited through Watts Narrows into Grenville Channel. Yep, it’s plenty light up here at 0500! The anchor was up at 0515 and by that time it had become VERY foggy in this little inlet. Once again, the value of good navigation equipment, plus radar, paid off. We had less than 1/8 mile visibility in some places! We had seen only one other boat anchored in the inlet when we came in, so we were fairly certain we would not meet anyone, but always good to err on the side of caution! By the time we reached the narrows at the mouth of the inlet, it was clearing nicely so we had no problems.

The rest of the trip north up Grenville Channel was fairly uneventful and we arrived at Prince Rupert about 1000. On the way in we passed a facility that loads grain on ships. The interesting thing was they were loading coal! We wondered how they could effectively clean the silos, elevators, etc., etc., when it came time to load grain!

Prince Rupert Rowers and Yacht Club was another lovely place to tie up. The easy accessibility to power, water, and Internet service always impresses us! We took a walk around the city and could have easily stocked up on groceries at the nearby Safeway. This is the first city where we’ve seen lots of totem poles, and it is evident that they celebrate their First Nations heritage. They also obviously cater to the cruise ships that pull in. There was a large area near the harbor that looked quaint, well tended, and expensive…obviously stalking tourist dollars. We had dinner at cute little place called Smile’s Seafood Café and would definitely go there again…quaint and delicious!

May 29

Jerry and Chuck have become thoroughly convinced that early departures are the way to go, especially when we know we’ve got a big body of water to traverse. Today our destination is Ketchikan and we cruise across Dixon Entrance. This area is totally exposed to Pacific Ocean influences and can be quite a challenge to cross. In all of our boating classes and conversations, everyone has warned us to evaluate seas and weather closely before attempting the crossing. So the alarm went off at 0500 and we were pulling out of our slip at 0515!

We took the “shortcut” through Venn Passage in the dawn and needed to watch carefully since the channel was narrow and the depth was shallow. Once again, keeping one eye on the instruments and one eye outside did the trick!

We had a smooth crossing of Dixon Entrance. Early in the trip we saw 2 foot swells hitting the boat on the port forward quarter. That was kind of a drag! Once we turned north the water smoothed out and the wind stayed calm.

We arrived in Ketchikan 9.5 hours later, and were quite pleased at are speediness. As we approached Ketchikan we could see four cruise ships tied up at the docks. There are slips for four ships and it looks like they are full all the time! Once we arrived we went for a walk to explore and stocked up on groceries at the Safeway Store, just a couple of blocks away.

May 30, Memorial Day

We stayed a second day in Ketchikan to do laundry and see a little more of the city. We walked down to the cruise ship docks, probably a couple of miles or so from where we are. It was interesting to see the city get cleaner, fancier, and much more touristy as we came close to those docks!

There is a Nordic Tug very similar to ours parked a couple of slips over from us. Jerry struck up a conversation with this guy and we found out that he is quite a fisherman and had been out squid fishing the night before. He caught 40 squid and was busy cleaning them as we watched. It was quite a process and made me thankful that fishing for squid isn’t on our list!

May 31

This morning broke bright and sunny and we decided to cruise up Behm Canal for a couple of days. We’ll return to Ketchikan on Friday and change oil in the boat. Chuck flies out early on Saturday and the airport is just across Tongass Narrows from the marina we’ll be in.

One of the nice things about having three of us on the boat is that it frees Jan up to be the cook…a job she enjoys. Since Jerry and Chuck and the pilotage well under control, Jan made a batch of peanut butter cookies while we cruised down the fairways. Although Cosmo Place’s oven is small and takes a while to heat up, it does a great job with cookies! Jan has made a batch of bread while cruising, too. Making sour dough starter is another one of her plans, but so far she’s been unsuccessful. The idea of capturing “wild yeast” is an intriguing one, though!

We arrived in Punch Bowl Cove on Behm Channel about 1730 and immediately knew we’d made a good decision. What a gorgeous place! We grabbed the only mooring ball in the cove and settled in for a delightful evening. The dinner menu included contributions from everyone…Jerry’s grilled tuna, Chuck’s wedge salad with blue cheese dressing, and Jan’s garlic-cheese mashed potatoes. We finished the evening off with a rousing game of Hearts. Jan went down in flames after a near miss of getting all the points and trouncing the guys!

June 1, 2011

There’s nothing like sleeping on a rocking boat in a quiet cove. We had a wonderfully restful night and weren’t up and moving until 0800! Since we didn’t have to be anywhere, we sipped our coffee, read our books, watch for eagles, and generally had a peaceful morning. Our neighbors in the cove on the elegant old Blanchard cruiser stopped by to show us their empty shrimp pots! Sea Wolf was out of Seattle and we swapped vital stats. They were just as curious about us as we were about them. It seems they’ve come to Alaska to cruise for the summer as well. I suspect we will see them again.

We did manage to get the dinghy down by 1100 or so for a cruise to the beach at the head of the cove. Our goal was to take the trail to the falls and the lake above the cove. One of our resources said the trail could be a bit o muddy scramble but well worth the effort! Unfortunately, the trail proved to be a mess of fallen logs, so we didn’t even get to the falls. The US Forest Service maintains the trail but had not been in here yet this year to clear the fallen trees. It was quite pretty though and gave us the chance to see what the forest looked like. The photos won’t do it justice! The impact of lots and lots and lots of rain resulted in an amazing amount of vegetation and decay.

June 2

Although we’d thoroughly enjoyed Punch Bowl Cove, we decided to explore the Misty Fiords a little more. We cruised up the other arm of Rudyerd Inlet and were treated to more amazing views of water falls, mountains covered with pine trees, and lots of float planes landing and taking off. The floatplane dock in Ketchikan is just next door to the cruise ship docks and these planes do a land office business when the tourists pull in!

We headed north down Behm Canal and hooked a right at the next inlet up…Walker Cove. All along the way, both in the main channel and in the inlet, we saw some amazing waterfalls. The tops of the mountains around us (3500 feet or so, according to my map) are still snow covered. We couldn’t imagine what this would all look like in January or February!

After some exploring, we found a lovely inlet in which to anchor for the night. Once we were settled, Jerry got out his fishing tackle and tried his luck. He caught 3 halibut!!! The biggest was probably a little larger than his had! He let them go, of course, but it was still fun and we can say we’ve caught halibut!

June 3

The plan today was to return to Ketchikan, do some work on the boat, and get Chuck ready to depart tomorrow. We were up at 0500 (again!) because we were a little worked about wind in Behm Canal. We actually pulled away from our anchorage at 0513! I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing!! We had a bit of a choppy ride until we got in to Tongass Narrows, where Ketchikan is located. We got moored, got the oil changed, and had lunch on the table by 1330. Pretty good!

Sorry there are no photos this time. I’ve certainly got lots I could share with you. However, Internet access is still an issue. I’m actually posting this sitting in a McDonald’s in Ketchikan, which has a Wi-Fi! I hope next time I’ll have a more robust Internet access so can show you some photos.

Off for Alaska, May 19-23

2011-05-24T16:15:00.000-07:00

Thursday, May 19

The first day of our big trip, dawned sunny and beautiful. We were off at 7 am and cruised north through Swinomish Channel and out into the San Juans. We were greeted by an eagle, looking for breakfast, and this seemed a good omen for our adventure.

This first day’s destination was to anchor in Montague Harbor, BC, after clearing Canadian customs in Tsehum Harbor, just north of Sydney. We’d been through customs here before and knew it to be an easy place to get in and out of. The customs dock was delightfully not busy and we were even able to stay there long enough to have a quick bite of lunch.

We were off again by 1245 and began talking about going further than Montague Harbor. Stopping at Nanaimo for the night seemed like a possibility but we had to traverse the dreaded Dodd Narrows, about 5 miles south of the city. We knew we had to coordinate our arrival to get to Dodd Narrows within half an hour of slack…1847. To insure our arrival at the narrows at the safe time, we shut the boat off and floated for about an hour in Trincomali Channel, yep, a nice big body of water! We took showers, read, and got ready for the traverse.

Looking at the Nobeltec chart as we approached the narrows, showed us the currents were pretty strong. The highest flow we saw was 7.5 knots. The map on the right shows the water flow with those big, scary, red arrows! Because the the water is forced through such a narrow channel, that fast flow creates quite a bit of turbulence.

We spotted Aristreia, a 65-foot cruiser, headed in the same directions and gave them a call. Sure enough! They were headed for Dodd Narrows, had been there many times before, and thought it was a piece of cake! So, we got behind this big beautiful boat and learned from a pro! Although Dodd Narrows is only 150 feet wide, at slack water it was very doable.

We arrived at the Nanaimo City Dock about 1930, happy and pleased with our first day. We found a “local” tavern/restaurant” for dinner and strolled the waterfront. It was light until after 2200, but off to bed for another busy day!

Friday, May 20, 2011

During the previous evening’s walk, we spotted a starbuck’s-like coffee shop with free WiFi. So we grabbed out laptops and spent an hour connected with the outside world as we sipped Perkins Coffee. We were obviously the only tourists in the place. Everyone else, in business attire, bustled in to grab a coffee before heading off to work.

Today’s destination is Squirrel Cove at the edge of Desolation Sound. Concerning this area, Waggoner Cruising Guide, says “Desolation Sound is one of the Northwest’s most dreamed-about and sought-after cruising destinations.” Fortunately, we’ll be there long before and, hopefully, long after the summer crowds descend. Our cruise up the east side of Texada Island proved to be uneventful and a little monotonous. Not many towns, not many boats, not ANY wildlife! Where are the whales? Wasn’t that last summer’s theme?

Squirrel Cove Marina (I use the term loosely) was an OK place to tie up but I don’t think the local citizenry had on their summer party clothes yet. It was pretty quiet. We opted for grilled flank steak rather than the marina restaurant. Another quiet night was in store for us. We awoke to sprinkles and a lowering sky, but no wind.

Saturday, May 21

Today’s plan was to go through Yaculta and Dent Rapids and eventually arrive at Forward Harbor, which would be our first anchorage. Our boater friends Dale and Anita had well-coached us on the dangers of these rapids and that we should go through each set as close to slack water as possible. As we got within a couple of hours of the first set of rapids (Yaculta Rapids) we found ourselves in a mini parade of boats, seemingly all headed where we were. We called Georgia Lee, a converted 65’ fishing trawler to discuss the rapids. Sure enough, Georgia Lee, was planning to proceed through all five sets of rapids and confirmed our calculations for approaching Yaculta Rapids. Whoa! Wait a minute! Five sets of rapids??? We thought there were only three…Yaculta, Gillard, and Dent. We saw lots of whirlpools and eddies. The deepest whirlpool was about 5 feet deep, and we dodged all of those. Even little ones which looked innocuous on the surface were enough to spin the boat several degrees off the heading.

We were a little early, according to our new BFF, to approach the final rapids…Whirlpool. So we slowed down quite a bit and watched as a four-passenger helicopter landed on the stern of Georgia Lee, out in the middle of Sunderland Channel . It looked like two or three people got off…2 adults and a child. Quite a way to board the ship!

Chart of Whirlpool Rapids

All in all, the passage through the five sets of rapids was interesting and not too difficult. Chuck piloted us through easy as can be. Georgia Lee was behind as we went through Whirlpool Rapids and gradually fell behind.

We did hear from her once more. As we cruised by the entrance to Forward Harbor, the boat captain called us on the VHF to let us know we’d missed our entrance! Sure nice to have someone looking out for us. We told him we had decided to cruise on to Port Neville and spend the night there. We hope to run into Georgia Lee

We anchored in Baresides Bay, just beyond Port Neville, about 8 PM. We had been on the water for about 10 hours and we were glad to be done.

Sunday, May 22

We spent a bouncy, noisy night on anchor. There was enough wind and wave action to create an annoying bow slap. Our boat really swings on anchor, even with an anchor bridle, so, unless the weather is absolutely calm, anchoring is not a restful means of parking. Jan was up about four and had lots of time to write this blog, before the guys awoke.

Today’s destination took us down Johnstone Strait and out into Queen Charlotte Sound. The plan was to spend the night in Port Hardy before we head across the “big water” across Queen Charlotte Sound.

Our cruise to Port Hardy was delightfully uneventful. We had almost no wind, the water was smooth, and the ride down the strait was actually kind of dull. We had forested mountains on both sides of the channel and could see higher, snow-covered peaks behind them. We didn’t spot any eagles, otters, seals, whales, or Bigfoot!

We arrived at Port Hardy at 3 PM and set off to explore the town. Because it was Sunday and tomorrow was Victoria Day, not much was happening in this bustling metropolis. Their economy revolves around fishing, mining, and tourism, and we must be early in their tourist season. We did find an surprisingly well-stocked grocery store and resupplied our stores of fresh fruits and vegetables. Everything looked amazing fresh and delicious! You know that it must be quite a process to get produce imported this far north!

We had dinner at the pub at the head of the dock and enjoyed their delicious menu. Jan had halibut stuffed with crab and spinach…yummy! Several fisherman were cleaning their day’s catch of salmon and several eagles were perched on masts nearby as they waited to grab the scraps. This is the first time we’ve seen these big birds swooping around above us. Quite a sight!

Monday, May 23 Victoria Day!

Unfortunately, none of us know the meaning or significance of Victoria Day, but we

thought this would be a great day to cross Queen Charlotte Sound. We were away by 8 AM and probably should have left two hours sooner! We had smooth cruising until about 1230 as we passed Egg Island. The wind picked up to about 15 knots which put a chop on top of the 3 – 4 foot swells. This made for a rolly ride. In the photo you can see Chuck's method for eating breakfast! Jan thought she had safely secured all the dishes, but this trip across the sound disproved that theory! Nothing broke but lots of stuff slid around! Smokey the boat cat wasn’t too thrilled with the bouncy ride, either. She doesn’t usually sit on Jan's lap but she did for awhile during this crossing!

We entered Fitz Hugh Channel about 1330 and the water calmed considerably, to the point of being almost glassy. Yay! We met a big Disney cruise ship…quite a floating hotel! Originally we thought we’d anchor in Pruth Bay for the night. It’s supposed to be a beautiful area, with some hiking trails and places to go in the dinghy but we decided to push on.

Shearwater Marina was our ultimate
destination. Waggoner's Cruising Guide made this destination sound absolutely exotic...ample power, water, and Internet access on the docks. A pub, grocery store and restaurant. Well, we've agreed that the cruising guide must have been well paid to put in such glowing terms for Shearwater! We arrived about 8 PM (seems to be our standard quitting time!) and found the last spot on the marina dock. Water available....nope! Power available....nope! Internet....stay tuned, the marina office as closed so we had to wait until tomorrow to find out.

The one thing that the marina did have was Georgia Lee, tied up at the dock! As we were getting settled, the captain came down to visit with us. Jim was from our area in Washington and was a soft-spoken, friendly guy. The boat was built in Washington state to just look like a converted fishing trawler. The boat was returning to Alaska for the summer, with the owner and his family on board. The owner, who was 80, was making his 62nd trip to Alaska. Wow!!

Our next Internet access sight is probably Prince Rupert, in a few days. The saga and the adventures continue!

Getting ready for Alaska

2011-05-24T14:35:00.000-07:00

Getting ready to go to Alaska has consumed the major portion of the last 10 months. After retiring and moving onto Cosmo Place in June, 2010, we worked diligently to learn all about cruising in the Northwest. I doubt we ever be really proficient but at least our comfort level has improved. Docking the boat, for instance, is no longer a cold-sweat experience. However, I certainly would not say that we know it all! In fact, we’re still learning amazing new things every day. Fortunately, we think our problem-solving skills and our knowledge base are robust enough to take us safely to Alaska and back.

Because we are so new to cruising, it’s been hard to anticipate what problems we’ll encounter and what routine maintenance the boat will need. How many extra parts and which ones should we take with us? Limited space and limited boat dollars curtails the list somewhat, but Jerry has had lots of conversations with lots of experienced cruisers trying to sort this one out.

How many household supplies should we take? Somewhere along the line I’ve developed the idea that there is absolutely nothing for sale above the 49^th parallel! So we’ve thoroughly stocked the boat with cans of soup, toilet paper, and all sorts of other household stuff.

Neither of us is much of a fisherman, but we’d certainly like to try our hand at catching a halibut or two. Where to start? We’ve had lots of advice and heard some amazing fish stories (there’s no bigger fish than the halibut that got away!), but we have yet to try our hand. Several generous folks have given us fishing poles, etc. so we hope that once we get to Alaska we can get licensed and provisioned to catch our own amazing fish.

The week before we left for Alaska was crazy. The weather improved enough in LaConner to allow us to wash the boat and clean the inside thoroughly. It’s always been our practice to start a journey with a clean vehicle, and this trip is no exception. We topped off the fuel tanks, tuned up the dinghy, and Jan did some docking practice with a trainer. Two humbling events occurred during that week. We discovered that the boat’s navigation system did not have charts north of Vancouver Island. We discovered this accidently, since we’d both assumed the electronic charts were in place. The boat had already been to Alaska, after all! The fix was relatively easy – just a phone call and our credit card. The maps were shipped to us a couple of days later. The other event was the loss of our Maretron weather station…a simple equipment failure. Of course it was out of warranty and of course a new one was expensive. Tie the least little piece of equipment to a boat and the cost doubles.

We were off to the Seattle-Tacoma airport on Wednesday, May 18 to pick up our friend Chuck Schleich who will cruise with us to Ketchikan. It was Chuck who got us started on this whole boating journey. In the early 90’s we had sailed with him on his boat in San Francisco Bay and started to seriously think about life on the water. Having another pair of hands for the start of the journey will be wonderful!

Our last trip of 2010

2011-03-13T16:19:00.000-07:00

After a trip to Visalia in October for Beth's birthday party, we decided to take the boat out one more time before winter settled in. So, November 4 we cruised out of La Conner Marina and north down Swinomish Channel. We had a beautiful morning to depart with Mount Baker keeping an eye on us. Our destination was a favorite spot...Prevost Harbor on Stuart Island. If you've been reading this blog, you've read about visits there this summer. This would be our first time to stay there by ourselves and do some serious island exploring.

Just to refresh my memory about Stuart Island and Prevost Harbor, I've include a photo of the island map. When we were here last summer there were lots of boats anchored in the harbor and tied up to the dock. When we went in October with Charlie, Suzanne and Chuck, we saw 20 orcas just outside the harbor entrance and sat and watched for an hour. So, we had high hopes for this trip...lots of whales but no people!

Well, half our wish was fulfilled. There was no one there when we pulled into the harbor and tied up to the dock, all by ourselves. Sweet! Of course, no orcas, and it started to rain buckets. So the next couple of days we sat at the dock and watched it rain.

We caught up on naps, emails, eating, and Mexican train. We read, cleaned the boat, and petted the cat. Once in awhile we'd venture out but the weather was not cooperating. We decided this weather was good practice for going to Alaska and the rainy weather we expect to experience once there.

We did go for a couple hikes around the island, but the scenery, in its water-logged state, just wasn't quite as spectacular. We did enjoy the peace and quiet and watching the harbor seals and birds.

Hiking trail on Stuart Island

Jerry at Reid Harbor beach.

After a few VERY quiet days at Prevost Harbor, we decided the weather was not going to improve do departed for Friday Harbor...another favorite spot of ours. We pulled out of Prevost Harbor and into Haro Strait to be greeted by an amazing sight...a sailboat regatta. Beautiful! There must have been 50 or 60 boats racing north. I must admit, they weren't very friendly and did not respond to my waves. Of course I was warm and dry standing in the pilot house and the sailboaters were bundled to the eyeballs in rain gear as they raced before the wind. I'm so glad we have a Tug!

By the time we got to Friday Harbor the sun was out, the wind was subsiding and we were ready for a walk. We made the obligatory purchases at the fish market at the head of the dock. Fresh halibut for dinner...yum! We've thought about making Friday Harbor our home next winter. The marina rates are reasonable, the folks are friendly, and the town is darling, and even better once the tourists have gone home. Certainly something to consider.

We were back in La Conner a week after we left, once again making our way down Swinomish Channel. We've learned to keep our eyes open for the eagles and are rarely disappointed.

Mature eagle on piling watches a juvenile approach.

Sitting together watching for lunch.

That's our last cruise for this year. We put about 250 hours on Cosmo Place, learned more than we ever expected, had fabulous times with friends and family, and saw some of the most beautiful country in the world. Our dreams of cruising to Alaska next summer seem almost doable! If you joined us this year, thanks for coming and playing! If you didn't join us...consider it next year or the next or the next or...

Jim and Chris to Eagle Harbor

2011-01-29T17:45:00.000-08:00

Sadly, we've not had much time with our good friends, Jim and Chris Munch, this summer and fall. They're just wayyyyyy tooooo busy! However, we did find a few days in October to get together and go to Eagle Harbor on Cypress Island. So, we headed north down Swinomish Channel on our way to Anacortes, to pick up Chris and Jim.

It's not unusual to see a bald eagle to two as we head down the channel, just before the highway bridge. We were rewarded with our patience, on this pretty October morning and saw an eagle perched above the channel, waiting for breakfast to swim by. You can see snowy Mount Baker in the background.

We stopped at Cap Sante, our favorite marina in Anacortes, to pick up Jim and Chris and get some groceries. As we pulled out into Guemes Channel, with Anacortes to our south and Guemes Island to our north, we were on the lookout for boat traffic. The big tankers come into this channel to pull into the refineries on Fidalgo Island at March Point. We didn't see any big tankers, but did watch this tug and barge go by. You can see little Hat Island in the background.

We arrived at Eagle Harbor about 1 PM, grabbed a mooring buoy, and dinghied in to the island. There were several trails to choose from, and we could have spent days there hiking around this island. Like most islands in the San Juans it is very wooded, and hilly. We choose an interesting trail and off we went to find Reed Lake.

While hiking along the trail I almost stepped on these SLUGS! Gross. They're about 8 inches long and creepy and slimy...very slug like. Very important to watch where one puts one's foot down. I'm not sure what it is that they're snacking on, and I don't think I want to know!

It's fun to travel with Jim and Chris because they're so knowledgeable about the San Juans and this is Chris's home territory. I can usually tell a dandelion from a fern, but they're experts and have names of the flora and fauna on the tips of their tongues.

We spent the evening BBQing and playing Mexican Train. Are you getting a picture of what you might do with us on the boat?? On our trip the next day, we decided to go through Deception Pass and up the Swinomish channel to Anacortes. Yup, it was definitely the long way around, but Chris had not been through Deception Pass and we definitely had to give her the tour!

I never know what odd ball boat we'll see as we come through Deception Pass, Similk and Skagit Bays. We saw this "mystery boat" go zooming by and I still don't know the story. Looks like it would be hard to detect, though!

We were back in La Conner by 4:30...another great trip!

There was a price to the Munch's company, though. We spend the next day helping them landscape and plant their front walk. Cant wait until spring when the steppable plants take off. Great potential for something fabulous!

Where does the time go?

2011-01-29T16:45:00.000-08:00

Hello! Okay, I'm embarrassed. It's been three months since we've visited and I've failed to "blog" a couple of significant trips on Cosmo Place. Just goes to show...this retired stuff is a busy life! (wink, wink!)

Our final cruisers for the summer were Charlie and Suzanne (my brother and sister-in-law) and Chuck Schleich, back for his second cruise. Charlie and Suzanne came from land-locked central Illlinois, so I'm pretty sure they had no idea what they were in for! Chuck was our first cruiser, way back in June, and, amazingly, he was back for another trip!

Chuck, Charlie, Suzanne, and Jerry.

You might be interested to know about all the connections among the five of us. Of course, Charlie and I are siblings, growing up on a farm in central Illinois. charlie and I are five years apart and often as kids it was Charlie and I versus the "middle brother" Roger. We had lots of memories to share! Charlie and Chuck have been buddies since high school and some of their stories would curl your hair. Stories about riding down the railroad in an old pick up...hoping not to meet a train as they crossed a trestle! Chuck and Suzanne have known each other since they were five or so. They went to the same schools since kindergarten! Still friends 50 years later...pretty amazing. Jerry and Suzanne were neighbors and rode the same school bus together...the one Jerry's dad drove! Jerry and I went to high school with Chuck's older brother Jack so I figure I've known Chuck since he was about 10. Chuck moved to the Bay Area in the 70's and we quickly reconnected when we arrived in California in 1978. So...lots of history among the five of us and lots of stories to share.

Chuck, Charlie, and Suzanne arrived on Sunday, September 26, and we took then to dinner at our favorite La Conner restaurant...the Pub! It overlooks Swinomish Channel and is an easy hike from the marina. The next morning we cruised out at 10 AM heading for Anacortes. Cap Sante marina will let us pull in for a couple of hours to make a grocery run (the grocery store is 3 blocks from the marina), so we supplied for our trip. We cruised all the way to Friday Harbor, tied up, spun the boat for satellite reception, and watched the Bears play football. The seafood shop at the marina had fresh crab dip. Yum!

We made a phenomenal breakfast discovery...make your own omelets, cooked in a baggie in boiling water. Great!! We even used up the rest of the crab. Our next destination was Prevost Harbor on Stuart Island. We'd been there before with lots of other company and knew it to be a great place. On our approach to Prevost, we saw about 40 orcas frolicking ahead of us. We idled the engine and watched them jump and dive for about 45 minutes. It was magical! You'll notice I've not posted one single photo...nope didn't get one!

We pulled in to Prevost Harbor, grabbed a buoy, and prepared to get the dinghy down so we could go hiking on the island. (Stuart Island has a park and some great hikes.) Of course, the davit rope was jammed and we could not put the dinghy in the water. You might think that would be a problem...in the back of the beyond, just basic tools, and no one to call for assistance. Well, let me tell you, put Jerry, Chuck and Charlie together on a challenge and just get out of their way. And they'll have fun doing it!

You can see from the picture what a pretty day it was and how quiet and calm the water is in this little harbor.

In the process of working on the dinghy, we park the boat at the state dock to make working on it easier. Our friends Jim and Christie Caldwell on NT 42 "Noeta" were parked on the other side of this little state dock and so we got together several times for cocktails, lunch, and general lie-swapping. One of the things we've learned through our San Juan travels this summer is that boaters are friendly, always ready to help, and are ready to have some fun. Jim and Christie are from Ventura, CA, and we'd become acquainted with them at the Nordic Tug rendezvous in June. It was great to see them again and catch up with their traveling news. They winter Noeta in Sidney, BC, and were on their way to park their tug for the winter.

Wednesday, 9/29, dawned bright and beautiful so Jerry, Chuck, Charlie, and the Caldwells decided to hike to the lighthouse, a trip of about 4 miles. Suzanne and I chose to stay on the boat and watch a movie...we're no dummies! The hikers got a great photo of a container ship going through Boundary Passage, headed for Vancouver, BC. The land that you see beyond the ship is Canada...maybe 5 miles away. We've seen lots and lots of commercial boat traffic in these waters and have yet to meet one in the fog, but I'm sure our time is coming. Gotta love radar!

After another great evening and a restful, quiet night, we left Prevost Harbor on Thursday morning and headed south, along the west side of San Juan Island. We were hopeful we'd see more orcas, but only saw one, which we thought might have been sick. We went Deception Pass...almost a requirement with family and friends who visit. Charlie and Suzanne obediently posed for me!

Mount Shuksan

We made it back to LaConner that night so that we could take a driving tour of Mount Baker the next day. This is the volcanic peak that we can see from all over the San Juans and is basically east of Bellingham. We'd been here with Donald and Dorothy Peterson the first of September, but this time we saw lots of beautiful fall colors...

Along with lots of great conversations and beautiful scenery, we had some great games of pitch and Mexican Train with Chuck, Charlie, and Suzanne. You'd be amazed how silly a game of cards can get.

Wonderful company! Can't wait until they all come again.

At Nooksack Falls

Don and Sally's visit.

2010-10-05T07:35:00.000-07:00

Jerry's brother, Don, and his wife, Sally, came for a quick visit the middle of September. They arrived on Tuesday, September 14, about 1230. After a quick bite of lunch, we "saddled up" and headed south down Swinomish Channel. Our plan was to go through Deception Pass, across Rosario Strait, and anchor in Hunter Bay that evening. The afternoon was lovely until we got to Strawberry Island on the east side of the pass...yup, you guessed it! Fog. Thick, rolling fog coming under the bridge. "Well," we said, "we've come this far. We'll just fire up the radar. How thick can the fog be?" Famous last words! The fog stayed with us until about 2/3's of the way across Rosario Strait. I cannot say that it was pleasant proceeding in the fog, especially when the visibility is zero, but we did it well. Jerry is a very capable boat captain!

We did have a couple of exciting moments just as we emerged on the west side of Deception Pass. Our radar showed a "hit" about 1/4 mile away so Don and I each stood at a pilot house door, watching and listening. Out of the fog a sailboat emerged, crossed from port to starboard about 50 feet off our bow, and yelled at us to slow down! At this point we were idling through the pass, letting the current just before slack carry us! Captain Jerry immediately put the boat in reverse and stopped our forward movement. I have no idea why the sailboat chose to change course in front of us. The appropriate approach is to pass to port, where there was plenty of room. I think the guy panicked!

The second event happened minutes later. We had the radar set at a range of 1/2 mile, but could hear a deep, multi-toned, sounded-like-a-really-big boat horn! More than half a mile away and our visibility was about 1/8 mile. Our horn was out of commission (something else to look into!) so Don rang our boat bell every 30 seconds. We hoped they were listening and looking for us as intently as we were for them! Suddenly, out of the fog and well off to port, (whew!) I could dimly make out what looked like about a 100' yacht, headed into Deception Pass. Yikes! Sure glad we didn't meet that boat 5 minutes sooner.

The fog soon lifted and we had a beautiful evening in Hunter Bay. In fact, this was our best weather! We BBQed halibut and enjoyed the views from the boat deck. We didn’t get the dinghy down, but chose to enjoy cocktails and conversation instead. There were fewer boats anchored this time…looks like the boating season is drawing to a close!

The next morning, when the fog finally lifted, we headed for Victoria, BC, across the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Again it was very foggy as we got out into the deep water. So, once again, we turned on the radar and had no trouble whatsoever. This is a busy shipping lane, but did not see any tankers, etc., as we cruised across the water. We took about four hours to make the transit from Lopez Island, which surprised us. Eight knots just isn’t very fast.

We checked into customs in Victoria and, of course, it was raining by this time. The customs officials decided they wanted to board the boat and do an inspection. So, we stood in the rain while they pulled up cushions, peeked into every cupboard and generally made a mess. We have no idea why they felt they had to search us…practice? Harrassment? Who knows!

By the time we got to our marina slip it was after 5 PM, but the rain had stopped so we took off to explore Victoria. Have you been there? What a pretty city. We’ll have to go back when we have more time. Lots of history, architecture, and First Nation art to learn about! Some of our photos:

Sally, Don, and Jerry at the Empress Hotel

Looking at the totem poles at the Empress Hotel.

The Parliament Building at night

We wandered around until time for dinner and then headed for Pagliachi's, a restaurant some of our slip neighbors in La Conner recommended. As you can tell by the name, it's an Italian restaurant with all sorts of yummy Italian ways to serve seafood. They're quite popular and were busy, but they've got a great plan to keep their waiting customers happy. They dole out coffee cups of delicious red table wine to sip while waiting. We actually had to wait outside and sipped our wine there! That wouldn't happen in Visalia! Jerry certainly enjoyed it.

The next morning we did some more exploring and walked around the harbor. The flowers around the harbor were just amazing. Dahlias as big as saucers! Sally and I spent a lot of time oohing and ahhing, much to the guys' dismay! We took a ride on the harbor ferry and got delivered from the far side of the harbor right to our dock. What service!

Unfortunately it was soon time to take off, even though we still didn't have beautiful sunshine. Our goal was a quiet anchorage on Shaw Island or Lopez Island...depending on how the weather evolved. More immediately, though, we hoped to see Orcas as we crossed Rosario Strait headed east. As we came into Cattle Pass, between San Juan and Lopez Islands, we noticed a cluster to whale-watching boats...a sure sign of orcas! We saw sea lions, in addition to harbor seals, resting on some of the many rocks in this pass. we also saw the dorsal fin of at least one orca! Yay!!! They do exist in the San Juans! I wish I could attach a photo, but no luck! They're too fast for my reflexes.

The weather was still crummy so we decided to just stay in Friday Harbor after we had cleared customs. Thursday night football was on the activity list, too, and it's harder to watch football when we're anchored out. The satellite receiver struggles to hold onto a satellite as we rock and swing. We found a comfy place on the guest dock, right across the dock from a cruise ship. Not a huge one...about 110 passengers...which had returned from Alaska. We bought some shrimp and settled in for football. Sometimes, things are never simple! What should have been a comfy rainy night tucked in on the boat in front of the TV totally fell apart. We could not get a satellite signal and decided that the cruise ship parked next to us was blocking us! Rats! After a brief discussion about moving, we decided to stay put and just enjoy the evening. Good call! We had a wonderful time talking.

I should mention that checking into the US at the customs dock in Friday Harbor added a new wrinkle. After we got the boat tied up, all of us climbed back on the boat while Jerry could check in. He was on the phone for awhile and then came back to the boat to get everyone's passports. Even though Jerry had given the customs agent our passport numbers, that wasn't adequate. Jerry needed our passports so that he could hold them up to a camera at the customs station! What will happen next??

On our way back to La Conner we cruised by Dakota Creek Industries, a huge commercial boat builder in Anacortes that faces Guemas Channel. They've been building an offshore supply vessel that will support a drilling platform for about two years. They had recently put it in the water so we took a good look as we went by. You can see the large helicopter pad on the bow of the boat. The ship is called "Cade Candies" for the owner's son. Otto Candies, the owner, has quite a fleet of commercial ships and names all of them after family members.

We had a little time after we moored in La Conner, so we took a driving tour around the area. The photo at the left is taken from Cap Sante Park, a promontory at the eastern edge of Anacortes, which overlooks Guemes Channel, March Point where the refineries are, Fidalgo Bay, and the Cascades. This was our last stop with Don and Sally. The next morning they left early for points east, particularly Glacier National Park. What a great time we had with them and loved all of our new adventures.