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.
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| 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!
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| 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
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.
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| Fish Camp at Point Baker |
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.
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| 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!
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| Juvenile eagle in a pine tree |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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.
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
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!
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| A mat of seaweed and debris |
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| Seaweed, logs, birds and trash in Sumner Strait |
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'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!
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