La Conner to Ketchikan

  Alaska, here we come!

We are off to cruise beautiful SE Alaska again this summer.  We’re leaving a little early this year at the prompting of slipmates in La Conner.  In fact, we’d hoped to travel with them, but at the last minute they had to delay their departure.  Not to be discouraged, we departed without them.

Our first night’s destination was Nanaimo, BC, just as we had done last year.  So, once again we had to negotiate Dodd Narrows, about 10 miles before Nanaimo.  This little tight spot has a terrible reputation so we did our calculations, consulted the tide and current tables, and decided the earliest to go through was about 1830.  We would still be ahead of “high water slack” but wouldn’t have much current to contend with at that point.  What we didn’t reckon on was a following wind and current pushing us along rather quickly.  We had to do a lot of stalling to avoid going through too early.  If we do this again, we’ll consult the tide/current tables before we leave and maybe not get up at oh-dark-thirty!  We did see some whirlpools (I saw one about 5 feet deep) and eddies as we transited the narrows and I’m sure it could be really exciting at maximum flood or ebb.  Can you see the waters meeting in this photo? 

Upon the recommendation of a boating friend who comes to Alaska every year,  we anchored in Nanaimo Harbor at Mark Bay, rather than mooring at one of the marinas.  It was a good chance to brush up our anchoring skills, and (hooray!) the technique came back quickly.  We sat across the harbor from the city and it was a pretty sight to watch the lights blink on.

Listening to the weather at 0600 Wednesday morning was discouraging.  “High wind warnings” in the waters ahead of us.  We decided to stay put for a day and let the storm pass through.  It rained off and on all day so we read, and napped, and I baked bread.  Nanaimo is a busy port so there was lots of boat traffic to watch and the floatplanes on final approach were right over our heads! 

Thursday, 4/26, had a much more favorable weather report, so off we went again.  We had a good cruise up Discovery Passage to Campbell River, but it was a long day for us, taking 9 hours.  It was almost sunny and the seas were fairly calm.  This night was a “marina night” and we were excited to get off the boat and explore the town.  We’ve heard lots about Campbell River from fishermen friends, who say this is a great place to come to fish for salmon.  It felt good to stretch our legs after a couple of days on the boat and, as you can see, we had a sunny afternoon.  We even had dinner out at the “Riptide Pub”, where we had some of the best fish and chips ever!

Friday, 4/27, our destination was Lagoon Cove, in the Broughton’s.  Although we’d cruised this area on our way south last year, we had not stopped at this spot.  This little marina is famous for its hospitality and great prawning.  Obviously we were a little early in the season, but Pat and Bob, the caretaker couple, still welcomed us with the open arms and gave us a ten-minute orientation on the facilities!  Pat did warn us that the hiking trails hadn’t been cleaned up from the winter windfalls and the bears were just waking up…  Fortunately it was raining again and we used the inclement weather as an excuse to avoid the trails!  

The building in the photos is Bob’s workshop, the community hall, and the computer center.  Bob is a handyman extraoirdinaire!  Living in this remote area means that he can't run down to OSH or ACE for parts, so never throws anything away.  I glanced up and spotted an old fashioned stroller in the rafters.  I wonder for what use it's being saved.

We did learn a little bit about starfish while we were there.  The lagoon fills up with starfish in the winter…orange ones, blue ones, gray/green ones, both big and little.  They were in al sizes…some seemed at least 18 inches across.  They migrate into the lagoon as the weather gets colder and move out again in the spring.  The bottom of the lagoon around the pilings in front of Bob’s shop had some unique starfish.  I don’t think I’d seen blue ones before!  As you can see, the water was amazingly clear!  According to Pat all of these starfish are hard on the crab and prawn population.  She was not sad to see them heading to deeper water and tried to give us a couple.  We didn’t think Smokey would approve!

We carried our laptop computers up to the “computer center” and were able to get on the Internet using their DSL cable.  We caught up with weather reports and decided to spend a second night in Lagoon Cove.  Sunday, 4/29,  dawned with promises of better weather so we left the Lagoon Cove dock at 0615 and were on our way.  

Our route took us through the southern edge of the Broughton’s and out into Blackfish Sound.  This turned out to be a LONG day – we cruised for 13 hours.  We did make it across Queen Charlotte Sound, around Cape Caution and up into Fitz Hugh Channel.  The crossing of this potentially rough water was better than last year.  We had winds behind us about 10 knots and seas that were about 6 feet.  Fortunately, we didn’t have a lot of rolling, which is soooo tedious.  Smokey sure doesn’t appreciate the rolling and spend quite awhile on my lap.  A good cruising day for Smokey means she gets to sleep quietly in the window, with the sun keeping her warm!

We debated about where to anchor for the night and didn’t follow Knut’s suggestion to stop at Fury Cove.  We thought we could go a little further, so we chose Sea Otter Cove on the west side of Fitz Hugh Sound.  To help us make these decisions we use a couple of books:  Waggoner’s Cruising Guide, and Exploring the Northern Coast of British Columbia.  Both of these excellent books said this little cove was a great anchorage (“bottom of sticky mud with good holding”…those are the magic words we look for!) and protected from all sorts of weather.  Well, we had a terrible time finding that sticky mud, in fact, I don’t think we ever did.  In a little narrow channel, it took us three tries to set the anchor!  We were determined, though.  It was 1930, raining, and we were both tired.  So, we put out lots of chain and called it good.  Sadly, this wasn’t even a pretty place to anchor.  I think we both slept with “one ear open all night” waiting to hear the anchor drag, but didn't have any problems.  The next morning, Monday, 4/30, we didn’t leave until 0710…what slackers!...and continued north.

Our route took us out into Millbanke Sound and again a little exposure to ocean swells.  This transit was relatively painless…or we were just getting toughened up.  The rocky coast looked quite daunting as we threaded our way carefully through rocks that were barely visible above the water.  This particular rock is called Vancouver Rock and would be impossible to see without the surf breaking over its surface.  This is one of those times when our navigation equipment is invaluable!

As we crossed the sound we had Dahl’s porpoises surfing in the bow wake as we came into the deep water of the Sound.  These swimmers are amazing!  They dart back and forth in front of the bow, apparently challenging each other to see how close they can come to the boat.  Very entertaining.  We also saw a pod of three gray whales headed north.  They were doing some serious travelling and we could only spot them when them came up to breathe.  Nope, not one picture of any of this!

This was another day of long cruising.  Because we’d gotten so behind schedule, we wanted to catch up, if we could, while the weather held.  The scenery wasn’t particularly pretty…just a study of shades of gray.  Sprinkles, rain showers, and overcast skies summed up our travelling weather.  As you might expect, logging is a primary industry in British Columbia.  We've met tugs pulling tows of logs, single logs floating in the water, and have seen huge pulp mills.  But until now, we had not yet seen a logger park his single-man tug against a log float and walk the logs.  Yikes!  

We cruised all the way up Princess Royal Channel.  This was definitely on the cruise ship route but we’re too early to see any.  I looked up the cruise ship schedules for Alaska and the first cruise ship doesn’t arrive in Ketchikan until May 5.  It isn’t until three weeks later the bunches of cruise ships start their regular rotation through Ketchikan.  As we travel this summer, we'll see the same cruise ships travel among the large cities.  They will make several transits to our single tour of SE Alaska.

We arrived at one of our favorite anchoring spots late in the afternoon.  Khutz Inlet was lovely as usual.  We had some sun breaks and sat in the pilothouse to watch a mother seal and her two white pups play in the shallow water on the mud bar.  I sure wish I could show you a photo but they were too far away for my camera to pick them up.  We also watched a loon diving for dinner.  My bird book says these amazing birds can swim about 200 feet under water in search of fish!

We awoke on Tuesday, May 1, to more overcast skies and rain, but travelling north through Grenville Channel, or “the ditch” as the big cruise ships call it, is very protected.  Where to stop tonight?  Last year we had a lovely anchorage in Baker Inlet going north and Lowe Inlet going south, so we went a little further north to try a new spot:  Kumealon Inlet, about 2 hours south of Prince Rupert.  This was our best anchorage yet.  We even had a little sunshine in the late afternoon and I was able to take this photo of the shore and the reflection on the water.  If the photo were rotated it would almost look like a totem pole, or a painting of an extraterrestrial!  We had no wind or blow slap to keep us awake, although it did rain off and on all night...again.

Wednesday, May 2, we were up early to listen to the weather and it sounded okay so off we went and hoped to reach Ketchikan...in about 13 hours.  Of course there were places to anchor over night, if we didn’t want to cruise that long, but if crossing that corner of the ocean wasn’t too rough, we would keep on going.  As we headed north toward Dixon Entrance (ocean water) we passed Green Island Light.  Headed north it means the challenging part of the cruise is yet to come.  Headed south in the fall when we pass this lighthouse, we'll know that the rough part of the day's cruise is over.  

We had good wind and seas so made it to Ketchikan about 5:30 local time.  They’re an hour earlier than Pacific Time.  We were quite happy to arrive and have a few days’ respite from all the weather worries.  We chatted with a couple on their Nordic Tug who were moored just across the fairway from us.  They were from Anacortes, as well.  Originally they were from Maine and had been cruising for about five years.  They had been here about a week and were off to explore this morning.  They will be here all summer and I'd bet we see them again.  One of the best parts of exploring is meeting so many interesting people and listening to their great stories.

We’ll be in Ketchikan at least until Saturday, May 5.  If the weather sounds too icky (yep, definitely a boating term!), we’ll stay longer.  It might be fun to see how Ketchikan celebrates Cinco de Mayo and go to church on Sunday.

Thanks for traveling along with us.  The next blog entry will be from Wrangell in about 10 days.