We spent Monday, June 22 in Craig. It was a wonderful warm and sunny day to walk around town and do errands. The older part of town is on an island (now joined to the mainland by a causeway), and contains the city hall, the nice small library, and a number of scenic old buildings along the waterfront. We had lunch in a wonderful old hotel/restaurant that sits on pilings over the water. The view was scenic, the room was intimate and very nicely decorated; the waitress was wonderful, and the food was just dreadful. We thought halibut would be good choice, as folks on the dock yesterday had been cleaning lots of halibut. Well, the halibut we had for lunch was undoubtedly frozen, sent off to Seattle, stored, sent back to Craig, and finally overcooked especially for us. It is surprising how often fishing towns have such poor seafood available in restaurants or for sale in markets (if you can find seafood at all in the markets). The Oregon coast is somewhat similar in this regard.
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| Craig, AK |
The mainland part of town is a more modern evolution of isolated buildings here and there, plus a small strip mall; clearly designed for drivers, while the old town was designed for walkers. In this area we made use of the laundry, the showers, the grocery store, the liquor store, and the sporting goods store.
The poor lunch was nicely set off with an excellent dinner at a nearby sport fishing lodge. Most people there (almost all men) are on a five-day fishing package, but they are open to the public for dinner with reservations. We had some excellent white King salmon for dinner. The waitress was a recently arrived teacher from St. Louis, working the summer with an old college friend. She had never before seen the ocean, much less Alaska, and was still in something of a state of shock about moving to a town of 1200 people in the middle of nowhere like this.
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| Troller, Buccareli Bay, AK |
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| Jeanie Making Sail, Tlevak Strait, AK, Jun 2015 |
Tuesday morning we walked up to a café for lattes and maple bars, and returned for a relatively early start south. Weather was sunny and calm as we motored through the commercial salmon trollers in Buccarelli Bay. As we turned south into Ulloa Channel we encountered a stiff south wind that lasted the rest of the day. Also, all of the boats disappeared, and we had the rest of the day to ourselves. We passed through Tlevak Narrows one hour after slack with a following current. All went well, though there were some serious boils and upwellings. As we entered Tlevak Strait we could finally turn a bit east, and had a rollicking upwind sail on one tack over to South Pass. We eventually put two reefs in the main and four rolls in the jib, and were still doing over 7 knots. The hull speed for our boat is 6.4 kt, so that is really fast for us.
We sailed half way up South Pass until the wind died, and then we had a bit of a navigational scramble. We are approaching a narrow shallow pass just before Hydaburg, and when the first buoys become visible they are both red instead of the green shown on the chart. Well now, since the buoys are placed to keep us off the rocks, it makes a big difference whether we pass them on the left or the right side. The old mnemonic of “red right returning” generally doesn’t work up here, since the passages are so intricate that it usually is not clear whether you are returning or leaving – you must depend upon the chart.
We do our piloting with paper charts, most of which we purchased used to save money. Generally speaking, the only changes we find are the layouts of docks in towns, and occasionally the addition of extra buoys; the rocks are still in the same places. These changes don’t cause any real crises. However, we did download a modern set of charts onto our computer before we left on this trip three years ago. So I scramble below, fire up the computer, and check out the newer chart. Sure enough, they had decided to change all the red buoys to green, and all of the green buoys to red! We are not totally out of the woods yet, however, since Hydaburg turned out to have a brand new dock with a different configuration, and more interestingly, a changed set of markers leading into it that were not shown even on the newer chart. Well, the newer chart is now three years old – guess we should have updated it this year before we left. In the end we made some logical conclusions about how they would have changed it all, and it worked out fine.
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| Totem Park, Hydaburg, AK |
After getting moored, we walked downtown to explore in the nice sunny weather. They have a magnificent totem park here that is certainly the equal of Klawock, and we like the designs of the totems better. This area is a cultural divide. The natives in Klawock, like virtually all natives in Southeast Alaska are Tlingit. There are two villages on southern Prince of Wales Island that are instead Haida – Hydaburg and Kasaan (which we visited two years ago). The Haida’s traditional homeland is the Queen Charlotte Islands (or Haida Gwaii), 60 miles off the coast of British Columbia. In the early 18
th century they expanded into this region as well.
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| Totem Park, Hydaburg, AK |
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| Totem Park, Hydaburg, AK |
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| Totem Park, Hydaburg, AK |
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| Agu and Jean, Carving Shed, Hydaburg, AK, Jun 2015 |
After some time spent puzzling over the complex totems, we continued our walk. A man came out of a wooden building, and waved us over. He wanted to show us the carving shed, where they are working on two short poles that are to be erected on July 24. We spent over an hour there with him. He had immersed himself into the culture of the carving shed as part of his drug and alcohol rehabilitation. He told us tales of being sent off a boarding school by the government, where he was beaten if he was heard speaking his native language, and generally made to feel that his culture was an embarrassment. We met his college-educated son, who is now serving as the mayor of Hydaburg. The town seems to have a pretty positive outlook at this point. After dinner a large group of teenagers came down to the dock to swim. It was the ageless scenario of girls screaming while boys threw them in the water. After the boys left, the girls all went swimming without any screaming required.
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| Yard Totem, Hydaburg, AK |
The weather turned bad, with strong south winds and rain, so we spent another two days in Hydaburg. We asked around and found the city hall (no signs to indicate what it was), and managed to pay our moorage. I expect nobody really cared whether we paid it or not, but it seemed the right thing to do. It took quite some time for the woman in charge to find the form for us to fill out, and it didn’t really seem to be the correct form. We enjoyed talking with her, however. Most everyone we have met in this town of 375 people has been welcoming and friendly to us. We went to the grocery, which turned out to be more of a convenience store, without much of interest for us.
We then went back and cleaned up the boat for company – just like home. We had invited a Dutch couple over for dinner. They are the only other recreational boat here. Ellen and Harry left Holland in their sailboat 12 years ago. They circumnavigated the world, and decided to keep on going rather than return home. They have been around Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope, and are now here in Alaska after a somewhat circuitous journey. Ellen said that after a while it stopped being an adventure, and just became their life. They are delightful and interesting people, and we greatly enjoyed their company.
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| Carving Shed, Hydaburg, AK |
On Thursday we spent most of the day on the boat, out of the wind and rain. We did return to the carving shed for an hour or so to watch the carvers at work, and chat with them. They have made a lot of progress since we were last there, although it still seems like an enormous job. The poles are so large, and the carving is so intricate. I had an intriguing conversation with one of the young men there. He asked what tribe of natives lived in Nanaimo, and I told him it was the Salish. I mentioned that historically, they didn’t care much for the Haida, as the Haida regularly paddled south to capture slaves, steal women, and kill the men and boys. He replied that the Haida treated their slaves very well, and that their captives were pleased to be slaves. At first I thought he was joking, but it slowly became apparent that he was really serious. At least his cultural self-esteem seems to be pretty strong.
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| Carving Shed, Hydaburg, AK |
In the evening we spent some time drinking too much wine with Ellen and Harry on their boat, talking about the remarkable places they have visited. They have sailed in Europe, Brazil, Patagonia, Polynesia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Thailand, South Africa, the Caribbean, etc., and they told us that Alaska is the highlight of their trip.
I awoke Friday morning to the sound of rain on the deck and wind in the rigging. It was bright daylight, and I wasn’t too sleepy, so I started to read, waiting for Jean to awaken. I forgot to bring my watch to bed. After a while Jean awoke, and expressed surprise that I was reading at 5:00 AM. I draped a dark cloth over by eyes and went back to sleep. Awakening again at a more reasonable hour, the weather had taken a definite turn for the better, and we decided to leave for points south along with Zwerver. Zwerver is Dutch for Wanderer, which is pretty much the same name as our boat, Rover, though they have zwerved quite a bit more than we have.
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| Clam Cove, Kassa Inlet, AK |
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| Clam Cove, Kassa Inlet, AK |
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| Clam Cove, Kassa Inlet, AK |
The day continued to improve, and became a mostly sunny day with fluffy white clouds. Unfortunately the wind was still from the south, so we ended up motoring all day. We saw one other boat all day long. At 2:30 we anchored next to Zwerver in Clam Cove in Kassa Inlet, about 25 miles south of Hydaburg. The water was very clear, and there was a sand bottom. This is an unusual combination for us, and it was a bit disconcerting to look down and see the bottom – it seemed that the water must be too shallow. Another unusual aspect of this cove was the complete absence of alders. There are always Sitka Alders growing along the shore, especially near small streams that empty into the sea. They create a dense thicket that makes it difficult to enter the forest or walk up the stream. Here the streams emptied directly onto the sand/gravel beach with no intervening shrubbery. I certainly wonder what became of the alders. Schooner got his obligatory walk on the beach, and then Jean rowed Ellen and Harry over to our boat for wine and cheese. Our 8-foot dinghy is a bit small for three adults, but they managed it with a good sense of humor. Even more impressively, they managed to return safely after all of the wine.
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| Ellen Quinten, Jeanie & Harry Jansen, Clam Cove, Kasaa Inlet, AK, Jun 2015 |
Saturday we headed south down Cordova Bay. The main reason we stayed in Hydaburg was to avoid the nasty seas that a southeast wind would kick up here. Today it was mirror calm, with blue sky and white fluffy clouds. There were quite a few humpback whales about, including one who slapped his tail on the water for a remarkably long time.
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| Wake, Cordova Bay, AK |
We motored through the scenic Barrier Islands, and then out into Dixon Entrance. This is one of the major hurdles on an Alaskan trip, as it is an unhindered bit of open ocean, and can be pretty nasty in bad weather. Today there was just a low ocean swell, enough so that we raised the mainsail for stability, but not of any concern. We could see the mountain tops of Haida Gwaii over the horizon to the south. That is a trip for another year. As we neared Nunez rocks at the southern tip of Prince of Wales Island, there was a dramatic increase in civilized busyness. This is close enough to Ketchikan that a zippy sport fishing boat can get here in a few hours, fish for a few hours, and make it back home the same day. There were about a dozen boats fishing here. That’s about equals the number boats we’ve seen thus far, outside of harbors, on the entire west coast of Prince of Wales Island.
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| Nichols Bay, AK |
We negotiated the roundabout entrance to Nichols Bay, and anchored in a small cove next to Zwerver. We have become pretty competent at anchoring in many different circumstances up here, but the one skill that has atrophied is anchoring close to other boats. It’s important not to foul their anchor, or to end up too close to them. We did very well, but it was more tense than usual. A common source of entertainment in crowded anchorages is to watch the newer arrivals mess up their anchoring. I suppose the pressure here was greater since our observers have been anchoring most every day for twelve years straight. We had a pleasant happy hour with Ellen and Harry, and a quiet night, joined at anchor by a purse seiner.
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| Duke Island, AK |
When we awoke both the purse seiner and Zwerver were gone, the latter headed on a long day across Dixon Entrance to Dundas Island in BC. We’ve been there twice – both times devoured by black flies – so we’re headed to see something new at Duke Island instead. Somehow we didn’t make a careful measurement of our trip, and had a leisurely start – it turned out to be much farther than we thought, and we should have left sooner. We had a headwind and a large ocean swell on our beam until we were around Cape Chacon. The crossing to Duke Island was still in big water, but the swell was on our stern quarter and diminished, so not too bad, though we did buck an adverse current most of the day. It was a warm, sunny day, with no wind, and was a bit tedious, as our destination was in view all day, only very slowly getting larger as we crept closer. There were over a dozen purse seiners fishing north of us in Clarence Strait. Late in the afternoon the wind came up, and we managed a bit of sailing.
We maneuvered through a rock pile into a very protected spot called Judd Harbor. In there it was dead calm and hot – the only visible wildlife being large biting flies. Fortunately these flies are pretty slow on the take off, and easy to kill. The buzzing is more annoying than the threat of a bite. There were some interesting rocks ashore. They had chunks of schist a few inches long, stirred randomly into a light colored crystalline matrix. This would a fascinating trip for someone knowledgeable about metamorphic rocks. There has been an enormous variety, and it has been far beyond my meagre knowledge.
As we were leaving the harbor and entering Dixon Entrance, a humpback whale’s head suddenly exploded out of the water about 75 feet off our port bow. That was certainly a shock, and all we could muster was an instinctive gasp. He was no doubt swimming vertically through a school of small prey with his mouth wide open. We had seen no sign of him prior to this.
Having survived the whale encounter, we were back out into Dixon Entrance again, crossing over to Cape Fox. There were low clouds and rain showers, and the swell was much larger than yesterday. The day gradually became drier and brighter, but still no wind. As we approached Cape Fox, we encountered a dozen or more gill netters. Getting around the cape required constant vigilance to avoid entanglement in a net.
In the middle of all this we notice a tug pulling a large barge piled high with shipping containers headed toward us, and almost immediately we are engulfed by a bank of fog that had more or less suddenly appeared. So now we can’t see the fishing boats or the tug. We turn on the radar, and now can make them all out. We still need to see the buoys marking the ends of the nets to avoid them, since they don’t show up on radar. However, knowing where the boats are is a big help, and the visibility isn’t all that bad, so we can find the buoys with binoculars as we get close. The tug and barge make a great radar target, of course, and we watch as the menacing radar blob moves ¾ mile to our west, though we never do see it again.
Once around Cape Fox, the swell is much diminished, and we head for Port Tongass. This is an important sounding name for a nothing place. There was an Army fort there in the late 1860’s, but it is now just a beach fronting a bunch of deciduous trees growing in the old fort site. The fog cleared as we arrived, and we anchor, but we decide not to stay. The anchor had dragged over rock before finally catching, and we don’t have a good feel for the security of our attachment to the bottom. We are also uncomfortably close to some nasty looking rocks, and there is still some residual swell in the anchorage rocking our boat a bit. All in all, we decide it is a no go, and go south into Lincoln Channel.
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| Pearse Canal, AK |
Well, Lincoln Channel did have some nice looking anchorages. The problem there was that it had been taken over by commercial fishermen. Each anchorage contained a float house, to which fishing boats could tie for the night. There was also a float for garbage, and floats for storing fishing gear. All in all, there really wasn’t a place for us. We tried easing into a narrow, shallow place to get behind an island, but lost our nerve as the depth sounder continued to drop.
So, we reevaluate our plan, and head illegally over into British Columbia. We are not allowed to anchor or go ashore until we have cleared Canadian customs, but this is a very out of the way place, and the Mounties are unlikely to catch us here. We end up in a calm, isolated anchorage called Wales Harbour, and have an uneventful night. It is a typical anchorage for Northern British Columbia – thickly forested with no really good place to go ashore, and no place to walk. Schooner survived, and found various bits of seafood to eat on the shore.
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| Barnacle, Wales Harbour, BC |
We got off to an early start on Tuesday, cooking French toast for breakfast as we motored along. We finished up eating just as we left the shelter of the islands in Tongass Passage, and entered the beam swell in Dixon Entrance. On the way north two years ago we spent one day crossing Dixon Entrance. Our clever return plan has provided four days of this experience. The wind picked up so we could sail, but it also maliciously blew Jean’s Tilley hat over the side. There was no hope for retrieving it in those conditions. The day began cloudy, even spit a little rain, but ended up sunny and warm.
As we passed the historic native village previously known as Port Simpson (now “known” as Lax Kwa’alaams), we got a weak cell phone signal that enabled us to call ahead for a reservation at the Prince Rupert Rowing and Yacht Club. Finding a place to tie your boat in Prince Rupert can be challenging this time of year, with the fishing fleet here, the huge sport fishing business, and the yachts heading to and from Alaska. This is really the only significant settled place in this region. If you need to buy anything, or get any kind of service, you come here. We won’t be in a place this large until we get back home. “Large” in this case means 12,000 people, but it is connected to the rest of Canada by road and rail, so it is big deal. So, having a reservation was a big relief.
We dropped the sails to motor through the narrow, twisting, shallow Venn Passage, which took us the back route into Prince Rupert Harbour. Suddenly there were freighters loading grain, loading shipping containers, and waiting their turn at anchor. The Alaskan ferry was just arriving, fishing boats were churning back and forth, and it was a real change from our life of the past month.
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| Cow Bay, Prince Rupert, BC |
There were folks to take our lines and help us into our slip, which was a good thing, as it was really windy and rocky. This harbor is great for freighters, but a bit exposed for small fry like us. We found Zwerver here, moored just down the dock from us. They arrived yesterday without an engine. Their starter motor died, and they towed themselves here through Venn Passage with their small outboard motor on their inflatable dinghy. Of course they can’t get anything repaired or delivered quickly, since tomorrow is a national holiday.
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| Cow Bay, Prince Rupert, BC |
We got the boat settled, took showers, checked e-mail, took a long walk with Schooner, and had a pretty good dinner at the pub overlooking the marina, watching our boat rocking and rolling in the waves. Things eventually calmed down after sunset, and we had a quiet night except for a large ship wake that rolled through at 2 AM.
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| Rover's Canada Day Flags, Prince Rupert, BC |
July 1
st is Canada Day, so it was not a day to run boat errands. We decked out our boat with its full complement of flags, which looked very festive in the brisk wind. We were able to fly the flags of the United States, Canada, British Columbia, Vancouver Island, Protection Island (a Jolly Roger), the Ladysmith Yacht Club, Oregon, Wyoming, New Jersey, England, Wales, Sweden, Scotland, and our newest acquisition – Holland, a gift from Ellen and Harry. For you non-boaters, the device above the flags in the attached picture is a radar reflector. Curved fiberglass is a very poor reflector of radar waves, so we always carry this gizmo, which is designed to make us show up on the radar of other boats and ships, and make us look much larger than we really are.
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| Canada Day, Prince Rupert, BC |
We had lunch at a food booth up in the nearby park, where there was live music and various children activities. The music was all local, and ranged from excellent to courageous. It was warm and sunny, and people were enjoying themselves, but we couldn’t help but contrast this small event to the incredible July 4
th we had seen in Wrangell – a town one fourth the size of Prince Rupert.
The major surprise of the day was a text message from our good Ashland friends Monty and Lorna Elliott. They have been sailing north from Washington for a month, and they announced that they would arrive here late this afternoon. We managed to get them a marina reservation, and had a good visit hearing the details of their trials and tribulations trying to make it north. Between weather and mechanical issues it has been a long haul, but they’re finally here – hard to believe we crossed paths like this.
Ellen and Harry from Zwerver joined the four of us for a good and leisurely seafood meal at Dolly’s across the street. It is possible to find good seafood on occasion. Dolly’s restaurant is really an extension of a seafood market, so we can take some with us as we leave town, which will be tomorrow morning. The day finished with fireworks, though they didn’t start until 11:15, when I was already in bed. It wasn’t entirely dark then, but dark enough that you could see them.
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| Pioneer Hostel, Prince Rupert, BC |
We’ve just spent the day carrying laundry and groceries, filling up the fuel and water tanks, and all the various little things that need doing before heading off. The weather forecast is fair weather and northwest winds, so it is looking favorable for going south. We plan to go down the “outside inside passage” to see new places. This is less protected than the classic “inside passage,” but still doesn’t have too much oceanic exposure.
Several readers have commented upon the fact that although I talk about clouds, rain, wind and fog, the pictures are always sunny. Recall Paul Simon’s song Kodachrome:
They give us those nice bright colors
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| Fog in The Strait of Juan de Fuca, WA |
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day
The absence of bad weather photos is partly because cloudy days are less photogenic, and partly because taking pictures when it’s raining, and the wind is blowing is inconvenient. The boat often demands a lot of attention when the weather is bad. So to satisfy the curiosity of those who want to know what a foggy day looks like on a boat, I have included a picture from another trip. This is a picture of Washington fog, but it pretty much looks the same here in Alaska.
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