Return to Wrangell, Alaska, 2015

Well, here we are back in Alaska. We have spent more time in Alaska than any other state, province or country in which we haven’t actually lived. Wrangell feels a bit like a second home, as we have spent over seven weeks here the last two years. This year we plan to bring the boat back down south, and call an end to the Alaskan adventure. As much as we have enjoyed being up here, it is difficult having our boat so far away when we are back on Protection Island. We can’t do any maintenance or improvement projects on the boat, and can’t go for short sails in the Fall, Winter or Spring. It seems like I should write about the trip again this year to make a complete trilogy.

 Jeanie Working on Deck, Protection Island BC, May 2015

After finishing rebuilding one of our decks, we left our cottage on Protection Island in Nanaimo, BC on May 27, driving our VW camper. We took the 2-hour ferry trip over to Vancouver, and then drove up the Fraser River, through the canyon, and then north to Prince George, and down the Skeena River through the Coast Range to Prince Rupert. We did it in relatively leisurely fashion, taking four days to go the 1000 miles. It was warm and sunny in Rainy Rupert. We had to be at the Alaska Ferry Dock at 4:30 AM, so we just popped the top on the camper, and spent the night in the

Deck Replacement, Protection Island BC

ferry line. We had checked in already, and they said we didn’t need to set an alarm, as they would come around and wake us up. Well I woke up around 5:00, looked out, and found that we were the only car in the deserted waiting line. We quickly dressed and scrambled down to the ship, and we did indeed have plenty of time, though we were almost the last car.

Skeena River, BC

Wrangell, AK

It was a beautiful sunny day for the 12-hour ferry trip to Wrangell. We began the trip with showers, as we had been camping in shower-free zones. We stopped in Ketchikan for two hours, which gave us a chance to retrieve Schooner from the van, and take a long walk up in the hilly residential area above town. Ketchikan is famous for its rain – 13 feet per year – but we have now been there five times, and three times it was sunny and hot. We spent a lot of time chatting with ferry passengers. We talked quite a bit with a couple from Wrangell, who were returning from a winter in Arizona, with a woman physician from India who was doing a quick trip to Alaska while visiting her son in Minneapolis, and with a retired physician and his wife from Colorado who were lacking in social skills, and a bit of an annoyance. We spent most of the trip out on the deck, enjoying the sun and cool breeze while watching the scenery pass slowly by.

Jeanie Atop Mast, Wrangell, AK, Jun 2015

Upon arrival, we drove out to the boat, and found it to be in good shape after another Alaskan winter. It was packed solid with sails, oars, whisker pole, etc, so we took a campsite in the adjoining city campground and spent a quiet night. We then spent the next week getting the boat ready for another summer of cruising. For the benefit of readers who have boats, and are interested in such things, we bent the sails, went up the mast to check the fittings and to install the spinnaker halyards, rinsed the antifreeze out of the three fresh water tanks, drained the engine coolant and tried a new thread sealant to cure the annoying leak, repaired the radar reflector, installed a new ATN spinnaker sock, checked the batteries, engine oil, transmission fluid, raw water impeller, and alternator belt, washed the exterior teak, ran the engine to discover the leak was the worst ever, redid the cooling system with some new parts and another sealant, installed the knotmeter, put lemon oil on the interior teak, replaced the emergency bolt in the throttle cable with the proper clevis pin, washed the black and green mold off the deck, ran the engine and found the coolant system did not leak (so far), repaired the worn edge of the anchor locker, and installed a stainless steel guard to protect the fiberglass from the chain, cleaned the main bilge and the engine bilge, pumped the dregs out of the fuel tank, made a wooden holder to keep the salt and pepper grinders from falling over all the time, purchased, loaded and stored away large quantities of foodstuffs and other consumable supplies, removed to the car charts we won’t need this summer, and organized the charts we will need to get home. Hauling all this stuff up and down the dock ramp was complicated by the fact that we are currently in Spring tides, with a 20 foot tidal range. At low tide there is no way you want to carry anything up or down that ramp.

Low Tide, Shoemaker Marina, Wrangell, AK

We also ate at four of the five restaurants (one of which serves dinner), bought one lunch and one pie to support various candidates for 4^th of July Queen (refer to the 2013 July 4^th for a review), ate a large Dungeness crab given to us for free, made a few trips to the library to check e-mail and news, spent a morning at the historical museum, took the dog on walks in the woods, and generally got back into the routine of living on a boat.

When we first arrived, the thought of the trip ahead of us was a bit daunting. The past two years we have started off on an adventure, with our route and destinations pretty much unknown. Alaska was just some faraway place ahead of us. This year we spent four days driving and one day on the ferry to get here, and it is painfully obvious how far we are from Protection Island. At 5 mph it takes a long time to go 1000 miles. We also started looking into the details of how to get our van back home to Nanaimo, and discovered that it will probably take a week to do that: Two or three airplane flights, one night in a motel, one day on a ferry, two nights camping in Wrangell waiting for the next ferry south, one or two nights camping in Prince Rupert waiting for the BC ferry, one and a half day ferry ride to Port Hardy, one night camping there, and a 250 mile drive to Nanaimo. As we’ve spent the week getting ready, we’re quite a bit more excited about the trip. We’re going to traverse a great deal of new territory on the way south. It won’t just be the same trip in reverse.

Nature Reclaiming Dock, Wrangell AK

We had three days of warmth and sun, followed by five days of intermittent rain. Tomorrow we will buy meat, dairy, fruit and vegetables for the next two weeks, store it all in the bilge or the cooler, and leave early in the morning of June 9. We need to leave early to have the tidal currents in our favor. We also need to clear up a credit card mess. While in Protection Island, we got a notice that our card had been compromised, and would be cancelled; but not to worry, as they had already sent a new one to our home in Oregon. Great. We arranged to have another one sent to Wrangell. It never showed up, and it turns out they sent it also to Oregon.

We are headed south from Wrangell, and will take two days to get to the roadless community of Meyers Chuck, where we will visit our friends Dave and Jackie. They have a new house with a dock on the back chuck – I suppose we can find it – only a couple dozen people live there. Our plan then is to head north up Clarence Strait, around the north end of Prince of Wales Island, and then south down the west side of POW. This is an area we have not visited thus far, and will bring us to Dixon Entrance, which we will cross to Prince Rupert to reenter Canada.  I expect Prince Rupert will be the next internet access, and it will take us about 3 or 4 weeks to get there.