Well, here we are again, back in Alaska. I thought that one year of doing these e-mails would be enough. It was a lot of work, and you have read enough to get the idea of what we’re doing. But, numerous folks expressed a desire to see this year as well, so I think I’ll compromise and produce a more limited treatise than last year. I’ll try to reduce the lectures on sailing and the details of our laundry adventures, and summarize days when nothing much happened. We’ve been sailing with guests for three weeks, and I haven’t had a chance to write anything, but here’s a summary of the year to date.
We began this year in Protection Island, where we spent the month of April. On May 10 we took the ferry to Horseshoe Bay, and drove our VW van on a camping trip up to Prince Rupert via Lillooet and Prince George. We visited Kitimat to see the proposed terminus of the controversial oil pipeline from Alberta. It seemed a rather frightening company town, totally dominated by the aluminum plant. Prince Rupert brought back a lot of dreary memories of our time here last year stuck in the rain, waiting for good weather to cross Dixon Entrance. It also brought back sad memories of separating from Bruce and Elaine after their encounter with the huge evil log Mephistopholes.
We boarded an Alaskan ferry, and took an overnight trip to Wrangell. We had a good night’s sleep in our utilitarian “stateroom,” and Schooner enjoyed a night of luxury sleeping in the van. You may recall that his last ferry trip was spent in his kennel down on the car deck.
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| Rover in Shoemaker Bay, Wrangell, AK |
We found our boat to be in surprisingly good condition. We were anticipating the boat covered with green algae, and the external teak to be a total disaster, but neither was the case. The dehumidifier, fan and heater we ran kept the interior mold-free, and ready to inhabit. We removed the sails, the dinghy oars, etc. to make room for us, and generally worked on turning it back into our home. To get back in the mood of the real Alaska, we went to the smoke-filled Marine Bar for pizza.
We then spent two weeks working on the boat. For those of you tracking the weather, we had four days with some rain, the rest dry and mostly sunny. Here are some details that will be of interest to those of you who have boats. The major job was installing a redesigned muffler base for the engine. The original we had created when we installed the new engine had come loose. This was a big deal because it had to fit the hull, which is curved in all directions, and there is essentially no slack in the muffler position with respect to the engine. It also is in a location that is too small for me, and only Jean can crawl into. We finally got it epoxied into place after five days of effort, and it was almost right. We also replaced the engine zinc, located a missing water pump impeller vane inside the heat exchanger, drained the coolant and tried to fix the small but annoying leak. I winched Jean up to the top of the mast to check the various fittings, we pumped the dregs out of the fuel tank, installed our new boarding ladder, replaced the broken exhaust outlet in the transom, dismantled and cleaned the winches and the anchor windlass, put a coat of sealer on the exterior teak, cleaned the black streaks from the topsides (the consequences of imperfect docking adventures), removed some deck stains, waxed the cleaned areas, cleaned and waxed the dinghy, created a storage arrangement for the V-berth insert (to make having a guest more convenient), and so forth. We also did a lot of laundry, and bought a lot of food.
Another task was to remove stuff from the boat to the van. Having the van here provides us with a storage unit for things we don’t need, such as all of our Canadian charts. That’s close to one hundred charts that we won’t need until next year when we bring the boat back south, and they take up a lot of space. We also arranged to park the van for the summer in the yard of a family recommended by the fellow who watched over our boat this winter. We did a lot of work rearranging the boat to accommodate visitors. Down south, when we have people sail with us, we just remove things from the boat to make enough room for them and their stuff. Up here we can’t do that, as we are going to need all of our stuff as the summer goes along.
We changed our cooler this year. We bought an Engel cooler that gives us much more flexibility, at the cost of using more electricity. When we resupply at a port, we plug into AC, and let it run overnight in freezer mode to freeze all of our meat, which we have vacuum bagged. If it is only a week or less until our next supply point, we also freeze a container of water to reduce the time the fridge has to run. For a two week period there isn't enough room to include the ice. We then switch to DC mode, turn it up to refrigerator temperature and put in the milk and other stuff we don't want frozen.
It is highly efficient - it has only one moving part - and does not stress our battery system. Since we are in cold water, we store things like cheese, yogurt, fruit and vegetables against the hull under the settees or in the bilge.
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| Rainbow Falls Trail, Wrangell, AK |
In addition to the boat work, we did some fun things. We took two hikes up the mountain behind the marina to Rainbow Falls. We hiked a local nature trail through the rain forest and the muskeg. We went to a beach which is supposedly the site of 40 petroglyphs. We were only able to find half a dozen. We drove south to the end of the paved road, and checked out some spectacular campsites overlooking the water. We shopped downtown, and ate at the local eateries. We ate fresh king salmon and Dungeness crab given to us by a fellow down the dock.
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| Petroglyph Beach, Wrangell, AK |
We have a new boat neighbor since last summer. Bill is in his seventies, a retired fisherman, and a remarkable character. He has a seemingly endless supply of interesting stories, and a remarkable collection of colorful phrases – the most notable probably being “Holy Buckets!!” Eventually you realize that he is an intelligent, well-read man. In addition to his fishing, he has spent quite a bit of time in Washington, DC lobbying for environmental causes. He allows that if he were younger, he would have been a wobbly.
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| Keith Chambers, Chief Shake's House, Wrangell, AK, May 2014 |
On May 29 our long time good friend Keith Chambers flew into town to accompany us on the first two weeks of the trip. To quickly whip him into shape, we went to the Marine Bar for pizza. We spent a relaxed, random sort of day looking around Wrangell. Keith was a great disappointment at Petroglyph Beach. Despite having a PhD in anthropology, and a lifetime of field experience, he was worse than we at finding petroglyphs. After looking at some totem poles, we were wandering through the boatyard when we had the experience of the day. We were admiring a lovely Hans Christian sailboat that was in the process of being launched. We chatted with Glen, the new owner, who asked if we could give him a hand, as he was alone, and needed to get the boat over to the marina after it was launched. We said sure, Jean went off to buy some candy bars in lieu of lunch, and we watched them go through the rather complex task of getting the boat off of the stands and into the water. Well, eventually there we are in the water, Glen, Keith and I, while Jean and Schooner walk over to the dock to take our lines. I suggest that before we leave, he might check the bilge to make sure there aren’t any leaks, and what does he find but the bilge full of water, and it pouring in like mad. Well, this is a new boat for him, and he doesn’t really know where the seacocks are, so we all crawl around like crazy looking for the leak. It turns out that his raw water filter froze and cracked over the winter. So we can close the seacock and stop the leak, but we can’t use the engine to move the boat. So he calls for a tow, and eventually we get tied up at the dock. That killed a good bit of the afternoon, but in a good cause.
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| Fishing Boats, Petersburg, AK |
We left Wrangell on May 31 for a long day’s trip to Petersburg. We had sunshine, heavy rain, good sailing winds and dead calm; pretty much a typical Southeast Alaskan day. We went through Wrangell Narrows, a busy, complex waterway. The tide floods in from both the north and the south. Ideally one should arrive at the last of the flood tide heading north, hit the narrowest bit at slack, and ride the ebb tide headed north. However, we were a bit anxious to get this trip underway, and arrived way too early. So we took a fast wild ride north on the flood, and then battled against the flood still coming in from the north. That gave our engine a good workout after its winter hibernation, and since our timing was all off, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. The current was still tearing through the harbor in Petersburg, and our approach to the fuel dock was not pretty. We now have a new set of black streaks on the hull to inaugurate the new season.
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| Totem Pole, Petersburg, AK |
Sunday in Petersburg was a beautiful sunny, warm day. We had a leisurely breakfast, walked around town, bought some books, had lunch at a seafood processer called Cold Storage, and generally relaxed. We split up for the afternoon, Jean and Schooner took a hike, Keith read in the sunshine outside the Sons of Norway hall, and I did boat errands. All in all a pretty low key day.
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| Keith Chambers & Jeanie, Frederick Sound, AK, Jun 2014 |
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| Scenery Cove, AK |
Monday we sailed up Frederick Sound to Thomas Bay. The day was partly sunny with 15-25 knot north winds and 3-4 foot seas. This translates to a challenging upwind sail. As the wind increased, we kept reefing down the sails, and all went well. Once in the bay we had a relaxing reach to our anchorage in Scenery Cove. There is a sea level glacier here, but there is no easy way to walk to it, since there is no good place to anchor and leave the boat. We were here last year after several days of rain, and the precipitous glacially carved cliffs were covered with waterfalls. Today it was pretty dry. As we entered the cove we were surprised and disappointed to find a smallish cruise boat there. It carried 75 or so passengers, many of whom were paddling about in kayaks. We anchored up at the head of the cove in 45 feet of water. This is a typical glacial cove with a very shallow delta at the head which quickly becomes too deep to anchor. There is a very narrow band where we can anchor successfully without running aground. Kayakers came by to chat, with the usual “Did you really sail all the way from Oregon?” We were pleased to learn that they were not spending the night, and would be gone in a couple of hours. A boat like that will run its noisy generators all night long to provide the electricity required to keep all those folks comfortable and clean. We rowed ashore, and Keith enthusiastically hiked into the forest. He then quickly discovered the reality of an Alaskan rainforest. The underbrush is almost impenetrable, the ground is covered with huge logs, everything is soaking wet, and the terrain goes straight up. It is hard to get a lot of exercise cruising in this area.
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| Fanshaw, AK |
Tuesday was a day with little to report. It was cloudy and cold with numerous showers. The wind was mostly nonexistent. We had a leisurely morning, and left too late. In the end we anchored in Cleveland Passage, near Cape Fanshaw, and had a very late dinner.
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| Frederick Sound, AK |
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| Cannery Cove, Pybus Bay, AK |
Wednesday we sailed across Frederick Sound to Admiralty Island National Monument. The winds were pleasant and favorable, the weather was warm and mostly sunny; a good contrast to yesterday. We anchored in Cannery Cove in Pybus Bay. This is a spectacular spot. A green meadow at the head rapidly transitions to vertical snow-covered mountains. Sitting on the boat in the warm sun made this a perfect Alaskan spot. It seemed like a good place for brown (grizzly) bears, but we didn’t see any. The big salmon runs haven’t really gotten going yet, so the bears are not concentrated on the streams like they will be later. When Keith and I went ashore with Schooner we found way more fresh bear sign than we wanted. We didn’t hang around and explore the bushes, but returned to the boat with some sense of relief. For dinner we had some wonderful local halibut we had purchased in Petersburg.
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| Fido & Rover, Good Island, Gambier Bay, AK |
Thursday was another beautiful sunny day. We spent an hour or two working our way around the islands and unmarked rocks of Pybus Bay. It isn’t all that well charted, and we were on edge every time the depth sounder would start going up. Out in the sound there was a light wind from the west, so we put up the whisker pole and ran downwind. There were half a dozen or more whales visible in the distance. We dropped the pole, and sailed on a reach into Gambier Bay (also on Admiralty Island). One humpback whale surfaced very close to us. We appeared to be the only boat in Gambier Bay, and we anchored out of the wind behind Good Island. This is indeed a good island. Walking around on shore we found a landscape ideally suited for filming some fantasy movie that involves fairies and elves. Large rock outcroppings were completely wreathed in thick moss, with large trees growing out of the moss, their roots twisting down into the soil. The moss was covered with wildflowers, and seemed to suppress the growth of shrubs; it was all very open and walkable. Schooner loved it as well.
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| Eagle on Iceberg, Holkham Bay, AK |
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| Clear Iceberg, Holkham Bay, AK |
Friday continued the series of warm, sunny days, but this time there was no wind. The atmosphere was crystal clear with nice views of snowy mountains and distant whales. The only boat we saw all day was one cruise ship.
We began to see icebergs as we approached Holkham Bay on the mainland. We went a bit out of our way to get a closer look at a pure blue berg sporting a bald eagle on its summit; definitely qualified as picturesque. We arrived at slack current to cross the terminal moraine of Tracy Arm. There is quite a bit more ice than when we were here last July. We anchored in sunny Tracy Arm Cove with four other boats. It is definitely less crowded this time of year. King salmon for dinner.
We awoke at 5 AM to get an early start for a long trip up Tracy Arm. But all good things come to an end. That is especially true of sunny warm weather in this part of the world. It poured rain all day, and we decided to stay put. We built a fire in the wood stove, Jean baked some granola, we all read, took Schooner ashore, played Pass the Pig, and you generally get the idea.
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| Keith, Jeanie & Rover, Tracy Arm Cove, AK, Jun 2014 |
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| Waterfall, Tracy Arm, AK |
Well it rained all night long, but stopped after breakfast. The skies were cloudy, but the mountains were visible, and we decided to go up Tracy Arm. Keith has an airplane reservation out of Juneau, so if we didn’t go today, we would have to skip it. It turned out that the dry weather was only a respite, and it rained about ¾ of the day. It wasn’t as bad as you might think, though. Last year we had sun, but a strong, cold headwind that made going up the fjord quite a task. This year the wind was not an issue, and although wet, we were reasonably comfortable. With the rain, there were many more waterfalls, and the waterfalls here are wonderful. They are long, thin streaks falling thousands of feet on smooth granite. There was a lot more ice than last year, so we had to be more cautious, and we couldn’t get as close to the glacier, but it was still a great view of the massive ice coming out of the mountain and into the water. There were quite a few seals with pups on the smaller ice floes. We were the only recreational boat there. Two day drip tours from Juneau zoomed past, and we passed a fishing boat on the way out, but otherwise we had this stunning place all to ourselves.
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| South Sawyer Glacier, AK |
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| Kittiwakes on Iceberg, Tracy Arm, AK |
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| Iceberg, Tracy Arm, AK |
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| Cannery Wharf, Taku Harbor, AK |
Monday, June 9
th dawned rainy. Well, that isn’t exactly true. I have no idea what the weather was at dawn, since dawn is somewhere around 3 AM (I think – I haven’t gotten up to check, but it seems to be pretty light at that time). Keith has evolved an elaborate evening ritual in which he uses carefully crafted pieces of cardboard and canvas to block out any light from the saloon, where he sleeps. Well, at any rate, it was raining in the morning, and we had to wait for the adverse current over the bar to slow, so we had a leisurely breakfast of eggs, and left relatively late for Taku Harbor. We had showers during the day, and the wind came up to provide a nice bit of sailing. We tied to the dock, which is maintained by the City of Juneau, and is free of charge. It is located at the site of an old cannery, originally the site of a Hudson’s Bay trading post. The nearby Taku River penetrates the mountains into the interior of British Columbia, and was an important trade route. Several years ago, driving in BC we were surprised to find native villages with totem poles and all the trappings of coastal culture deep inside BC. The culture filtered up the Taku River. I suspect that “filtered” is not the proper word. They probably paddled up the river and killed off everyone they met. We walked around and explored the ruins. There is also a Forest Service cabin there that is available for rent. A young couple in a small boat zoomed in from Juneau to spend the night there. The major event of the evening was the arrival of the noseeums. We had left the boat open too long, and a large population moved inside. This was a concern to all of us, but especially Keith, who is a prime target for biting insects, and is pretty sensitive to them. I won’t go so far as to say he is paranoid about insects, because they are his real enemies, but he pays them a great deal of attention. We got out our electric bug zapper tennis racket (if you don’t have one of these, you need one, trust me), got the screens deployed, and proceeded to a wholesale slaughter. As we went to bed, Keith was carefully scrutinizing corners of the boat with a flashlight, an evil gleam in his eye.
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| Cruise Ships, Juneau, AK |
On Tuesday we headed north to Juneau. There was a light southerly wind, and we should have raised the spinnaker. However, the weather was cloudy and we had corral fever – we could smell the barn, and wanted to be there. By mid-afternoon we were docked in downtown Juneau. We went to the state library to check e-mail, and then walked down to the cruise ship docks. Keith became quite the amiable tourist, going in to check out the Red Dog Saloon, and striking up conversations with cruise ship passengers. While leaning on the railing looking at one of these monster ships (there were four in town at once), some guys on the ship started hollering and gesturing to us. We thought they were just saying hello, but they continued to become more agitated. We finally realized that we should look behind us, and who should we find sauntering down the dock in Juneau but a black bear. He crossed the street headed for some woods, while we moved away. All of the cruise ship passengers, victims of too much TV, ran after the bear to get a better picture. Jeeez. On the way back we went down to a dock to get a closer look at an old fish packer that had been beautifully restored. We had seen it at anchor in Tracy Arm Cove a few days ago. We eventually talked with the delightful owners, a couple from Bellingham, WA who take small groups (2-6) on tours of the area. They spent eight years rebuilding the boat, and are finally making a living at it. It had a stunningly beautiful wood stove in the galley. If you want to spend a lot of money to see this place, check out the David B.
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| Canoe Arrival, Douglas, AK |
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| Canoe Arrival, Douglas, AK |
Wednesday June 11
th was mostly sunny, and became a bit hot. After the usual round of laundry, showers and grocery shopping, we took a bus across the bridge to the small town of Douglas. There we had an excellent lunch in a pub with a view of the water, and then walked down to Sandy Beach Park. This is, in fact, a genuine sandy beach – a very rare item on the Inside Passage. Sandy beaches require a lot of wave energy to sort the rocky material and create a beach. Consequently, sandy beaches are common on the ocean side of these islands, but rare on the inside. The true story here, however, is that this is not so genuine a beach. Douglas was the site of a major gold mine in the late 19
th century, and the ore was pulverized by stamp mills before being run over a sluice to separate out the gold. The pulverized waste rock was washed down on the shore, and the result was a large sandy beach – now a popular local park. Well, the reason we were here was not to admire the sand, but to look for canoes. When Keith got on the plane in Medford he was accompanied by a number of Native Americans (aka First Nations People or Indians, depending upon where you live) who were headed home to Juneau for a bienniel large native gathering of Tlingits celebrating their culture. It mostly involves singing and dancing for days on end, but begins with the arrival of different bands paddling traditional canoes. Traditional northwest canoes are very impressive boats – seaworthy and beautiful. It was difficult to find information about this canoe event – it is not done for publicity or tourism, but Keith got the needed information by asking likely looking natives. The beach was packed with hundreds of people, many wearing various bits of tribal regalia. It was a big family event, with lots of children digging in the sand, and playing in the water, and it was fun to observe. With the traditional native sense of time, we had lots of opportunity to wander around and talk before the canoes arrived an hour and a half late. It was great to see them, but we couldn’t get much of a sense of what was going on between the greeters and the canoeists. They weren’t doing it for us. The bus home was packed with happy folks and their kids.
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| Celebration Crowd, Douglas, AK |
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| Celebration, Douglas, AK |
Thursday morning was spent doing errands and sightseeing. Around noon Keith caught the bus out to the airport to fly home, and we spent the afternoon restocking and cleaning the boat. The trip with Keith went well. As expected, living in such close quarters, we all became more aware of each other’s eccentricities, but parted still friends. We walked downtown, planning to have dinner at an excellent restaurant we had visited last year. We found it had been replaced by a new restaurant. Of course we didn’t know anything about it, but it was packed, so we gave it a try. They were full, but we found a spot at the bar, and had a thoroughly enjoyable and excellent meal. The charismatic bar tender turned out to be the manager, filling in for the normal woman who was off for the night, while also dealing with all the managerial issues that arose. She was delicately running rings around this other guy, who seemed to be some kind of trainee. Turns out he was the owner. We told him she deserved a raise.
Friday was spent getting the boat ready for our next guest. Having guests on a trip like this is a bad idea for a number of reasons. I already mentioned the space issue above. The major issue, however, is timing. I have heard it said that the most dangerous item on a boat is a schedule. We got ourselves into weather over our heads on the Oregon coast back when we were working, and had to be back home on a given day. So we have told people that if they want to meet us at a certain location, we will let them know a few days in advance when to be there, or if they want to meet us on a certain date, we will let them know a few days in advance where to meet us. Most people don’t want to do this, as their lives are not that focused on sailing with us, and they don’t want to pay for last minute plane tickets. Well, we changed the rules this year. Keith agreed to come at the start of our trip. That way there was no doubt about the location, and only a small doubt about the date. He built a couple of slack days into his schedule to adjust for unexpected events. We used one of the days to sit out rain, and the other to go to Cannery Cove. Unfortunately that forced us to go up Tracy Arm in the rain. Our daughter Melissa is going on a three week canoe trip above the Arctic Circle on the Noatak River. She asked if she could meet us on the way up and sail for a week. Since we knew we would be in Juneau for Keith’s plane, that made a good start date. We then figured she could catch a plane back to Juneau from someplace else at the end of a week. Our tentative plan is to go to Glacier Bay National Park, and there is an airstrip there.
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| Juneau, AK |
The day went fairly routinely with the usual cleaning, laundry and groceries. Late in the afternoon I began work on the head (a marine toilet). The seal on the pump shaft was worn, and was squirting out salt water. This was a nuisance, so I was going to replace the seal. This would be a simple job if it wasn’t for the fact that our head is 32 years old, and the aluminum pump handle is hopelessly corroded onto the stainless steel shaft.
So, to replace the seal, I need to dismantle the head. This basically involves kneeling and standing on your head trying to remove and replace screws and bolts that can’t be reached, with water of dubious quality dripping out onto you. Well, after an hour or so, I pretty much have it done, but there is a small leak. So I give the offending bolt one more turn, and listen to the dismaying sound of cracking plastic. It shouldn’t have cracked, but it is 32 years old, and it did. Hmm… We now have no toilet in a marina without any toilets, about to take off tomorrow on a one week cruise with a guest. This is at 4:30 on Friday afternoon, so I sprint to the nearby chandlery, arriving just before they close. Unfortunately they don’t carry the needed part; looks like it’s time for a new head. Normally, replacing a head would involve a lot of research on the relative merits and prices of different manufacturers and models. My decision is easier – they sell one model. So I trundle it back to the boat, discover that it almost fits (I’m not going to tell you the details), and by the witching hour of 1 AM we once again have a functioning head; morning will tell if it has any slow leaks.
Saturday’s plan was to sail 32 nautical miles north of Juneau to Auke Bay. This is closer to the airport where Melissa will arrive, and closer to Glacier Bay. However,…….. We are still tired, stiff and sore from yesterday’s head adventure, the boat is a terrible mess of head parts and tools, it is pouring windy, horizontal rain, and we don’t actually have a permit to visit Glacier Bay, and may not be able to get one. Therefore, forget Glacier Bay, let’s go have breakfast at the nearby coffee shop. So, hard as it is to believe, we continued to do laundry and buy groceries – it doesn’t really seem possible, but that’s the truth. To complete the trifecta we walked to the community pool and took showers. We barely squeezed onto the overcrowded bus to the airport, where we met Melissa. After a long wait for the bus back, we made it home and to bed. We are delighted to see her again, and Schooner is simply ecstatic. He adores Melissa.
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| Sanford Cove, Endicott Arm, AK |
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| Iceberg, Endicott Arm, AK |
Well, we had to come up with a new plan, as Glacier Bay was not possible in the time we have, so we are off south to Petersburg! The trip north from Petersburg with Keith mostly visited places we saw last year, so the trip south with Melissa will be mostly new. Bad weather is predicted for Tuesday, so we are going to do two long days and then hole up. The day was sunny with cool air. After fueling up we motored south on a windless day. We did sort of sail for half an hour over lunch to have some peaceful quiet time, but didn’t really go anywhere. We were entertained by a sea lion eating a salmon. Once they catch one, they have to tear bites out of it. They do this on the surface by swinging the fish around and slapping it on the water. Our goal was Wood Spit in Holkham Bay, but at the last minute we decided to push on farther, and went to Sanford Cove in Endicott Arm. The tide was flowing out over the moraine with lots of rips, but we got in without incident. The guide book to this area does not recommend this anchorage, as it is too deep. We, however, have become pretty good at finding that 45-foot sweet spot on the delta, and it worked for us here. We were close to the beach, but it was calm. It is a gorgeous cove with tall, snowy mountains looming above it. It was a long day, and we all got a bit too much sun.
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| Endicott Arm, AK |
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| Dawes Glacier, Endicott Arm, AK |
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| Harbor Seal and Pup, Endicott Arm, AK |
After a quiet night, Monday, June 16
th we headed up Endicott Arm in windless sunshine. We arrived at Dawes Glacier at the head of the inlet, and were surprised to find three small tour boats there. We hadn’t seen another boat all day. There were hundreds of harbor seal pups and their moms resting on the floating ice, and we tried our best not to disturb them. We worked our way as far in as we could until the ice got too thick for our courage, and then just drifted around for an hour and a half while we ate lunch in the warm sunshine and listened to waterfalls and the sounds of ice cracking off the front of the glacier. We got a bit of sailing on the way back out, and then went into Ford’s Terror as far as the rapids. The time of slack water is not well known for these rapids, and it was a Spring tide, so the current would be especially fast. We arrived at the time of Juneau high tide, but the rapids were still a whitewater river flowing in. So we doodled about for an hour when it looked slack. We headed toward the entrance, which looks like a creek flowing into a cliff face. We managed to avoid the unmarked and uncharted rocks on either side, as well as the enormous iceberg that nearly blocked the approach. Just before we hit the cliff we took a hard right, and the narrow slot continues for a bit, and then opens out into a water-filled Yosemite Valley. We were the only boat in there, and it was just as spectacular as we remembered. Anchoring here is especially challenging, and the best we could do was 55 feet, which is almost too deep for us. The weight of our 35-pound anchor plus 55 feet of 5/16” chain is about all this old body can handle.
Tuesday we awoke to the predicted rain, and it rained the entire day. Hurrying to the glacier turned out to have been a good move. We stayed put for the day, and despite the rain and wind outside, Ford’s Terror was very calm. Melissa and Schooner went on a long wet hike. Jean and I stayed inside, thankful to have a visitor today!
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| Entrance to Ford's Terror, AK |
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| Wood Spit, AK |
Wednesday morning we had to leave at 5:30 AM to catch the high water slack at the rapids. Unfortunately the anchor was now in 60 feet of water, and hauling it up was a major chore. To make it more of a chore, we had the worst ever entanglement of our anchor buoy line with the anchor. The details are probably not of interest to you, but it took 20 minutes to get the anchor resolved, and we pushed the boat to hull speed to try and get out of there. Upon arrival at the rapids we found that they had already turned, but the current wasn’t too fast yet. We ran out without incident, and then slowed down, relaxed, and ate some breakfast. The strong south winds of yesterday had blown icebergs way down the fjord, and the rest of the trip was something of a tense slalom run. Despite our best vigilance we (that is I) hit a low-lying colorless piece of ice that was about the size of an exercise ball, but fortunately no serious damage was done. We got to the bar at maximum ebb, and I figured that was ok, because we were going out with the current. Wrong. The current grabbed us, almost totally out of control, and suddenly we were in the middle of the largest whirlpools that I have ever seen from water level. We were tossed this way and that, and eventually spit out, fortunately not hitting any rocks along the way. That was a pretty dumb move. We need to put some more points back into our black box. This is an imaginary box that holds points you produce whenever you do any maintenance or improvement work on your boat that increases its safety. When you get into a bad spot, you can draw on these points to get you through it. The box got a lot of use today. We anchored in a cove just west of Wood Spit, and went ashore on a nice sand beach. We then walked halfway out the spit, looking at tide pools and wildflowers. It was sunny and warm. The beach was a treasure trove of knots. Large trees get ground up in the surf, leaving behind the strong, dense knots. In addition to being very attractive, these are our favorite pieces of firewood. They don’t need to be cut up, being just the right size for our little stove, and they burn hot for a long time.
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| Rover & Iceberg, Wood Spit, AK |
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| Rover & Iceberg, Wood Spit, AK |
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| Rover, Sandborn Canal, AK |
Thursday we awoke to find an iceberg drifting through the anchorage. Fortunately it passed us by. We then sailed south in the sun with a strong north wind speeding us along. We eventually dropped the main, and sailed with just the jib. It was a good day for wildlife. First we saw a sea lion eating a large salmon. He then had to contend with a bald eagle that kept swooping down trying to steal the fish. That seemed a bit risky, as a sea lion could certainly make quick work of an eagle if he caught it. The eagle eventually gave up. Shortly after that a small group of Dall’s porpoises came by to ride our bow wave for 15 or 20 minutes. That is always a thrill. They are so pretty with their vivid black and white markings, and so graceful and fast. Shortly after the wind died and we began motoring, a humpback whale put on a dazzling display quite close to us. He breached about eight times in a row, coming almost completely out of the water and crashing back down in huge spray. He then lay on his back and started slapping the water with his long flippers. This continued for quite some time, long after we had left him behind. We had a bit more sailing in Port Houghton, and then a tricky navigation challenge getting into Sandborn Canal. The only chart of the area is at the hopelessly small scale of 1:297,000, so there are few useful details. We were using an old chart, published in 1992. I always say that the newer charts provide more current information on navigation aids such as buoys, but up here there aren’t many navigation aids, and the rocks don’t move from one year to the next, so old charts work fine. Well, in a tight, somewhat confusing spot, I turned on the computer, which has the newest charts in it, and lo and behold, the rocks have moved! Some have simply disappeared. Maybe we should buy a newer chart. With the low wooded hills and small scenic islands, this area is reminiscent of British Columbia. We motored down Sandborn Canal several miles with a constant depth of 75 feet, and were at least a mile from the head when it suddenly became 15 feet! Hard reverse and time to anchor. I can’t remember the last time we anchored in 15 feet of water. Raising the anchor in the morning will be a joy. On the down side, it started to rain, and there are a lot of bugs in here.
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| Read Island, Farragut Bay, AK |
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| Jeanie Inside Wet Rover, Read Is, AK, Jun 2014 |
The forecast for Friday is rain, strong southerly winds and seas. We are headed south. We should stay here. Remember the saying about schedules? Melissa has to catch a plane in Petersburg to fly back to Juneau to catch her plane to Fairbanks to catch her ride to the Brooks Range to catch her bush plane to the headwaters of the Noatak River. We’re leaving in this mess. Let’s forget the details; here are the essential elements of the day: get up at 5 AM, strong wind on the nose, cold rain, confused seas stopping us cold off Cape Fanshaw, making very slow forward progress most of the day, Melissa feeling a bit of motion sickness. On the other hand we saw lots of distant humpbacks, and the first Orcas of the trip. Unfortunately, a few whales does not cancel the weather. Finally, after almost 9 hours of this, we anchored in a cove on Read Island in Farragut Bay. On the chart it looked well protected from easterly wind. However, it was just downwind of a tall, pointed mountain (no name, hardly any mountains around here have names) which was apparently producing incredible williwaws. We were getting gusts of 40 or 50 knots! The anchor was holding well, but it was not a relaxing situation. We put up a riding sail to reduce the yawing back and forth around the anchor. We were still pondering whether to stay or not (though there were few viable alternatives) when it all began to calm down. We thankfully had a very peaceful night.
Saturday had some sun in the morning, but became cloudy, and eventually began to rain. Again it was an upwind slog against the current, though the seas were not as bad as yesterday. It was a great relief to finally tie to the dock in Petersburg. We went out for dinner, and poured some nice Scotch over some glacial ice before bed.
Sunday we awoke to steady rain, and got a taxi out to the airport. There is only one plane that flies here. It stops going north in the morning, and going south in the afternoon. Half of the seats have been removed to make space for cargo. We walked home in the rain because we needed some exercise. It was wonderful to spend time with Melissa, but our thoughts about visitors with plane reservations has hardened a bit.
So, it then rained all day Sunday and Monday; all day as in never stopping. Today it rained on and off, with strong winds out in the sound, so we are still here in Petersburg. We’ve been in Alaska for six weeks, and here we are 40 miles away from where we started. We have had some good times, and seen some great things, so there are no complaints. We’re retired, and don’t have a schedule. We plan to leave tomorrow around noon. Petersburg is in the Wrangell Narrows, so we need to wait for slack tide to leave. We’re on our way to Sitka, and it should take us about a week, but then, who knows? No phone or internet in between. See you then.
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