A Three-Year Sailing Trip to Southeast Alaska

We sailed our 33-foot sloop from Ladysmith, British Columbia to Southeast Alaska in May, 2013. After a three month trip, we left the boat for the winter in Wrangell, Alaska. We returned in May, 2014, and spent three months cruising around Southeast. We again left the boat in Wrangell for the winter. Returning in May, 2015, we explored more of Alaska, and returned the boat to Ladysmith.

Throughout these three years, we sent occasional lengthy e-mails to family and friends, describing our trip. The goal was to give our non-sailing friends an idea of what extended cruising was like, and to give our sailing friends some ideas about places they might like to visit, and what a trip such as this entailed. This blog is a posting of these e-mails.


Reading the blogs of others who have made portions of this trip was an invaluable resource in planning our own journey. This blog is posted as a contribution to that resource, in the hope that it will be of some benefit for others hoping to undertake a similar cruise.

The e-mails have been posted in reverse chronological order, so that they appear in the blog in correct order. That is, the earliest is found first, and you work your way down - this is of course the opposite of normal blogs, but for me it seems easier to follow.

Each post includes a generalized chart of our route, with daily destinations shown as blue diamonds. These charts are not very detailed, but do provide an overall idea of where we went.