As forecast, it rained most of the day on Monday, July 8. It turned out to be a pretty unproductive day, as we sat in the boat waiting for the rain to ease up, and waiting for a return call from the dentist. Jean had a filling come loose last night, and they were trying to fit her in today. We helped the Petersburg economy by purchasing a dehumidifier to use on our boat when we leave it over the winter. The hardware stores in town sell a remarkable collection of merchandise. Their motto is “if we don’t have it, you don’t need it.” We gave it a test trial by running it today, and wrung a lot of water out of the boat interior. We’ll do that when we’re plugged into power and that should do a lot to help dry the boat out prior to leaving it.
After Jean had her tooth back together, and after I had lugged a lot of groceries and ice back to the boat, we walked down to the library to check e-mail and do a few internet searches. We then had dinner at Inga’s, a very interesting place. It is basically a fixed food cart with outside seating. They also have a tent with tables inside. This seems like such an unlikely setup for a place that gets this much rain, and where the high 60’s is considered a hot day; but it was very busy. They have gas heaters in the tent for winter, but they are not in use now. People here just live with rain. The food, mostly seafood, was outstanding, including the best coleslaw either of us has ever had. It had a lime juice based dressing.
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| Petersburg, AK |
During dinner we had a long conversation with two US Forest Service employees who had flown up on business from Ketchikan. They were both pretty high up in the bureaucracy, and it was interesting to learn how they had ended up in these positions from unlikely careers. For example, the woman who was in charge of all contracts for Southeast Alaska had been a middle school science teacher. She allowed as how the main problem with that career was that she really did not like 7th graders (though not many people do).
At the end of the day, we decided that we really should stay in Petersburg another day, as the dentist and rain had really limited our activities, and we weren’t in any rush to get on with the trip.
So we spent Tuesday there as well. It was somewhat unsettling to awaken to rain, but it stopped by 9:00, and turned into a nice sunny day. The morning was spent in productive endeavors; Jean did some more laundry in an attempt to remove the diesel smell from a pair of my jeans. You may recall the Ketchikan fuel dock episode. Schooner and I walked a mile to the big grocery store in town to pick up some stuff we couldn’t get downtown. Food is really expensive up here. There is no local agriculture, due to the lack of flat land, lack of soil, and the lack of sunshine. So everything has to be flown up here from down south, which is an expensive proposition. I enjoyed talking with some little kids who wanted Schooner and I to meet their dog.
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| Rosmaling, Birch St, Petersburg, AK |
A trip to a bookstore located in an old house completed our day. We found it way too easy to buy more books, even though space on the boat is at a premium. Jean left half a dozen books at the harbormaster’s office. Most harbors have a free book exchange where cruisers can obtain new reading material while not expanding their onboard library. We really do need to leave Petersburg, as we are spending way too much money here.
Wednesday we filled the water tanks, took showers, and left Petersburg, but not without some small measure of excitement. First we went to the fuel dock. It was packed with huge purse seiners taking on massive amounts of fuel and water, so we had to wait. There was a very strong current flowing through the area, so hanging out waiting took a fair amount of effort. There was another boat waiting as well, so we couldn’t just sail away and return when things were clear, but had to maintain our spot without getting swept into various piers and large ships. We eventually got squeezed into a spot barely large enough for our boat, though we couldn’t have done it without the help of several guys on the dock. We successfully filled the tank without making any kind of a mess, which was a nice change from our last fueling adventure.
There was quite a lot of boat traffic leaving town, but it all turned North, and we went South. In June, Melissa and Lauren had taken a hike on a trail that ended at the water, and loved it. They suggested we sail to the water end, and hike it in the opposite direction. So, we headed down to Ideal Cove on Mitkof Island. This is at the southern end of Frederick Sound, just before it turns into the shallow, unnavigable delta of the Stikine River. Yes, that is the same delta we had to avoid when we left Wrangell. We’re not making very good progress north, but we’re having a good time
We had a good downwind sail with just the jib up. The boat rolled quite a bit, but it wasn’t too bad. The scenery was literally awesome. It was a mostly sunny day and the east side of the sound is a solid phalanx of incredibly rugged mountains covered with glaciers and snowfields. The water became the opaque green color of glacial melt water, and there were many icebergs on the east side, but we were on the west side, far from the ice. Two humpback whales swam past us headed north.
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| View from Ideal Cove, Mitkof Island, AK |
We slowly and carefully made our way into Ideal Cove. Our chart was marginal at best. Most of this trip we have been using charts of a scale 1:40,000. This is about 2 inches per mile, which is about right to show the details you need to avoid getting into trouble. More complex areas and harbors are often at scales of 1:20,000 or even 1:10,000. Well, the only chart available for this area is 1:217,000, where one mile is about a third of an inch. As you can imagine, a lot of detail is left wanting at that scale, so we were nervous about the whole deal, especially since the water is completely opaque with glacial flour, so you can’t see any rocks.
But, it all worked out well, and we got ourselves safely anchored. However, we thought we were not tucked close enough into a cove, so pulled the anchor back up and tried another spot. That was fine until we looked more carefully at the tide table, and realized we would be aground by morning, so we pulled it up again. We eventually ended up pretty close to our initial spot, with a slight improvement, but not worth the hour or effort it took. And I won’t even tell you about the mud. Remember that the enemy of good is better. Halibut for dinner improved our outlook.
Thursday, July 11 was a cloudy day, and the mountains had disappeared. We awoke to a minus 1 foot tide, and we were startlingly close to the shore, though our depth was OK. We then rowed to the trailhead, which was actually about a mile away around the point. Part of the way we had an adverse current, and by the time we had our dinghy settled it had taken an hour.
The tidal range here is 15 to 20 feet, and leaving a dinghy while we go ashore is not a trivial event. If the tide is falling we may return to find our dinghy fifty yards from the water, and there are no sand beaches here. The 100 pound dinghy needs to be carried over barnacle encrusted rocks and/or shin deep mud. You don’t want to do that, so you don’t go ashore at the inviting beach or grassy meadow, but you look for a steep rocky place so your dinghy will still be reasonably close to shore – preferably still afloat.
If the tide is coming in you may return to find your dinghy floating 50 yards from shore so you have to swim out to retrieve it. The water is really cold. So you again attach it to some steep rock, putting the anchor on a long line as high up as possible. Of course, as the tide comes in your dinghy will be smashed against this steep rock by the waves, so you need a second anchor off the stern to keep the dinghy in place. However, you don’t want too good an anchor, or you won’t be able to pull the dinghy back to shore when you return.
At any rate, the point is that leaving the dinghy before going on a hike takes some planning and some time. You may also have noticed that when the dinghy is all set, you are now on some steep rock that is generally nowhere near where you really want to be, with no easy trail to get there. I might also note that due to the rapid changes in water levels, this all is applicable for short trips as well, such as taking Schooner ashore to pee.
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| Ideal Cove Trail, Mitkof I, AK |
So, we finally made it to the trail, and hiked a couple of miles in to a few lakes. The trail was the typical Southeast Alaskan boardwalk, constructed of 2 x 12’s nailed to crosswise logs sitting in the muck. This one had old fishnet stapled to it to provide better traction. The boards are laid level, so elevation changes are accommodated by steps. It is not totally relaxing walking on these trails, as you need to pay careful attention lest you fall off the edge of the board or miss a step, of which there are hundreds.
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| Ideal Cove Trail, Mitkof I, AK |
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| Shelter Lake, Mitkof Is, AK |
We ate lunch at an Adirondack type shelter at one of the lakes. It was stocked with firewood, and provided with a boat, oars and life jackets. This is quite common up here in the National Forest. We encountered a three-person trail crew doing some maintenance, and it was fun to talk with them and find out where they grew up, and how they came to be doing this job. They had some serious maintenance in their future, as there were several caches of boards that had been dropped in by helicopter. The replacement trail is made up of two side by side 3 x 8’s. Probably getting hard to find the 12” wide boards any more.
We got back to the dinghy just in time. The anchor that we had set at the top of this huge ten foot tall rock was just going underwater, and we could still retrieve it and pull the boat back to shore. An hour later we would have had a big problem. When we returned to the boat, we made a fire in the stove, made some popcorn, and felt very cozy.
So, let’s talk about insects. Alaska is famous for mosquitos. I’ve heard that a bill was introduced to make it the official state bird. So, we expected to be eaten alive up here. In fact, the insects have not been a major problem. We just talked about it, and cannot remember seeing a mosquito. We have seen a fair number of small black flies and no-see-ums. It is curious that the insects vary so much from one anchorage to the next. At many places they are not a problem at all, and at others they are pretty intense. Another curious phenomenon is the fact that they seem to hang out at the land-water interface. We may get swarmed as we arrive on shore with the dinghy, but after walking 20 yards inland there are virtually no bugs. The thing that makes them a nuisance is the need to use both hands for lots of tasks, such as rowing or raising the anchor. This leaves you with no way to brush them off your face, so a hat with a bug screen over your face is a good investment up here. I bring this up now because Ideal Cove is a terrible place for no-see-ums. It is perhaps less than ideal.
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| Low Tide in Ideal Cove, AK |
So let’s talk about mud. As I’ve mentioned, much of the water around here is opaque due to the very finely ground rock that is suspended in the water. Well, it turns out that this stuff doesn’t stay suspended forever, and when it falls out it produces the most remarkable mud. Imagine putting some clay into a blender with just enough water to allow it to become somewhat liquefied. That’s the stuff you step into when you get out of the dinghy, and the stuff that comes up with your anchor chain. You then get it on your gloves, and then everything you touch gets covered with it, and you can perhaps imagine what our boat looks like. As I said, Ideal Cove is less than ideal, but we really enjoyed the hike.
On Friday we awoke to a low cloud cover and fog. We decided to hang out and wait for the fog to clear. It never did, so after taking Schooner ashore, cursing the no-see-ums and the mud, we turned on the radar and left anyway. There was a National Geographic small cruise ship anchored off the trailhead we hiked yesterday – we just escaped that.
We used our GPS to skirt the Stikine River flats, and headed over to Leconte Bay on the mainland. There is a glacier in there that is the source of the icebergs floating around. Guidebooks suggest that you not try to enter this bay, but we thought we’d give it a look and see if it looked possible. Well, when we arrived we couldn’t see a thing through the fog, and weren’t about to try it using radar. So we’ll save that for another trip.
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| Iceberg, Frederick Sound, AK |
It was exciting to get our first close up view of icebergs. We actually went out of our way to get close to them. As the fog got thicker, the icebergs began to seem less neat. We did a lot of peering into the fog hoping to avoid a Titanic moment. The thick fog evolved into heavy, wet mist, and things got pretty wet.
We were trying to find the entrance to Thomas Bay, and were getting a bit concerned when the fog suddenly parted, and there we were. To add an extra thrill, a humpback whale leapt out of the water and crashed back with a huge splash. We found the buoys that mark the small channel through the terminal moraine that creates a bar at the entrance to most of these bays and fjords. The mountain tops were shrouded in clouds, waterfalls were plummeting down out of the clouds, and there was a surprisingly cold headwind. There is a glacier at the head of this bay which probably accounts for the air temperature. We worked our way into the south arm and anchored in a cove on Ruth Island. It had bugs and mud, but not nearly as bad as Ideal Cove.
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| Scenery Cove, Thomas Bay, AK |
It rained all night and morning. The morning also had a lot of fog. So we made waffles and hung out waiting for things to improve. They didn’t, but after lunch we left anyway. Almost immediately the rain stopped, the fog disappeared, and the clouds started to dissipate. With the improving weather we decided to go up the north arm and look at Baird Glacier. We then went in to have a look at a small fjord called Scenery Cove. The sun came out, and we were completely taken with Scenery Cove. It is a small version of the typical glacial valley. The water is only about one or two hundred yards wide, the vertical granite walls go up 1000-1500 feet, there are lots of small and large waterfalls, a tumbling creek comes through a grassy meadow at the head, and behind that are 3 or 4 thousand foot mountains with snowfields and waterfalls. We immediately decided this was the most beautiful anchorage we had ever seen, and we would stay here. The down side was that there really wasn’t a good place to anchor, but we managed to get our hook secured on the steep slope of the creek delta, and felt OK about it. I call it a creek, but in Southern Oregon it would probably be called a river.
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| Waterfall, Thomas Bay, AK |
We had tea in the cockpit and enjoyed the warm sunshine and stunning scenery. After a while a fishing boat arrived. It was a commercial crab fisherman from Petersburg who was putting out some test pots. We chatted for quite some time, and as he left he gave us two giant live Dungeness crabs. We passed some beer back to him and his crew as a thank you. Needless to say we had crab for dinner, though we could only eat one of them.
Going ashore with Schooner was a delight, as the water was crystal clear, and the delta was composed of sand! Going ashore with Schooner was not a delight, as we were really ready for bed when he made it very clear that he needed to get off the boat. I think we gave him too many crab shells – his favorite food ever since he was a puppy sailing in the San Juan Islands.
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| Rover, Scenery Cove, Thomas Bay, AK |
Schooner continued processing his crab shells, and there we were enjoying the clear water and sand at 5:30 the next morning. Well, we got an early start. It was a beautiful warm, sunny day with wonderful views of the mountains, and we headed north up Frederick Sound. Around noon we suddenly entered a thick fog bank for two hours. Looking straight up we could see blue sky, but on the level we couldn’t see a thing. We kept a watch on the radar, but there weren’t many boats around.
We came out of the fog just before Cape Fanshaw, where Frederick Sound meets Stephens Passage. There were wonderful views of mountains and sea in all directions. We encountered a purse seiner setting his net in our path, and went around, getting a good view of his interesting operation. We then anchored in Cleveland Passage, close to Whitney Island. We sat in the cockpit and enjoyed the sunshine. It was not a particularly scenic place, but very pleasant. Well, scenery is relative I suppose. This would be a beautiful spot if we were in Vermont.
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| Cleveland Passage, AK |
Going ashore we found a nice beach of broken slate. Nice because it wasn’t mud. I still haven’t recovered from the mud trauma of a few days ago. Going ashore we found some pilings from an old wharf, and a variety of rusty machinery bits. In the forest there were some collapsed buildings which were the remains of a fox farm. Back in the 1920’s a lot of people tried to make a living raising foxes for furs on islands in Alaska. Mostly it didn’t work out since the foxes didn’t do well in this environment (there are no native foxes here), and fashions changed. There were four other boats in the anchorage, which are the most boats we have seen in some time. We are back onto the standard route taken by pleasure boats who visit Alaska. Heretofore we’ve been poking around in the boondocks.
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| Old Fox Farm, Whitney Is, AK |
On Monday, July 15 we began by going nowhere. We realized that there has been very little wind lately, and we are burning up our diesel fuel at an unsustainable rate. There is no fuel available before we get to Juneau. Heck there is nothing until we get to Juneau. We haven’t seen a single building since we left Petersburg five days ago, and we aren’t half way there yet. So we waited for the adverse tidal current to switch, and for some wind to come up. Wind is usually stronger in the afternoons. The weather prediction was for force 4 winds from the southwest – just what we need. It turned out to be force 2 and 3 from the north! So we slowly sailed north, enjoying the sunshine. It was a bit hazy from smoke in the air. Apparently there is a big forest fire in The Yukon.
As we approached Admiralty Island we encountered whales – a lot of whales. It was really hard to estimate the number but there were at least one dozen, and possibly three dozen humpback whales. There were whales in view continuously, and as many as half a dozen simultaneous spouts. Mostly they were just doing their whale thing of breathing and diving, but there was one who stood on his head with his tail out of the water, and repeatedly smacked the water with his tail. One also breached, falling over on his side with a huge splash. Don’t expect any great pictures of this, as the whales don’t give any advance notice of their appearances, and by the time you see one, get it centered in the telephoto lens, focus and shoot, it has done its thing and moved on. Like much of Alaska, photos don’t really do it justice. We really didn’t stop to look at the whales, we were just headed toward our anchorage, and they were still there when we left. We could have watched them for a much longer time, but we didn’t want to bother them.
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| Good Island, Gambier Bay, Admiralty Is, AK |
We headed into Gambier Bay on Admiralty Island. The island was the source of a lot of controversy in the timber/environmental wars of the past. It is a large island, half again larger than Rhode Island, and is now almost completely a National Monument. It is well known for its high concentration of brown bears. Gambier Bay is very large and complex, with numerous little coves and nooks to anchor a boat. If it were in Southern British Columbia there would have been a hundred boats in there, but we saw only one. We anchored for the night in a calm little cove east of Good Island. It had a wonderful mud-free gravel beach to wander around on, under the usual scrutiny of the resident bald eagles, and the occasional investigation by a harbor seal. The seal was apparently looking for dinner, as a large number of salmon were leaping out of the water. We ate the other crab for our dinner.
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| Schooner, Good Island, Gambier Bay, Admiralty Is, AK, Jun 2013 |
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| Tracy Arm, AK |
Tracy Arm is one of the essential sights on an Alaskan cruise, and that was evident from the crowd. We saw three huge cruise ships enter or leave the fjord during the day, and when we anchored in Tracy Arm Cove near the entrance there were eleven other boats! One of them was Alacrity, with some very nice folks from Sheridan, Wyoming. We had met them in Myers Chuck almost three weeks ago, and had them over for a glass of wine. Jean was born in Sheridan, and we were flying our Wyoming flag, so it was obvious we needed to meet them. They dinghied over to say hello, and in the end sold us five gallons of diesel fuel. That takes a lot of tension off of our trip at the moment. They have a Nauticat 33, which is a silly looking motorsailer with tons of room inside. They have not raised the sails since they left Anacortes, Washington, but they carry a lot of fuel.
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| Tracy Arm, AK |
Wednesday was another sunny day with some smoke, and we spent it going up to the end of Tracy Arm and back. That’s a long trip for us – 53 nautical miles, but there is simply no place to anchor once you leave the cove. What can I say? The scenery was simply stunning. I am afraid that I have exhausted my list of superlative adjectives on previous lesser sights, so there are no words left to describe Tracy Arm. Remember the countless high waterfalls? Tracy Arm has more, and they are higher. Remember the tall vertical cliffs? Tracy Arm is steeper and higher. Remember the snow covered mountains? Tracy Arm has glaciers. Remember the icebergs? Tracy Arm has more and they are larger. It is a truly remarkable place. There was a price to pay for this, as an icy cold strong wind was sweeping down the fjord into our faces.
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| Iceberg, Tracy Arm, AK |
Of course we did not have it to ourselves. There were seven other pleasure boats, two fast day tours from Juneau, one small cruise ship, and three giant cruise ships. But, it is a big place, and it was not at all crowded. The ice increased as we got closer to the tidewater glaciers at the head, and required constant vigilance. The large white and blue bergs were no problem, but the smaller bits were the main concern. The worst were the small pieces that came from the bottom of the glacier. They have had all of the air squeezed out of them and are completely transparent. They are also more dense, so float lower in the water. These characteristics make them difficult to see, and also make them more dangerous, as they can do more damage if you hit one. Propellers are especially at risk from these. Wearing polarized sun glasses helped a lot.
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| South Sawyer Glacier, Tracy Arm, AK |
We wove our way through the bergs until we were about a half mile from the vertical front of South Sawyer glacier. At that point the ice density was too high for our comfort level, so we turned off the engine and drifted around, enjoying the view. The ice had an incredible intense blue color. Every now and then there would be a loud report, like a gunshot, and a chunk of the glacier would calve off and crash down into the water.
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| Iceberg, Tracy Arm, AK |
The ice in our cooler was about gone, so we tried to collect some. This proved much harder than you might think. First we had to get very close to a piece of suitable size. There was a lot of melt water coming out of the glacier, so the ice and our boat were all swirling about. Then it turns out that the small pieces are much larger than you’d think, and couldn’t possibly be lifted out of the water. So we changed our search for the tiny pieces. We don’t have any kind of net to scoop them up, so had to lean over the side of the boat and grab them. My hands will just barely reach the water, and grabbing a smooth chunk of ice is not so easy. So we looked for tiny pieces with a handle on the top. One of these handles worked great, but the others all broke off. We were, however, so focused on the hunt that we failed to keep track of our surroundings until we drifted into a good size iceberg with a crash. That got our attention quickly, and we abandoned the ice hunt. So in the end we got some ice, and provided a fair amount of amusement for the tourists on the small cruise ship that was near us at the time.
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| North Sawyer Glacier, Tracy Arm, AK |
We worked our way back out of the ice pack, and went up the other arm at the head of the fjord to see Sawyer Glacier. It began with one of the most remarkable waterfalls I’ve ever seen, plunging out of the sky off the lip of the cliff thousands of feet above. It was really surprising how different the two arms were. Most of Tracy Arm had been carved through granite, and “sailing through Yosemite” was a reasonable description. The north arm was all metamorphic gneiss with an iron content that produced a lot of rusty colors. The glacier was receding, so the rock was largely devoid of any vegetation or soil. The peaks above us had snow on them, and we both agreed that it was a lot like “sailing through Death Valley.” There was less ice here, and we could get very close to the glacier, but we suddenly found ourselves immersed in a sea of small, but dangerous bergie bits, and we beat a slow and careful retreat.
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| Iceberg, Tracy Arm, AK |
The trip back out was much more pleasant, as the scenery was the same, but the cold wind was at our backs. When we arrived back at our anchorage we found 15 boats there! Seven of them were chartered Grand Banks powerboats that were traveling together with a leader showing them where to go.
Our goal for Thursday was to enter Ford’s Terror. This is a fjord that branches off of Endicott Arm, and is much less visited than Tracy Arm. To begin with, the only chart of the fjord is the 1:217,000 chart we have been using for weeks now. This is entirely useless, so there essentially is no chart of Ford’s Terror. The other issue is that to enter it you must go through this very narrow opening that has rocks all around it which are invisible in the opaque glacial water. Another problem is that this opening is a waterfall for most of the tidal cycle. You have to go through at slack water – preferably high water slack. The problem there is that the time of high water slack isn’t really known, and seems to vary depending upon how high the tide actually is on a given day. So what you do is talk to people who have been there, go on the internet to find blogs by people who have been there, and generally take a pretty conservative approach to the whole business.
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| Glacial Flour, Tracy Arm, AK |
So based upon the best folklore we could amass, we decided that we should be there for slack sometime between 11 and 12. This required an earlier than usual start, and we were underway by 6:30. Well, the first surprise was that there was a huge flood current pouring in through the narrow channel in the Tracy Arm bar, and we could just barely make headway against it. This was clearly a failure of planning. This bar has really strong currents, but we never bothered to check it out. When we arrived the other day, we happened to arrive close to slack water completely by accident. Need to do better on that.
After a relatively uneventful trip dodging glaciers up Endicott Arm, we arrived at the entrance at 10:50. As we were trying to sort out what we were seeing, a boat called on the radio from the other side of the narrows announcing that two boats were entering the narrows headed out. This radio call is an important step, since the slot is too narrow for boats to pass one another, and there is a 90 degree bend in the center, so you can’t see out the other side. This made the timing issue a snap, as we didn’t have to decide anything. If they made it out, we could make it in. The route to follow was a bit more problematic, but by lining up our stern with a double waterfall (local knowledge from the internet) and heading straight at the boats exiting we entered without incident.
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| Ford's Terror, AK |
One of the first observations was that some local small tour operators have certainly figured out the details, as there were two boats anchored outside that had delivered about eight kayaks that were paddling about inside. What can I say about Ford’s Terror that you haven’t heard before? Granite, waterfalls, snow, mountains, etc. Spectacular. The anchorage was very dicey; a river delta at the head that goes from too shallow to way too deep in a very small distance. However, we are getting used to these types of lousy anchorages, and got ourselves well settled.
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| Schooner, Ford's Terror, AK, Jun 2013 |
On the way in I got excited about a possible hike up a steep granite slope with a lovely creek that appeared to have open places to hike. Mostly you find impossible brush fields up here. So, Schooner and I rowed over and tackled it. Well, up close it was a different story. From the beach you had the choice of 6-foot brush or wading up a raging creek. Some searching eventually turned up a less torrential creek that we could wade/climb. This eventually brought us to the “open places” referred to above. These turned out to be willow brush that had been leveled by an avalanche, and though it was possible to clamber through it, it was hardly the pleasant stroll in a meadow that I had anticipated. We made it up to the snow banks remaining from the avalanche and called it a day.
By now the sun had disappeared and the mountain tops had disappeared into clouds. Late in the afternoon the Alacrity from Wyoming arrived. We invited them over for wine and snacks that lasted most of the evening and served as dinner.
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| Waterfall, Ford's Terror, AK |
Friday morning was cloudy and foggy. We mostly hung out in the boat, awaiting slack water at the narrows. When we arrived the current was still ebbing a bit, but it was no problem to leave, and going out was an easier route to discern. We spent the afternoon motoring back up Endicott Arm in gray, cold weather. The only incidents worthy of notice were our attempts to collect come more ice for our cooler. We were towing the dinghy, and it seemed that it would be much easier to pick up ice from there rather than the high topsides of our sailboat. So we stopped by a small berg that had an inviting arm sticking up that was just the right size for our cooler. I rowed over and attacked the arm with an ice pick, hoping that it would simply fall off into the bottom of the dinghy. What actually did happen was that my stabbing it with the ice pick upset its delicate equilibrium and the blasted thing turned upside down. This was rather startling, but fortunately it did not upset the dinghy. However the bottom was perfectly smooth, and there was no way I was going to carve out a suitable chunk from that mass.
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| Ford's Terror, AK |
A bit later we found a large iceberg that had many small bits floating around it. After attacking several huge chunks, and changing my perceptions of what a small piece of ice looks like, I was able to scoop up a number of pieces using a bucket, and we were able to refill the cooler. Later that evening we used some of the ice to have a drink of 10 year old Scotch on 10,000 year old ice. I’m sure it wasn’t that old, but it certainly was the oldest ice cube I’ve ever consumed.
Saturday we left Tracy Arm Cove for the third time, this time making a late departure so as to avoid the bad current at the bar. There was a very wet mist in Tracy Arm, but that cleared up when we got out into Stephens Passage. The day remained mostly cloudy, though we did get a few small sun breaks. There was a bit of a south wind, so we put up the sails. The wind gradually increased throughout the day. We did a run under the spinnaker for several hours, and eventually changed to the jib when the wind became too strong. With a few miles to go we took down the jib as well, and sailed into Taku Harbor.
Taku Harbor contains the ruins of an old cannery. The City of Juneau maintains a dock there, as it is a convenient weekend destination for Juneauans, Juneauites, Juneauers or whatever they are called. We got a friendly reception from those on the dock, and they helped us into the best spot to avoid the chop coming in off Stephens Passage. A man from Anacortes, WA provided us with a long monologue about anything that came to mind. While I took Schooner ashore he corrected the way Jean was tying up the boat, and generally set her straight. He said he had tried unsuccessfully to do the same with another boat on the dock “but some people think they know everything.” The other major boat was a large motorized barge fitted out as a party location. Half a dozen Juneau powerboats were there getting the barbeque started, playing music, and generally enjoying their weekend. We’re clearly getting out of the wilderness. Towards the end of the day a power line had appeared on the shore, bringing electricity into town.
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| Cannery Ruins, Taku Harbor, AK |
In the morning we took a walk to look at the local sights. As a sad aside, in Wrangell there was an official US Forest Service sign on the waterfront showing pictures of “common sites in Tongass National Forest.” The common sites included bald eagles, glaciers, bears, whales, etc. I must be getting old. At any rate the sights at Taku Harbor included a Forest Service Cabin, a large rope swing, several abandoned cabins, two bunkhouses from the 1920’s era cannery, pilings of the old cannery wharf, and lots of rusty machinery bits associated with the cannery. People have been reclaiming some of the cabins and bunkhouses. You can just stake a claim on the property, start paying taxes, and it is yours. There was obviously a lot of effort going into turning old bunkhouses into vacation retreats, but it certainly seemed like an imposing, if not impossible task to me.
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| Artistic Arrangement, Taku Harbor, AK |
People had collected quite a few of the small to medium sized rusty bits, and placed them artistically on top of some of the shorter pilings. There were also attractive creations of crab shells, broken pottery and various pieces of flotsam arranged on some pilings. People were obviously having fun with the site.
Late in the morning we finally got underway, raised the mainsail and headed back out into Stephens Passage. To our surprise it was blowing like snot out there, with large seas rolling northward. We hadn’t realized how protected we were in the harbor. So we left the jib furled, and tore off toward Juneau. Sailing downwind with just the mainsail in heavy seas is a lot of work, as the boat is very unbalanced. On the other hand, we didn’t want to try and turn upwind into the nasty seas, so we just stuck it out. Eventually we made it to Grand Island, and we snuck in behind it to get out of the weather. There it was easy to furl the main and unroll part of the jib. With just the jib up the boat gets pulled along at the bow, and is much easier to steer.
As we proceeded north, the wind steadily decreased, until it finally died altogether entering Gastineau Channel. The death of the wind correlated closely with the appearance of thick fog. So there we were motoring up Gastineau Channel toward Juneau, using radar to see where we were, and who else was out there. The latter was an important consideration, as there were a lot of boats out there, and there are at least four giant cruise ships that visit Juneau every day; we didn’t want to be surprised by one of them in the fog.
It all turned out well, and the visibility improved as we got into the harbor. We got a slip in Harris Harbor close to downtown, and relaxed. We were beat, and not in the mood for tourist activity, so we just hung out on the boat and recovered from the day.
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| Harris Basin, Juneau, AK |
Monday, July 22 began cloudy and wet, but quickly transformed into a gorgeous sunny and warm day. For starters we walked to the nearby laundry and took showers. Down south, marinas usually have showers and laundry facilities. That doesn’t seem to be the practice up here. In fact this marina does not even provide rest rooms! Alaskans are rugged individualists who don’t like the government interfering in their lives and looking out for them. That is, unless it is the Federal Government sending them vast sums of money, which is somehow OK. Send us more money and leave us alone.
We later found a chandlery disguised as Harri’s Plumbing Supply, and were finally able to find the replacement parts to rearm our discharged life jackets. A sunny walk partway into town led us to a mediocre lunch at Bullwinkle’s Pizza. The pizza wasn’t great, but it was really noisy and had uncomfortable seats and slow service.
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| View from W 8th St, Juneau, AK |
We then walked across the street to the State Office Building (the SOB), and went up to the 8th floor to the Alaska State Library. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen an 8th floor, though I must admit that the first four floors were the parking garage. There we found a delightful atrium with a view of the city below, a totem pole, a stuffed brown bear, and wi-fi. We caught up on the e-mail for the past two weeks, and made some arrangements for leaving. We made ferry reservations from Wrangell to Haines for August 15, and reserved a motel room in Juneau. We need to stay overnight in Juneau and change to a different ferry. We’ll meet Melissa in Haines on the 17th, and she will fly home from Whitehorse on the 21st.
At this point, duty called, and we returned to the boat to collect our massive pile of dirty clothing and bedding, hauling it off to a Laundromat. We had actually planned well this time, waiting until high tide. When we left this morning it was a minus 4 foot low tide. While Jean took charge of the laundry detail, I walked Schooner around a seedy neighborhood, and then did some grocery shopping. We need to do a major provisioning here, and since I can only buy what I can carry back to the boat, it will take quite a number of trips.
The major hassle of walking around here is the massive amount of traffic. Well, it’s probably not really that massive, but it seems like it after such a long time without any civilization. Juneau has a population of 30,000, which seems enormous. The street in front of the marina is a four-lane divided highway – the first one we’ve seen since we left Ladysmith back in early May. We have to walk up to the traffic light to get across safely, and that takes a long time, as the light goes through four different variations of who can go where. If you want to go for a long drive here, you are limited to 30 miles, when the road ends. It’s surprising how many cars there are.
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| Front St, Juneau, AK |
Tuesday was another wonderful sunny day. We cancelled our plans to change the engine oil, and other such tasks, and spent it outside. We first walked downtown and mingled with the cruise ship passengers window shopping on Franklin Street. It is a larger scale version of downtown Ashland, full of stores selling things to tourists, but nothing that a resident would need in their normal life. A great place to buy carved ducks, but not much in the way of underwear.
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| Franklin St, Juneau, AK |
We then climbed the hills into the downtown residential area. Juneau is squeezed in between the water and the steep mountains behind it, and most of the homes are on the hills above town. There are a large number of old, small, attractive and interesting houses. A number of streets turn into stairways, reminiscent of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, and we descended a remarkable number of steps to return to the harbor.
In the afternoon we abandoned our tourist mode, and took the bus way out of town to the Fred Meyers store. Over the past two months our shopping list has been gradually accumulating a group of things we could not find in the towns we visited. So, one trip to Freddy’s cleared up the list. Sometimes you need a shot of the real world. The bus was packed, and the driver was terrible. Fred Meyers looked identical to any store you would find in Oregon, and we found everything we needed. The real world indeed. Tomorrow we’ll return to our search for the mythical “real Alaska,” knowing that most Alaskans drive their cars to the mall, and live lives a lot like everyone else in the US. Several years ago, Melissa told us that the best thing about Anchorage is that it’s only a 20 minute drive to Alaska.
By the time we returned to the boat lugging our Fred Meyers hoard, we were done for the day. It turns out that we could have gone to the Governor’s picnic this evening, where he dishes out free food to all comers. However, it is 3 miles away, and we’re not up for undertaking that journey. Leftovers in the boat look pretty good. I think we’re getting old.
I’ll try to get this missive posted tomorrow. We plan to spend one or two days more here, and then start sailing up and around the west side of Admiralty Island. We’ve got to start back toward Wrangell, so adventures farther north will have to await next year’s trip. We don’t know what route we’ll be taking, but regardless there will be very few cell phone or internet spots along the way. So, it will probably be a long while before the next issue arrives. I’m pretty sure you’ll survive.
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