Tuesday, June 5th we spent in Prince Rupert running errands and getting ready for the next jump. Prince Rupert holds several distinctions in Canada. It has the most rainfall, the most days with precipitation, the least amount of sunshine, and the lowest average summer temperature of any city in the country. The perfect holiday destination! Well, we shouldn’t have been surprised to spend the day walking around in a light rain. We bought some waterproof neoprene gloves to complement our rain attire, replaced the folding seat that got blown off in the squall, transferred some of our American money to our Canadian credit union account, searched unsuccessfully for another bug hat, bought some more long underwear, replaced our missing wire coat hanger (useful for cleaning out clogged through hulls, 5 cents at the Salvation Army), and replaced the small two part epoxy tubes that I used to sort of repair my backup glasses after they broke in half. After the backups broke, I got out some pliers and bent my original pair (stepped on during the squall) back to a functional, though somewhat scarred, shape. New glasses will be in order after returning home.
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| Cow Bay, Prince Rupert, BC |
Back at the boat that afternoon Bruce announced that we had 5:30 reservations for dinner, much to our surprise. Monty and I, both retired faculty, couldn’t help but reflect that Bruce is a retired administrator. So we scurried around, bought some more diesel fuel, and ran up to Safeway to buy a block of ice for the cooler, all in preparation for leaving tomorrow at 7:00. As it happens, administrators do make the rare good decision, and we enjoyed a superb dinner of fresh halibut at Dolly’s.
The next step of the voyage is another major hurdle – we have to cross Dixon Entrance, another one of these places where the ocean comes rolling in from Japan with all sorts of possible untoward consequences. This is similar to the crossing of Queen Charlotte Strait we did a few weeks ago, but complicated by the fact that Dixon Entrance is the border between Canada and the US (you may recall “54-40 or fight” from your US or Canadian history). Generally, when you enter the US you are not allowed to anchor or go ashore until you have cleared customs and immigration. Here that is problematic since it is over 80 nautical miles from Prince Rupert to the customs office in Ketchikan, and boats such as ours really can’t go that far in a day. To help make the trip feasible, you can call Ketchikan and get permission to anchor for one night in an Alaskan anchorage called Foggy Bay, as long as you proceed directly to Ketchikan the next day. It is 50 miles to Foggy Bay, which is a very long day, but possible. It would be more pleasant to take two days to get to Foggy Bay, spending one more day anchored in Canada, but this requires three consecutive days of good weather. The forecast says that a storm is coming in Thursday afternoon, so if we go to Foggy Bay tomorrow, when the weather looks great, and leave really early on Thursday, we can make it to Ketchikan before the storm arrives.
Wednesday we awoke at 5:00 and checked the weather. Well, the storm seems to have sped up, and is forecast to arrive Thursday morning instead of Thursday afternoon. It will be several days after the storm until conditions settle down again, so were faced with the choice of spending a few stormy days anchored in remote Foggy Bay, or stay here in Prince Rupert. We chose to stay. The major down side to staying here is cost. Sailing is a very inexpensive vacation until you tie up in a town. Then money starts to hemorrhage out of your boat at a remarkable rate. You pay for moorage, pay for electricity, buy things to make repairs, spend your time walking around shopping, go out for meals, etc.
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| Courthouse, Prince Rupert, BC |
The first thing we did was move our boat to a different spot in the marina both to make room for a larger boat, and to be in a location more sheltered from the swell coming off the harbor. We also decided to pay for electricity to make our lives easier, primarily so we can use our electric heater rather than our wood stove for heat. We can also use our electric toaster rather than toasting bread over the flame on the stove, and boil water with our electric kettle. In addition we can get the batteries well charged before leaving. Away from the dock all of our electrical needs are met by our 12 volt batteries. The only problem surfaced when we went to plug our boat in, and couldn’t find the cord. Most likely we left in on the dock back in Shearwater. You may recall that was where we paid for electricity, but did not have a place to plug it in. So, a trip to the chandlery ensued to buy a new cord, and trust me, they don’t give these away. More stimulus for the economy of Prince Rupert. It turned into a beautiful warm sunny day that would have been a great day to leave if it weren’t for the forecast for tomorrow. I admit to having doubts that we had made the right decision.
After a morning of small boat chores we tackled the laundry. All of our dirty clothes plus our bedding and Schooner’s blankets made a heavy load, and the two town Laundromats were each about a mile away. We packed it into two duffel bags, and headed off. We were fading fast when we passed Safeway and commandeered a grocery cart, which greatly eased our labors. We ended up at a place called Mommy’s Laundry, which was a real dump, with old beat up machines, no hot water, and a plumbing system that couldn’t handle more than a few machines at a time before overflowing onto the floor. It was in Chinatown/Skid Row, and many of the folks there were drunk and asking for money. We left to eat some lunch, and took our cart with us, since several locals had already eyed it for the quarter they would get by returning it to the store. We wouldn’t miss the quarter, but we certainly would miss the cart. We headed into a better part of town to eat, and walking down the main street of town pushing your belongings in a shopping cart makes you a bit self-conscious, thinking maybe you should comb your hair or something. We parked the cart outside the front door of the restaurant of a nice hotel, and tied Schooner to it, hoping that he would defend it for us. They were both still there when we returned. When we got the stuff back to the boat, Jean returned the cart to Safeway, and did some window-shopping in stores she knew I would not enjoy.
I met the fellow on the neighboring boat, and had a long conversation with Jim. He is a train engineer working making up trains at the docks, a member of the ILWU. He had been a charter fishing guide for many years, and was now just doing the best jobs (he had high seniority), which mostly involved doing 4 hours of work for 9 hours of pay. The rest of his time he spent fishing, camping on a deserted island, making driftwood furniture, and doing things with his kids. He was really pleasant and interesting. When he left, he gave us a couple of live crabs for dinner, one Dungeness and one Tanner. They were delicious. A notable event was sitting in our cockpit having a glass of wine with Bruce and Elaine, enjoying the warm sunshine! This is a common event farther south, but the first for this trip.
While walking Schooner in the evening an enormous column of black smoke appeared to the east of us that continued for a long time. We later learned that a mini storage complex had burned, complete with cars, exploding propane tanks, and who knows what. It was quite a challenge for the fire department.
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| North Pacific Cannery, Port Edward, BC |
Thursday we awoke to rain, which was actually a bit of a relief, as it indicated that the weather forecast was correct, and staying here yesterday was the right choice. I walked Schooner downtown to give him some exercise and run a couple of errands. Then all of us (less Schooner) caught a bus that took us to the North Pacific Cannery Historical Site. This is a salmon cannery, built originally around 1890, that is reasonably well preserved. We took two guided tours, one on the mechanics of catching and canning salmon, and one on the living conditions and social structure. The operation included Chinese, Japanese, Natives and Europeans. They each had their own specific jobs allocated by race, and lived in separate accommodations. None of the jobs seemed very appealing to me, and I’m glad to have been a professor instead. The abundance and waste of fish in the earlier days was really astounding. The guides actually ran some of the machinery for us, such as the ones that produced the cans. The guides were all college students on summer jobs. There was a fair amount of walking outside from one building to another, and the rain was impressive.
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| Can Making Machine, North Pacific Cannery, Port Edward, BC |
After our return we snuggled back into our warm boat and enjoyed some hot toddies before dinner. It is still raining and the wind is howling, and it is nice not to be at anchor in Foggy Bay.
The Friday forecast was for high winds and seas, so we spent another day in Prince Rupert. It rained all day. We visited the Museum of Northern British Columbia, which was well done, with a particularly nice collection of native artifacts that were well displayed. This weekend is a celebration called Sea Fest, and as part of that there is a Navy vessel in town that was open for tours. It is mostly used as a training ship, and our guide was a callow youth, just graduated from university, on his first ship as an acting sub-lieutenant, and had been there for four days. It was actually a lot of fun. They have an impressive GPS. Ours will give us our location within 10-50 feet; theirs provides it within a few millimeters. I also spent some time talking with some interesting Navy divers.
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| Company Store, North Pacific Cannery, Port Edward, BC |
We took showers, filled the water tanks, and generally got ready to leave in the morning. We really do not want to spend more time in Prince Rupert, even though we will miss standing in the rain watching the Sea Fest parade tomorrow.
We left Prince Rupert at last on Saturday morning. You can probably guess the weather. We called US Customs for the third time, getting permission once again to take an extra day to Ketchikan. We threaded our way through a narrow, circuitous, but well-marked place called Venn Passage. This shortcut saved us many miles. We then took another shortcut over a sandbar that proved to have enough water for us, and we were on our way. We sailed for an hour until the wind died, while the others motored way ahead of us once again. We passed Green Island lighthouse by Dundas Island, and Alaska was in sight across Dixon Entrance.
At this point the trip changed completely when Freya ran into a huge waterlogged log floating just barely above the surface. The Cape Dory boats that we and the Elliotts have are very traditional in design with a full keel, the rudder attached to the aft part of the keel, and the propeller enclosed in an aperture in the rudder. This provides a lot of protection for the prop and the rudder in the event that we hit something. However, this old-fashioned design results in a boat that is slower and less maneuverable than most boats currently being built. Freya has a fin keel, a spade rudder, and the propeller in the large space between these. Well, this huge log ended up wedged in that space between the keel and the rudder, with fairly good sized waves knocking the whole setup around.
Eventually Elaine got into her kayak, and was able to get a line round the root end of the tree. The Elliotts took that in tow, and after much heroic effort were able to separate the log and the boat. Unfortunately, Freya’s rudder was jammed and her propeller shaft would not turn, so she was unable to use her engine or to steer. With the waves knocking the boats around, we managed the tricky business of getting a towline between Freya and us. Then it was our turn to make a mistake as we put the line through a roller on the stern that is used to control stern tie lines when we anchor and tie to a tree. This was not strong enough for the task and ripped out of the deck. The towline then moved across and ripped our flagstaff out of the deck as well. By the time we sorted this mess out, we were both headed back at the log, and we cast them loose so we wouldn’t have two incapacitated boats. We eventually got the towline reestablished, though we had drifted a half mile by then and a rocky island was getting a bit too close for comfort. We then slowly towed them into narrow Brundige Inlet on uninhabited Dundas Island.
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| Brundige Inlet, Dundas Island, BC |
It was a typical anchorage around here in that it went from too deep to too shallow in a distressingly short distance, so we couldn’t just tow Freya into an appropriate depth without going aground ourselves. We did manage to pull it off however, slinging Freya toward shore as we turned, followed by Bruce casting off the tow line, dropping Freya’s anchor, hoping that it would quickly set and spin her around to a stop. It did! Whew!
Greatly relieved to have all three boats securely anchored in a sheltered and safe spot, we only then noticed the enormous number of tiny biting black flies that had descended upon us. What a day. We were all down to minimal fresh provisions, as we can’t take meat or fresh fruit or vegetables into the US. We did manage to put together a dinner, however, and had a long time on Integrity featuring Lorna’s excellent fish soup and a large amount of wine. We were very thankful that things didn’t turn out any worse, as they surely could have.
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| Freya Under Tow, Chatham Sound, BC |
On Sunday, we towed Freya back 40 miles to Port Edward. This is a small fishing settlement south of Prince Rupert that has a travel lift so Freya could be hauled out of the water to assess the damage. We were fortunate that it was a calm, sunny day with minimal seas, so the towing was relatively straightforward, and we could enjoy the sun. We did notice, sitting in the sun, that there was a rain cloud sitting over Prince Rupert. Freya’s rudder was stuck with a slight turn to starboard. Our autopilot was unable to steer with this unusual pull, and we had to hand steer the entire way with a significant lee helm to fight. We took turns and it wasn’t too bad.
As we entered the harbor there was a small rush hour of Sunday afternoon fishermen returning. When we got close to the dock we dropped the tow, and firmly lashed the two boats together. This allowed us to act like a tug, and maneuver Freya into a berth. It went reasonably well, although there was a strong current that made our docking less than perfect. Nobody hurt and nothing broken, so a successful day.
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| Tom, Elaine, Bruce, Monty & Lorna, Port Edward, BC, Jun 2013 |
We all got together for a potluck dinner on our boat, everyone relieved but tired. Shortly before going to bed I noticed a huge tree with its root ball heading toward Freya and us on the tidal current. Bruce, another local guy and I got out boathooks, and managed to slowly work it around the dock to continue on as someone else’s problem. Trees seem to be after us.
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| Freya's Propeller |
We spent Monday in Port Edward. Freya was hauled out of the water first thing in the morning. The sight was not good. She had a bent rudder post, fiberglass on the hull cracked by the bending rudder, a propeller that looked like a pretzel, a bent shaft strut and possibly a bent shaft. This was clearly the end of the trip for Bruce and Elaine. They spent much of the day talking with insurance people and trying to arrange a surveyor to assess the damage. After some morning fog it was a beautiful sunny day, and we did boat chores, including putting a coat of teak sealer onto our exterior woodwork. One definition of cruising is doing boat repairs in exotic locales. The only source of food (or anything else for that matter) was a small convenience store. Purchasing their entire stock of frozen pork chops, Lorna prepared a feast. Everyone was in good spirits, though at the same time sad.
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| Fishing Boat, Port Edward, BC |
We all got together in the morning to say our goodbyes. The surveyor came to look at Freya and confirmed the bad situation. He recommended that the boat be repaired someplace else if possible. The local people can get a fishing boat back in the water quickly, but are not familiar with sailboats. One fellow suggested to Bruce that the rudder would be quickly back in business after a few swipes with a chainsaw. They have plane tickets to fly home tonight, and will return with their boat trailer to haul her back south. That is clearly one advantage of a smaller boat. We could never do that, and would have to deal with the chainsaw fellow.
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| Trains & Boats Port Edward, BC |
We and the Elliotts continued the journey, leaving as the fog was burning off. Unfortunately the fog was still very thick as we reached the harbor entrance, where our next adventure ensued. A concatenation of unfortunate circumstances created a serious problem. The fog appeared while Jean was down below. Visibility suddenly decreased to 50 yards or so. I was looking at the radar and the GPS to figure out where I was. The radar display was not properly adjusted for the lighting conditions, and was difficult to see. We were approaching a waypoint, and the GPS needed to be changed to the next waypoint. Schooner was upset that Jean was below and was standing in front of both the radar and GPS displays so I couldn’t see either of them. I was shouting at Schooner to move, and generally losing my situational awareness. At this point, the Elliotts called on the radio and asked if we would like them to take the lead, as they have a chart plotter, which should make this an easier situation to solve. With relief, we said yes, go on ahead. Well, it took a long time for them to pass us, during which we were drifting waiting for them, and then they lead us straight onto a sand bank, and we were both hard aground.
I knew that the tide was ebbing, so there was no time to lose. What I forgot was that it was almost low tide, and it would soon be rising. As a result we made some hasty decisions, which could have been improved upon further reflection. The plan was to row out an anchor into deep water, drop it and winch the boat off of the sandbar. This is called kedging, and we have a lot of experience in this from sailing on the Columbia River. I have to say that we did an outstanding job of quickly launching the dinghy, and getting the kedge anchor aboard. The next question is where is the deep water? There were no visible landmarks to guide us. Lorna confidently pointed out the direction to go, and I quickly rowed the anchor out. What I should have done was taken some time to do some soundings and confirm the depths. In the event, rowing into the “deep” water I ran aground in the dinghy, which draws about 8 inches. Our boat draws 5 feet.
I then rowed back toward the actual deep water as best as I could against the wind and waves, towing 300 feet of line in the water, and dropped the anchor. The result was that our anchor line did run into deep water, but at a very shallow angle along the edge of the sandbank. As we would winch the line into the boat we would move a bit into deeper water whereupon the wind and waves would push us back onto the sand. It took two hours, bringing in the 300 foot line 6 inches at a time pulling a 14,000 pound boat to finally free us from the sand. We were pretty tired by then. In the meanwhile, Bruce and Elaine had heard our radio conversations, knew of our predicament, and got aboard a powerboat to come to our assistance. They were able, after considerable difficulty, to pull the Elliotts off.
The lesson we took form this experience is to look after our own boat, and don’t rely on others. If we had not accepted help, we might still have gone aground, but we would have been actively trying to solve the problem rather than drifting around waiting for the solution.
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| Green Island Lighthouse, BC |
By the time we were free, the fog was gone, so we headed north, back to Dundas Island. There was a lot of wind, right on our nose, and the seas were pretty significant, especially in the areas open to the ocean swells. It would have been a bad day to tow a boat. There were more occasional fog patches to deal with, but for the most part it was a beautiful sunny day, with snowy mountains as the background. A few miles before the spot where Freya had hit the log, motoring in pretty good sized waves, we hit one ourselves. It was not as large – perhaps 10 inches in diameter – but it went completely under the keel, popped up in our wake and the dinghy bounced over the top of it. If we hadn’t had a full keel boat, we might have been the same pickle as Freya. There was no water coming into the bilge, and we were fine.
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| Brundige Inlet, Dundas Island, BC |
Wednesday, June 12 turned out to be the day that we finally, after 32 days, made it to Alaska. We began the day with a brilliant idea, and took Schooner ashore, loaded the dinghy on board, and did as many outdoor tasks as possible before breakfast, and more significantly, before the black flies awoke. It worked! We took off in low cloud and mist, but no fog and headed across Dixon Entrance. The forecast was for 10-20 knot west winds, and we were anticipating a wonderful sail. The winds were more like 5 knots, and all we got from the west were huge ocean swells rolling in from Japan. It was a bit uncomfortable, coming on our beam, but didn’t cause us any problems. I was slightly disappointed to find that the international boundary was at 54-42, not 54-40. Guess we should have fought.
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| Foggy Bay, AK |
The most astonishing chat was with Lorna, who announced that she had decided, against Monty’s wishes, that, after reaching Ketchikan tomorrow, they will be turning around and going home and she did not want to discuss it. This has left us totally bewildered, and Jean and I spent the evening trying to arrive at a rational explanation. Certainly there are tensions when traveling together, but this doesn’t seem to make any sense to us. So, barring some change, it looks as if we are off to see Alaska on our own. We hope that a good night’s sleep and a less stressful day of traveling will at least make her willing to spend some time sailing in Alaska by themselves. Monty has wanted to make this trip for years and we hope he will get to do it.
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| Log Boom Chain, Foggy Bay, AK |
On Thursday we started the day on a high note. Taking Schooner ashore brought us to a beautiful spot; a rocky island of schist with lots of grass. Scarlet Indian paintbrush was blooming in the grass, and various rocky knobs were crowned with bonsai trees. Many people think that having a dog must be a real pain, since you have to take him ashore several times a day, often under somewhat difficult circumstances. The reality is that it gets you off of the boat, and you discover all sorts of beautiful and interesting things. It’s amazing to us to see the majority of boaters here never going ashore, or even getting out of their cabins (powerboats) or canvas enclosures (sailboats). They seem to be missing a large portion of the experience of being here, looking at it out the windows as if they were watching TV. We took off for Ketchikan, but not without a hitch. As the Elliotts raised their anchor, the swivel connecting it to the chain broke, and the anchor fell to the bottom, never to be seen again. Looks like they’ll be anchor shopping in Ketchikan.
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| Barge, Revillagigedo Channel, AK |
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| Ketchikan, AK |
As we approached Ketchikan, the amount of traffic increased considerably, including two massive cruise ships. Hosting cruise ships has become the major economic engine of Ketchikan, and several other Alaskan towns. There were three or four ships present at any time in town while we were there, and we saw four Holland America ships enter and leave in one 24 hour period.
The downtown is a warren of tourist traps. We are moored a mile or so from downtown, nestled among local fishing boats. The fellow across the dock lives on his boat and works at the shipyard in town. He said he has been a bartender, a logger, and a fisherman, but the most lucrative was dealing drugs. He said that was really great until he got caught (twice). Very friendly and helpful guy. On Saturday he’s taking his boat to Hyder with 6000 bottles of beer for his friends. The fisherman next to us leaves every evening to go salmon fishing until it gets dark around 11:00. He then sleeps on the boat until 3:00 when it is starting to get light, and fishes again. Then he hurries home to drive his wife to work at the store they own. He’s tried to retire, but somehow can’t do it. He caught 7 20-30 pound king salmon today.
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| Creek Street, Ketchikan, AK |
Friday we spent in Ketchikan. Ketchikan has 50% more rain than Prince Rupert – 150 inches per year, so we were not optimistic about the weather prospects. However it was a beautiful sunny and warm day, perhaps the nicest weather of the entire trip. We have been here once before, and the weather was the same. We did a lot of shopping for essential items out in the real part of town, and then walked to the center to meet Monty and Lorna for lunch. On the way we climbed up the hills into the residential areas and had a very pleasant walk with interesting homes and wonderful views. Most of the town is stuffed into a narrow strip of level land along the water, where it is very congested and full of traffic. Considering that you can’t drive farther than 20 or 30 miles out of town there are certainly a lot of cars here. Downtown the traffic is replaced by the thousands of tourists disgorged by the cruise ships.
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| Harbor, Ketchikan, AK |
We had lunch with the Elliotts, and were relieved to hear that they had reconsidered, and were going to spend some time sailing in Alaska before heading home – just without us. They feel it will be less stressful to be on their own, and we agree. Oh well. They have ordered an anchor from Seattle, and will stay here until it is flown in. Most stuff arrives here by barge, but that takes a couple of weeks. We often pass a tug pulling a huge barge loaded with shipping containers.
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| Bald Eagle, Ketchikan, AK |
We made a massive grocery shopping trip late in the day to reprovision our boat. It certainly is nice to be paying American prices once again rather than Canadian prices. Of course they do have a health care system paid for by their high prices. Our plan is to leave in the morning and spend most of the week in Misty Fjords National Monument. We want to take advantage of the wonderful weather, and hope to see the fjords without their mist. In the morning we’ll walk over to Starbuck’s for breakfast, and hope to get this sent off. We hope that your summers are getting off to a good start.
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