Tag Archives | Diesel Duck

So we left Petersburg with high hopes for equaling last years fishing results in Fredrick Sound.  As we entered Pybus Bay on the way to Cannery Cove, we dropped three prawn pots in the same location as we did last year that gave us good results.

After a quiet night at anchor being the sole boat, we headed out to the fishing grounds on the west side of the West Brother Island. First we stopped to reap a disappointing prawn harvest. Probably it was the hubris of taking the area for granted and putting three pots down instead of our normal two.  We reset two pots in a different area using the tried and true method of looking where somebody else, hopefully better informed than us, placed theirs.

When we arrived on the fishing grounds, Marcia began her utmost to repeat her 2014 performance.  As Marcia joked, she must have caught the two stupid halibuts last year because the wily fish underneath our boat repeatedly stole the herring and octopus off of her barbed circle hooks.  The worst offense occurred when one fish (or perhaps a “gang”) took all three chunks of herring from each hook of a treble hook.

Eventually we called it quits and headed back to Cannery Cove for the night.  Perhaps it was the forecast for wind and rain that prompted boats to head for the protection of Cannery Cove, but in any event, there were four other boats in the anchorage that night. 

The next morning, after a rainy and blustery night, we headed out and pulled our two prawn pots from the previous day.  We had been sufficiently humbled by the prawn gods so they rewarded us with a nice haul, sufficient for a couple of meals.  The halibut gods, though were not appeased and the fish remained elusive.  The night was spent in the nook between West Brother Island and the small islets on its west shore.  A very scenic anchorage but not one we’d want to weather a storm in.

From there we continued up to Gambier Bay and some more disappointing fishing, both for halibut and prawns.  We tried a new (to us) anchorage behind Good Island.  It too was scenic but not one we’d want to be in during any significant weather.

The next day we crossed Stephens Passage headed for Port Houghton and Sanborn Inlet.  We dropped a couple of prawn pots near the entrance just in case our luck had changed.  The next morning upon departure for Tracy Arm Cove we were pleasantly surprised to find dinner waiting for us in the pots.

As we approached our destination, Marcia saw what she first thought was a log or dirty piece of ice floating in the water.  As we got closer, we saw it was a moose swimming in Holkham Bay.  We were quite far from shore and its origination or destination weren’t totally clear.  Currents are pretty swift there so it could have easily been taken well off its intended course.

From Tracy Arm Cove, you can visit either Tracy Arm and the Sawyer Glaciers or Endicott Arm and the Dawes Glacier.  We’ve been up Tracy Arm twice but had never been up Endicott Arm.  We decided to try the new (to us) area and headed out the next morning. 

As we started down Endicott Arm, the ice chunks in the water were large but infrequent enough they were easy to dodge.  As we got further in, smaller chunks of ice were common and often difficult to see in the filtered light from the cloudy sky.  At the head of Endicott Arm was the Dawes Glacier, the source of the ice in the water.

Our original plan was to do Tracy Arm the day after Endicott Arm but a weather forecast for 30 knot winds persuaded us to head for the public dock in Taku Harbor and wait out the blow.  Other boaters had similar ideas and the dock was pretty full when the winds started to pick up.

From Taku Harbor we made our way to Juneau and its Statter Harbor Marina in Auke Bay, where we were fortunate to find a spot without a lot of searching.  From here we’ll pick up Marcia’s Arizona cousins whom we’ll take first to Glacier Bay National Park and then to Sitka where they will depart on July 22.

Marcia and I often joke about a Labor Day weekend trip more than 20 years ago in which we traveled 550 miles from our Seattle home to Leavenworth (typically a 120 mile drive) via Canada.  As explanation, I’ll say our original goal was Hozomeen, a North Cascades peak just south of the border whose shortest access is via Canada.  Relentless rain washed that goal away and kept pushing us east searching for blue sky and ultimately to Leavenworth.

Something like that has happened in the 2-1/2 weeks since we left Wrangell on June 5.  We are now in Petersburg, about 45 miles from miles from Wrangell via Wrangell Narrows.  The route we took was a “little” less direct and totaled about 626 miles.  Along the way we took a detour to within 20 miles of Craig on Prince of Wales Island, headed out to Sitka on the West coast of Baranof Island via Peril Strait, continued south along the coast of Baranof, rounded Cape Ommaney, recrossed our earlier path (thus completing a circumnavigation of Baranof Island), overshoot Petersburg by going to the north end of Dry Strait (we were able to pick up VHF calls to the Wrangell harbor master), then finally docked at Petersburg on June 21.  Thank heavens it’s the journey not just the destination that matters.

The highlights since leaving Sitka include two lovely new (to us) anchorages on the West coast of Baranof Island, Kristoi Basin and Puffin Bay, and a tremendous humpback whale experience outside of Tebenkof Bay.  We turned off the engine and watched a pod of 15 to 20 whales feeding (including bubble feeding) over a broad area.  To hear them breath from hundreds of yards away is always a moving experience.

Our boat passed a milestone as well, accumulating 3000 hours on the main engine on the leg into Petersburg.  That accumulation is in the 5-1/2 years since we off loaded the boat in Seattle in January 2010.

From here, we have about a 130 mile journey to Auke Bay, in Juneau.  We’ll take it leisurely over 10 or 11 days but the route will probably be more direct than this most recent path.

We’re currently in Sitka after having stopped in Wrangell, made a feint towards Craig then shifting our destination to Sitka.

In Wrangell, we had a great visit with our friends, Dorothy & Dave Nagle, owners of the Seahorse Marine Diesel Duck DavidEllis. They’ve been in a boatyard in Wrangell since last fall recoating their boat.  I use the term “coat” because “paint” does not do justice to the multiple layers of protectants than go into keeping the corrosive effects of sea water, oxygen and sun from turning a boat (especially a steel boat) into a piece of scrap.  Journalist Jonathan Waldman released a book this year, Rust, describing the ongoing struggle of humankind to protect its constructs against corrosion.

Dorothy and Dave hope to be back in the water and ready to cruise shortly after the July 4th holiday.  We got a sneak preview of the glossy finish they’ll have when everything is complete.  We’ll be jealous.

While in Wrangell, the blocking high that brought the sunny weather to SE Alaska in May decided to leave and we ended up staying an extra day while a bit of wind and rain passed through.

From Wrangell, we decide to head over to Craig on the west side of Prince of Wales (PoW) Island. Sea conditions were generally favorable so we made it a long day, heading across the top of PoW, down to Shakan Bay and hit Dry Pass in El Capitan Passage just about high tide.  We anchored the night in Devilfish Bay about 6 miles south of the El Capitan caves.

The next day we headed to Salt Lake Bay, about 30 miles away.  We had enjoyed our visit there in 2014 and wanted to visit again.  By the time we reached Salt Lake Bay, the rain began to fall.  We set our anchor in the rain and retrieved it in the rain next morning.  In the mean time, we concluded that fishing would probably be better near Sitka so we retraced our path from the previous day to Devilfish Bay.

The next morning we went back through Dry Pass in El Capitan Passage.  It gets narrow in certain spots and we had to wait for the small cruise ship Wilderness Discoverer to pass through one section before proceeding.

Once back in Sumner Passage, we headed towards Keku Strait and the south entrance to Rocky Pass.  We dropped the anchor and took an early dinner break waiting for high tide in the pass.  At 5:30 pm we restarted the engine, pulled the anchor and covered the remaining 14 miles to our anchorage for night in Stedman Cove.

From Stedman Cove we went to the always scenic Red Bluff Bay on Baranof Island for the night.  The day was quite stunning with calm winds and lots of sun.  Along the way we passed the Holland America cruise ship Amsterdam.  Chatham Channel being a bit wider than Dry Pass, we didn’t have to wait our turn, although I did alter our route to keep the passing more than 3/4 mile.

The weather turned decidedly cooler and wetter than next two days as we first went to Douglass Bay in Hoonah Sound than on to Sitka the next.  High temperatures struggling to get above 50 degrees and frequent rain showers.

The current plan is to do some fishing in the Sitka area before returning to Sitka to start our way to Juneau.

A big old blocking high has been sitting off the coast for a couple of weeks keeping the BC coast and SE Alaska generally warmer and drier than normal. It was nice to not have to worry about big storms but the prevailing NW 15-25 winds can build up wav…

I used the term “our lot in life” in a radio conversation this morning at 5:15 am with a vessel following me out of Bottleneck Inlet where both of us had anchored for the night. In was in reference to the necessity for slow boats to start early in order to put in long miles in a day.

That phrase also describes all of the routing we’ve done since we made the second start to our 2015 cruise after having to return to our winter homeport to deal with our misbehaving electronic compass (it is working fine so far, by the way). The delayed start meant we missed our optimum timing at Seymour Narrows, an early morning slack before the ebb. We like to ride the building ebb down Johnstone Straits. That ebb will add a couple of knots to our normal sedate cruising speed of 6-7 knots.

The week delay meant the slack before the ebb was closer to mid-day. Unfortunately, the relatively stable high pressure ridge off the coast was generating afternoon NW winds of 15-25 knots. When those winds hits the ebb current in Johnstone, the waves build up and you have short steep waves combined with current eddies, an uncomfortable combination.

We chose the more protected channels through, Yuculta, Gilliard, Dent, Green and Whirlpool rapids, as the winds are generally less there. Unfortunately, all of those rapids require timing. We split them over two days, the first 3 on one day and the other 2 on the second day. The travels on the second day, lasting 14 hours, got split into 3 sections with brief interludes between the sections. That was so we could time Whirlpool and then later, Chatham Channel which got us into the Broughtons. It was just our lot in life to have to travel the slower route this year.

Since getting past those hurdles, our pace has quickened. The starts are still early but at least we’re racking up the miles and hope to be in Ketchikan (weather permitting) in a few days.

One of the challenges I’ve taken on in retirement is organizing the thousands of photographs I’ve taken since the early 1970’s when I bought my first SLR camera.  Pretty much everything since I bought my first dSLR in 2004 has been digital.  Before that time, most everything were slides (“don’t take my Kodachrome away”) which require the extra step of digitizing.  But just having a digital images isn’t enough, the hard work comes from adding metadata about the where, what and when of the image (I won’t even worry about the “why”)

I’ve made a pretty good dent in the numerous boxes and trays of slides but I keep getting distracted and slowed by looking at the slides and remembering the wonderful trips and beautiful places they capture (or at least try to capture).  I’ve now concluded that the main function my photos now serve is simply to help me remember.

So in keeping with that purpose, I’ve created another blog, http://oldtripsremembered.blogspot.com/, in which I’ve written a brief description and pulled a couple dozen images of some of the trips I’ve experienced.  Unlike most blogs which are a contemporaneous chronicle of events and thoughts, this new blog looks back and records my current memory of the trip (which is likely a bit ragged) and what I now feel about the trip (which is probably shaded to the “rose” end of the spectrum).

I as I write this, I am certainly not done, but I’ve made progress.  I just hope this isn’t my personal “Nine Billion Names of God” and that once complete, I can continue with new trips and beautiful places.