After the grind getting to Ketchikan, there was unanimous agreement to spend four nights at the dock. We had no big projects but we’ve gotten pretty good at letting little tasks expand to fill the time available for them.
One daily task was playing with Drake since it had been two weeks since he got to go to ashore at all. The most convenient place we’ve found near the Bar Harbor Marina where we were moored is a lovely neighborhood park about 3/4 mile away. We’d also take Drake on walks with us when we went shopping. At the local hardware and outdoors equipment store, Drake comes in with us and gets to meet people and often gets a treat. He has learned that people standing behind counters (pretty much any counter) often have biscuits that they’ll give him if he stands on his hind legs and puts his front paws and muzzle as high as he can on the counter.
One trip Drake was excluded from was a bus ride to Saxman about 4 miles SE of the marina. The motivation was to visit the Three Bears Alaska store we’ve seen from the boat as we come into Ketchikan along Tongass Narrows. It is a warehouse style store like Costco and actually does carry quite a number of Kirkland brand (Costco’s house brand) products. It even sells bona fide Costco rotisserie chickens (but at Alaskan prices). We had already provisioned at the two grocery stores near the marina so we didn’t actually buy anything. While in Saxman, we visited the lovely totem park lovely totem park there.
On Wednesday,June 4, we got an early start in order to maximize the northbound flood current and calm conditions in Clarence Strait. After about 30 miles we headed east into Ernest Sound. As we neared our anchorage for the night, Santa Anna Inlet, we dropped prawn pots in locations that had been productive in the past.
The next morning we pulled the pots but we were a bit underwhelmed with the catch. The commercial prawn season started on May 15 and only recently ended. That may have decreased our catch or it could have been the prawns were simply somewhere else. We dropped our pots outside Thoms Place, our anchorage for the night.
The next day, when the prawn pots were pulled, we were pleasantly surprised. We considered resetting in the same location and spending another night at Thoms Place but decided not to be greedy and moved on to another nearby anchorage. Once again, we dropped our prawn pots before heading into our anchorage for the night in Fools Inlet.
The next morning’s pot pull was the biggest disappointment so far with blanks in all three pots. Even though Fools Inlet has produced good results in the past, we accept that sometimes the “prawn gods” do not reward our efforts. We put away our prawn gear and headed to Berg Bay. Two other boats were anchored there but we found room near the head of the bay. We spent two nights at Berg Bay and actually had the whole bay to ourselves the second night when the other two boats left as did the group that was staying at the USFS cabin on shore at the head of the bay. Drake got a brief play session in Berg Bay when we went to shore and played in the clearing in front of the cabin.
We chose our last anchorage before heading into Petersburg, Roosevelt Harbor, especially for Drake. In Roosevelt Harbor on Zarembo Island the USFS has a dock connected to shore. The ramp had been damaged in a storm during the winter of 2022-23 but we were pretty confident the ramp had been repaired sometime in late 2023 or early 2024. As we approached the harbor we could see the new ramp connecting to the floating dock but it was only after we were anchored that we saw that the connection from the top of the ramp to shore had been severed by a tree dropping across the elevated section, presumably during the last winter. Fortunately, there is reasonable beach access so we dropped the dinghy and provided Drake with two ball play sessions.
After our last play session on shore, we retrieved the dinghy on board and on June 10, we departed Roosevelt Harbor, transited Wrangell Narrows and docked at the South Harbor in Petersburg. We were fortunate to get a slip next to our friends John & Kathleen Douglas, who own Laysan, a sistership to our Alpenglow.
John & Kathleen lease a slip in Petersburg and, while they return to their home in Hawaii at the end of the cruising season, Laysan spends its winter in Petersburg. John had some residual tasks to complete to get everything shipshape for the season so we had a front row seat to his very efficient replacement of the radar dome and mast mounted wind sensor on Laysan. In the evening we gather on one of our boats for pū-pū (i.e., appetizers), and catch up on things and make plans for the cruising season.
Our plans from here are to leave on Saturday, June 14, and try some new (to us) anchorages then meet up with the Douglas’s in a few days. They are waiting for guests to arrive and will leave a couple of days after us. We will part ways with the Douglas’s when we head towards Sitka while the Douglas’s drop their guests off in Juneau.
