Post # 10 - From Shearwater, B.C. Sept. 2, 2011. Final Post!

Entry # 10 – Begin at Prince Rupert, Thursday August 25, 2011

John Eide brought some good weather with him, which made it easier to provision and generally get ready for the next and final leg back to Bella Bella.  We left on the 25^th in glorious sunshine, powering our way back down toward the Grenville Channel.  But at the head of the Grenville we took a right down Ogden Canal, heading for the Petrel Channel and the Principe Channel.  This would give us a route home to the west, although not out in the open Pacific.  This area is known as the route less travelled, and so far we can vouch for that.



Prince Rupert in the sun!



There are, and have been, large logging operations in the hills and valleys here.  We passed by a large log yard by the shore, complete with its own little village to support it. But apart from that sign of civilization early on, and a small First Nation settlement a few miles further down the track, we have been in complete, quiet, spectacular wilderness.  We have even been able to sail some most every day. Our first night was spent in “Captain’s Cove”, a quiet little spot with a fairly large estuary at its head.  We saw three small outboards come from the settlement and followed them up the stream in the dinghy:  It was a couple of families fishing for the small salmon that were starting to run up the stream.  Everyone was in the act – dad, mom and kids of every age, giggling happily as a little fish would bite and get hauled in.  Except for the aluminum boats and outboards, this might have been a scene from hundreds of years ago, or something out of a romanticized painting of nature in all its perfection.  

Back down the estuary a little way a fat black bear wandered out of the woods, munching on grass and seemingly oblivious to his delighted audience.  We even tried to rouse him to look at us by whistling and calling.    He raised his head and looked at us once and then went back to work eating.

Chugging on down the Petrel Channel into the Principe, we detoured to pass through the Ala Narrows.  This narrow series of islets and rocks looks a lot like the northern lakes of Maine and Minnesota (according to John Eide), and about as far away from the wild outer coast as one could get, even though that is only a short distance away.  All is calm, quiet and cute, with the larger hills mounding up in layers behind you.  There is still snow on some of the higher peaks.

The second night we wound up in Patterson Inlet, a three-mile long slit in the land with an outflowing stream at its head.  It was another totally calm and peaceful night, with the gurgling stream noises adding to the renewed patter of rain.  More rain in the morning, so we hung out until about 10, when it stopped.  Little by little the fog dispersed, the clouds gave way to patches of blue, and we headed off to the Weinberg Inlet area, on Compagnia Island, arriving at another quiet cove there mid-afternoon.  Over went the dinghy for a shore exploration, complete with cameras, boots and bear mace.  It was warm and getting warmer, so once we’d found a suitable rock hill to scramble up, just about all the clothes came off to make the scramble.  John Wilcox lead the way up through a steep forested slope, our boots sinking in to the soft, squishy and slippery undergrowth about a foot with each step. The 45 minute upward drive was well worth it – a mostly open rocky area with lovely views of the hills, small ponds dotting the area, and the inlets and ocean in the distance.  It was sweaty and dirty work, however, so once back on the boat it was everyone into the water, then a balmy 53 degrees.  Eide demurred and took pictures of the rest of us hollering and squealing as we jumped in and out, all in the buff of course. JACA’s hot shower felt very nice thereafter. Eunice outdid herself with a wonderful schnitzel fish (sole), served in the cockpit, for the first time in perhaps two weeks.

More rain in the morning, this time more persistent, so we headed out anyway, towards the first of three nights in various parts of Princess Royal Island.  We decided on trying various anchorages on this island because here there is the largest concentration of Kermode (Spirit) bears.  These are black bears with a recessive gene, which turns their fur white, and are considered sacred by the native population.  It is perhaps a vain hope to try to find one, since they are so rare, but we figured three bites at the apple might be worth it. As I write this on August 29, we’ve seen lots of evidence of bears here but no bears yet in the flesh, of any kind.  Yesterday night we were in Chapple Inlet, a beautiful spot with a nice running stream and grassy area at the head of the inlet – perfect bear country.  John Wilcox and I went ashore, armed with mace if necessary, and found lots of fresh bear scat, bear trails, etc., but whatever bear was in the area was watching us from the woods.  Tonight we are way up in the middle of Princess Royal Island, in the Laredo Inlet (Fifer Cove), with much bigger hills and waterfalls all around us.  There is a big stream here, with salmon struggling up it even on a fairly low and falling tide.  Bears are clearly nearby: we found a freshly beheaded and gutted salmon by the stream (bears generally only eat the head and the guts, which have the most fat), lots of scat and plenty of disturbed grass and bear trails. There must have been one sleeping under a tree right nearby.  We’ll keep trying!

I am now three days away from the completion of this voyage and am having some difficulty coming to grips with that.  With nearly 2200 miles behind me, all of the hard sailing/traveling now done, and most of the really spectacular sights seen, I know I need to organize it in my mind, sort out what was really great from the merely great, and come to some conclusions about it all. Right now I’m not sure if I can!

August 30, 2011: WE SAW THE SPIRIT BEAR!!  In the morning we headed back down Laredo Inlet, in a moderately nice day, and stuck our nose back into Alstons Cove.  Suddenly John Wilcox got agitated on the bow, with the binoculars.  We all trooped up to see, and there, in the distance but clearly visible through the lens, was a white bear ambling along the beach toward the woods.  Within a few seconds the bear was gone, but we all did have a chance to see it.  No chance to get a decent picture, but at least we have four witnesses.  Then, along the beach came two smaller gray/black spotted animals that looked like big dogs.  Sure enough, they were wolves, and they wandered in and out of the woods along the shore for quite a while as we watched them.  What a morning! That night we found ourselves in the third Princess Royal anchorage, another long inlet called Alexander.  We anchored at the head, near what appeared to be a large stream leading to a big interior lagoon. It was dead high tide, so up we went in the dinghy, barely squeezing under some overhanging logs, and meandered about its mossy trees for a while.  On the way out, the current had turned, and we were swept along in a terrific rush, big rocks suddenly showing up underneath us. A few hours later we went back: there was a large cascading waterfall over a series of large boulders in the inlet, right where we had been.  The tide had gone down about 12 feet and the lagoon was pouring itself out with a vengeance.  Timing is everything. The pictures tell the story…

The morning route led us by the First Nation settlement of Klemtu.  It was a glorious day, with a clear blue sky and a slowly vanishing ground fog that came and went as we powered out Alexander Inlet and into the wider channels.  Klemtu is a nice town, with a small harbor, and an even smaller public dock but there was room for us for a while.  There are two salmon streams flowing there, and the largest salmon we’d seen jumping yet were throwing themselves out of the water in the harbor in a frenzy. Both bridges over the streams were lined with kids and men trying to hook one – but they weren’t biting very much.  One boy hooked a big one in the belly, and the fish would have none of it.  We wandered off before the end of that story.

There is a lovely lake in the hills behind Klemtu, which feeds one of the streams, and so we had to hike up to it on a small, wet woods trail.  It turned out to be the water supply for the town, so no swimming allowed, even in the warm sunlight and water! At points along the hike there were salmon pools, with fish in various stages of exhaustion and listlessness swimming around, waiting to die and complete the cycle.

 From Klemtu, we powered across Finlayson Channel into Jackson Pass, going through the gnarly narrows at slack high water, and then popped out into Mathieson Channel at Rescue Bay.  By now there was a nice breeze blowing, so up went the sails and we sailed back and forth in the channel until the wind was dying and we ghosted back into Rescue Bay for the night. It was fitting: this was our first stop at the beginning of the trip, and our last.  More swimming and nude hilarity in the 54 degree water. The final picture was taken from the cockpit in Rescue Bay late in the day, a fitting end to this amazing adventure.



Rescue Bay as it should look!



Now we are back in Shearwater, preparing to leave the boat and turn it over to the Kibbes.  A few preliminary thoughts about this caper overall:

1)      You could spend decades exploring this huge area and never see the same place twice.  The vastness is mind-boggling, and the utter loneliness of much of it is unsettling. The scenery is unfailingly spectacular and varied. You need to be self sufficient, and it is great to have a crew that keeps you in cheerful company.

2)      You don’t come here for the weather unless you like cold and wet.  Most of the locals we’ve encountered say that this has been a particularly wet summer, but the Kibbes’ logs of prior trips bear me out.  The number of truly sunny days can be counted on two hands.  A “good” day in this area is overcast, some small patches of blue, and no rain.  Those can be counted on three hands. Normal weather is some daily intermittent rain, interspersed with two-to-three day periods of heavy driving downpours, sometime accompanied by gales.  After a while you ignore it, and when the sun comes out it is an added bonus. The temperature averages in the 50’s during the day, and a little cooler at night.

3)      While we have done some great sailing, about 88% of our traveling has been under power and power-sailing.  No wonder sailboats are few and far between! Having a sturdy, comfortable, warm and dry boat is an absolute necessity, as well as a reliable engine, and a good electronic chart  system.

4)      Despite reasonable efforts, I (we) have not been able to burrow into the local communities very much at all.  Unlike Newfoundland, where we were local celebrities whenever we pulled up to a dock, the folks here are busy fishing and otherwise living their lives.  They are pleasant enough, and even helpful if asked to be, but they are not the slightest bit interested in a bunch of folks showing up in a sailboat.

5)      The wildlife of all types does live up to its billing, and is an endless source of beauty and fascination.

6)       I’ll come back for more. There is a kind of “last frontier” feeling about the place that is hard to resist.

A few statistics:

1)      Nautical miles traveled: 2277

2)      Places visited (coves and towns): appx  80 

3)      Nights at anchor:54

4)      Nights tied to a dock: 21

5)      Hours spent under power: 360

6)      Hours spent sailing: 51

7)      Average seawater temperature:  49 degrees F.

8)      Average daily run: 36 miles, which excludes days tied up in towns or waiting out gales.

A very happy camper!

END

Post # 9 - From Prince Rupert, B.C., August 23, 2011

Entry # 9 - Begin at Craig on August 18, 2011

This morning dawned much better than forecast.  During the night it rained, and I vaguely heard a lot of comings and goings around the docks.  When I looked around at about 5 a.m., the place had filled up with seiners, including five large ones that had rafted up immediately across from us.  All told there were perhaps a hundred boats that had piled in and more were arriving all the time.  It was a real party on the docks:  crews cleaning up, everyone comparing notes about their first three days of salmon fishing in this period, and lots of wives and kids running around too.  The price for “pinks”, the lowest grade salmon that are now running in droves, has risen to 43 cents a pound, which is close to a record high.  For a boat that had caught 80,000 pounds of them in 48 hours, not a bad deal.  So most folks were happy.

Peter and Eunice were determined to make another run at the grocery store, to fill in the interstices for their baking and cooking plans, and so I went along to supervise.  This boat is already so loaded down with food that has accumulated from everyone else’s particular wants and needs, the thought of adding more was daunting.  But add more we did, and the cooking so far has justified the effort. I’d tried to make up the beds for the new arrivals, and was chagrined to learn that I’d used all the wrong sheets for the bunks in question.  So much for my domesticity quotient!

Joanne and Mark headed off about 10 on a tiny seaplane, Joanne riding shotgun. We heard later that they had a wonderful flight to Ketchikan.  We headed off to Hydaberg, a native settlement about 35 miles down the bays and inlets, where there is a particularly nice collection of totems both old and new.  Apart from the totems, which are collected in a playground area by the local school, this is a pretty depressing place.  The marina is a mess – docks in serious disrepair, boats looking mostly like they had been abandoned, and a general air of decrepitude, lack of interest and activity.  Apart from the totems there were two bright spots, however: first, a pickup truck stopped to welcome us and the native driver asked us if we’d like to buy some freshly caught prawns.  After some negotiation, we wound up with a big bag of beautiful prawns from the back of his truck, which quickly wound up in the cooker and went down fantastically as an appetizer.  Second, there is a large stream flowing through the town into the ocean, and we witnessed one of the biggest salmon runs I’ve seen yet seen.

The weather forecast was becoming increasingly dire, with a strong 45 knot southeast gale predicted within the next 36 hours. Since our direction of travel was southeast, and our intention was to cross the 60 mile wide Dixon Entrance within the next 48 hours, we clearly had a problem.  In the morning the weather had turned for the worse.  A south-southeast wind was already gusting to 30 knots, with driving rain.  The docks at Hydaberg are exposed to the south, so we bailed and powered down the coast into the storm, to see how far we could get toward the Dixon Entrance before having to find a really secure place to ride out what was coming.  By lunch time we’d gotten about half way to the Entrance, and stopped for a break at Clam Cove, which was reported to be quite secure.  It was o.k. but we thought we could do better.  The cruising guide mentioned a couple of places in the Barrier Islands, which are just before Cape Chacon (the Entrance entry point for us), and the chart also showed some interesting possibilities not listed in the guide.  Meanwhile conditions were worsening, and JACA powered slowly but doggedly into the wind, rain, and increasing fog.

All of a sudden a whale breached nearby, and then again and again.  Then it started rolling itself over and over, waving its huge flippers and slapping them in the water.  It seemed to be coming straight at us, and while I assumed it could hear the motor and would avoid us, I altered course somewhat to avoid a collision.  Good thing I did: it went by at close range, throwing itself out of the water and repeatedly thrashing about no more than a hundred yards from us.  The weather was so bad we never got any good pictures of this awesome sight.

John Wilcox had noticed a small unnamed cove on the chart, in the area we’d hoped to be.  So mid-afternoon we poked our head in, not knowing what we’d find, or whether an anchor would hold there.  It was calm and smooth, and the anchor grabbed right away.  We let out a lot of scope, and waited to see what would happen when the really big puffs started coming.  It was a perfect place: over the next 36 hours we got gusts to 30 or so at the masthead, but we sat as still and peaceful as anyone could expect, when outside, no more than three miles away it was blowing 45 and 14 ft. seas were piling in. We also got more than a foot of rain in the process.  This little no-name cove now has a name: WILCOX COVE!

Late during the second night of the storm the wind died and the rain let up.  Hardly a ripple in Wilcox Cove in the morning.  So we battened everything down and at 6 a.m. headed out toward Cape Chacon, to see what the sea and wind state would be like out there.  The forecast was for a 20 kt southerly wind, which would be perfect for our long run toward British Columbia in a generally easterly direction.  What we found was very little wind from anywhere in the beginning, and an 8 -10 foot lumpy sea running.  JACA shouldered her way through that without any problem, and a couple of hours  after rounding Cape Chacon a S-SE wind came up.  That meant we couldn’t quite lay a course for Dundas Island, about 55 miles distant, but we could fetch the Wales Island Harbor area, about 5 miles further along and which I’d visited before. So for the next several hours JACA romped along in a 20-30 kt breeze, and we had a glorious sail across the Dixon Entrance.  It didn’t even rain until the very end!



Cape Chacon - farewell Alaska!



About half way across the entrance, I was dozing off watch in the cockpit and felt the boat slow down dramatically.  Our speed dropped from about 8 kts to 4.  Something was amiss.  So we rolled up the jib, started the motor, stopped the boat and then I backed it down for a while.  Shortly a huge mass of kelp emerged from our bow: we’d sailed into one of those awful kelp bogs and it had wrapped itself around our keel.  We were back on our way at full speed shortly, and at 6 p.m. pulled into tiny Wales Island Harbor, back in British Columbia, with the hardest part of the trip behind us. Even in the ever-present rain, that was good cause for celebration.

With one day left before we needed to be in Prince Rupert on the 23rd to drop Peter Murray off at his plane, we spent much of the 22nd exploring the Dundas Island group.  JACA beat her way down the Chatham Sound in a rising southeasterly.  By late afternoon we were at the southerly end of Dundas Island. Our anticipated goal was Edith Harbor, which the cruising guide described as wild and serene – also with the possibility of a large fisherman’s mooring or two.  It was wild indeed – the wind was now up to 30 kts again in our teeth, with Edith Harbor presenting a lee shore with waves breaking heavily on the rocks all around us.  But we went in to check anyway.  No moorings in sight, and while it was somewhat calmer, it was still plenty windy and the depths were well over 60 feet.  So we bashed our  and Baron Islands to another no-name cove that looked more promising, at least on the chart.  Once in the narrow canal, we were able to bear off, roll out the whole jib, and have a calm but rollicking sail for the last few miles to the cove.  It is a lovely quiet spot, with reasonable holding ground in about 60’ of water – it is so protected you could probably just drop a rock instead of the anchor anyway. A couple of streams gush into it with suitable gurgling noises.  So we’ve taken the liberty of naming it JACA COVE.

Our last dinner with Peter Murray was the culmination of a week-long cook-off between two very fine chefs, neither of whom was going to be outdone by the other.  Peter and Eunice both love to cook and bake, and so JACA’s cabin has been a place of extraordinary smells and caloric production unlike anything to date, even while underway in rough weather.  I’m going to have to exercise some authority as skipper to reduce the cascade of tasty treats, or I won’t fit into any of my clothes.  Never have I had such a display of baked goods, fine German cuisine, and multicourse luncheons!

The ride from Craig to Prince Rupert was expected to be, and has been, the hardest leg of the trip, in terms of open ocean sailing and upwind slogging generally. Also there was a certain amount of time pressure which wasn’t helped by losing 36 hours to a gale.  But we have sailed more than at any other time, and it has been fun to put JACA through her paces as a sailboat as well as a powerboat.  I can’t think of a better boat for these circumstances: she’s incredibly strong, solid, seaworthy, and always comfortable.  Plus, she’s fun to sail in a 25-30 knot blow and 10 foot seas. It has rained consistently, and we’ve taken plenty of salt water across the deck also, but down below she is always warm and dry.  Obviously one doesn’t come to these parts for fair-weather sailing, but life could be a lot more miserable if you were confined to a leaky damp boat!

Tomorrow  at Prince Rupert will be boat chores, shopping, and preparing for the last leg back to Bella Bella.  I’ll miss my oldest friend Peter Murray, but we’ll welcome John Eide tomorrow evening as a worthy replacement in the home stretch.  The next, and final, post will likely come from Portland, or thereabouts.



Edith Harbor





Jaca in her cove!





What a trip!!



Post # 8 From Craig, Alaska, August 17, 2011

Entry # 8   Begin at Sitka, AK on August 7, 2011

Sitka is a special place in Alaska, and after a couple of days here, I think we like it the best of all the Alaskan communities we have visited.  Like all others, the town sits in a gorgeous setting, and above all is dedicated to fishing.  So it has all the usual components of a fishing community: large marina facilities with hundreds of slips for the fleet, a waterfront largely lined with everything the fish folk need, from packing plants to machine shops to one of the best marine stores I’ve ever seen (sort of like Hamilton’s on steroids).  This place featured, among other things, a special place for kids’ fishing gear.  Prominently displayed were very small scale fishing rods with reels, spinners, etc., all ready to go catch fish.  The ones for the girls were pink and purple.  We saw the kids, hardly old enough to walk, fishing with them in the marina!  As elsewhere in Alaska, we found that many of the hundreds of fishing boats tied up, coming and going, are family affairs.  Children run up and down the docks happily screaming and yelling, and moms, dads and sweethearts are very much in evidence all the time.  Also the occasional rowdy fisherman headed to his boat, weaving his way down the dock thoroughly in his cups on his way out to sea.

But Sitka also has an atmosphere quite different from the others towns.  It has 9200 residents, more or less, most of whom are involved in the fishing business in some way.  There is a tourist shopping street for the many who wander through – either like us or on the occasional cruise ships, or the many who just come to fish with the private operators who take them out.  But it also has an active cultural life, and a sort of a modern hippie edge: it is a curious amalgam of the ancient Tlingit population, which is still very much in evidence, the Russian rulers who ran the place from 1804 until Mr. Seward and the U.S. took over, and many folks “from away” who have settled here because they love it.  The town (and the National Park Service) have done a marvelous job in creating parks and museums to celebrate all of this.  One astounding walk we took was through the Totem Historical Park, a recreation of dozens of totems, both ancient and modern, through a rain forest setting on the site of the horrific battles that occurred between the Tlingits and the Russians in 1802 and 1804.  Because Sitka sits in the Tongass National Forest, there are wonderful side roads and trails maintained by the Forest Service.  One in particular provided us with a great hike up Harbor Mountain, and thanks to the good weather the views out over the town and the ocean, and the mountains and snowfields in the interior, could not have been better.  We made the wise (if expensive) decision to rent a car to explore the whole area: Sitka has a total of 14 miles of paved roads, but we made great use of all of them and the many more unpaved ones also.

I decided to visit the historic Russian Orthodox cathedral (somewhat rebuilt after a fire a couple of decades ago but still in its original condition from the Russian presence) for Saturday vespers.  It is a small, simple but lovely place, in the center of town, much adored by the population.  There is still an active Orthodox community here.  A small choir sang the traditional responses (I could even hum along), and the priests chanted and swung incense on all of us.  At least half of the choir and small congregation was native American.

Meanwhile, Mark and Joanne Woodward arrived, so for a couple of days we were five muskateers.  Then Joel and Pam left and off we headed south on the West coast of Baranof Island, an area seldom visited by anybody.  About twenty miles along we made our first stop: the Goddard Hot Springs, which are maintained by the Forest Service.  A small hut up a grassy slope contains a large round cedar hot tub, with two pipes with valves leading into it.  A sign says please don’t turn off either one!  One pipe runs very hot water, the other a little less so.  You sit and soak and watch the boat at anchor in the cove below.  It was a beautiful day, with a nice Southwest breeze blowing.  All was well with the world.

The night was spent in Herring Cove, a quiet nook in an island close to the outer edge of the Pacific.  It was raining in the morning, but we set out, not sure how far we’d get.  Joanne has an uneasy stomach, even well laden with seasick pills, and since this part of the trip involved some extended outside runs, I was leery of pushing it too hard.  As it was, it was windless, and the Pacific was at its least rolly.  So we headed offshore and just kept going.  Eight hours later we were in Puffin Cove, near the southern end of Baranof Island, ready to make the leap over to Cape Decision and on to quieter waters.  Joanne was fine all day long.

At this point, however, I need to pause to fill you in on an important part of this trip: fishing.  Mark is an avid fisherman, and I was counting on him to provide a lot of our dinners.  Right out of Sitka we put the hook over, and within a few minutes there was something really big on the line.  So big, in fact, that when Mark reeled it in the whole lure was gone, along with what must have been a magnificent fish.  So nothing to do but try again.  The line went out, and all of a sudden the brake on the reel failed, leaving the line spinning out and impossible to stop.  What a mess!  Mark got it under control, but fishing was done for the day, and perhaps for the trip.  I found a machine screw on the deck that had come out of the reel, and in the evening Mark and I disassembled the reel to try to figure out the problem, to little avail.  Mark was as disconsolate as I’d ever seen him.  So I resolved to try to fix the problem, and during our outside run down Baranof Island I hailed every passing boat (perhaps six in all) to see if they had a reel and rod they would be willing to sell.  At the very end of the day the effort paid off: a small fishing boat said they’d sell us a rod and reel – for the outrageous sum of $200 – but they were the only game in town until Craig.  So we did the transaction across the heaving Pacific Ocean, and were back in business.  Mark couldn’t wait to get the lure out, and within fifteen minutes we had a 10 lb Coho salmon on board.  All was well with the world.

Puffin Cove is a picture perfect setting in any weather.  We came in with little cloud cover, with green peaks and valleys rising all around us.   I had a swim and a hot shower.  The fresh salmon was fantastic.  We put the crab pot out, and in the rainy morning we had lots of periwinkles, a small sculpin fish, and six small shrimp.  Apparently the crabs didn’t like Coho guts!  With a benign wind forecast and Joanne’s stomach in mind, we made the run around Cape Ormaney, across Chatham Strait and around Cape Decision in record time in a long rolling power sail.  With that, the most difficult miles were behind us, and we headed up to Bear Harbor in the Affleck Canal.  There we found masses of jumping pink salmon, and a number of seiners anchored at the mouth of the harbor.  They were waiting for the opening of the salmon season in that area, to begin at 5 a.m.  We settled down in the harbor, and took the dinghy up the estuary which seemed to be a major salmon run.  Thousands of pink salmon jumped everywhere: I thought several would land in the dinghy.  When we could go no further we walked around a rocky corner, finding what we’d hoped for – a large black bear roaming the beach, oblivious to us.  The sight of fish jumping out of the water all around you is intoxicating to a fisherman.  Mark was going crazy.  But the reality is that at this stage of a salmon’s life he (or she) is not interested in eating, only getting ready to make the trip up the falls into fresh water to spawn and die.  No amount of coaxing with any lure or bait will work.  Meanwhile they practically jump onto the deck, and the splashing and flopping sounds are always with us at every anchorage.  However, out in the deeper water the salmon have grabbed our hooks: two more big Coho came aboard after Bear Harbor.

Mark and Joanne are both great cooks.  JACA has a number of cookbooks aboard, including one with every possible recipe for salmon.  So I have been more than a little well fed with salmon in every form.  Most extreme, perhaps, is Mark’s experiment at smoking salmon on JACA’s gas grill on the stern.  We spent some time finding alder branches and leaves ashore in El Capitan pass – they are supposed to be the best smoke makers for smoked salmon.  On a gorgeous morning in Dry Pass the experiment began, with wonderful smelling smoke pouring from the grill.  Within a couple of hours, the most delicious smoked salmon was on hand. 

Full of one of the best mid-morning snacks I’ve ever had, we headed on through the narrow shallows of Dry Pass, and shortly wound up at the National Forest Service’s dock at El Capitan cave, which is at a 367 step hike in the forest up a boardwalk-staircase.  The cave itself is the largest limestone cave in the world, in terms of length of tunnels, canyons, etc.  The rangers offered to give us a 2 hour tour later in the afternoon, but we settled for our own self-guided crawl a few hundred feet in total darkness to a big iron gate, which marks the point when you can’t self-guide any more.  The rangers said that the limestone originally migrated from South America millions of years ago.  Everything is strange in Alaska but this was one of the strangest.

With time to kill on our way to Craig, we wandered through the tiny channels and byways of the innumerable densely wooded small islands and islets that populate this area, which is unlike anything else I’ve seen in Alaska to date.  Here and there are tiny fishing camps, and some larger lodges.  Many of the small camps are the floating variety, towed into place for the summer.  One installation sported two satellite dishes somewhat hidden in nearby trees.  But the overall impression is one of being very much alone in an enormous maze of islands and bays.  We decided to visit New Tokeen, on small El Capitan Island, which the cruising guide indicated was a seasonal outport for the fishing fleet.  I thought we’d find another small boardwalk community, which would be fun for Mark and Joanne to see.  When we got there, the community was gone.  Smoke was coming out of the chimney of a reasonably well-maintained house.  A nice lady met us on the remaining dock, introduced herself as Coreen Fitzgerald, and told us she and her husband had bought the whole place four years ago on the internet.  We could see the remains of a cold storage facility, what had been the store, a few shacks, the caretaker’s cottage, and the Fitzgeralds’ home, which was in the process of restoration.  They come from southern California in late April, and go home in October.  He mostly fishes and she works on restoring and maintaining what they can.  Bears show up occasionally from the forest which crowds all around them.  Apart from the stray cruising boat such as us, they have few visitors.

We wound up that night in another bucolic place, Khali Cove, and ate more salmon in the rain.  The forecast was bleak for the next few days.  But in the morning, we had bright sunshine, and headed out to visit tiny Elghi Island, a couple of miles away.  Coreen had said that they had found two small ancient totems here, unchanged (except for centuries of deterioration), and abandoned in the dense forest that rises from the shore.  We found them after some effort, their carved wolves, bears and eagle standing solitary sentinel on a knoll now crowded out by rain forest.  What they represent and why they were there seems a mystery: were we standing on some ancient burial ground? Or on top of an ancient clan house?  We felt like intruders in others’ lives, but were profoundly glad to have had the opportunity just to be there.

That day was the first truly bust day in the fishing department, though not for lack of trying.  We trolled under power, and under sail, and tried every likely spot along the way, but no bites.  This despite enormous numbers of whales, sea otters and sea birds buzzing around.  Even worse, this is the season when the “pink” salmon are getting ready to head upstream, and they constantly throw themselves out of the water in large numbers, sometimes almost landing on the boat.  It drives Mark crazy.  On the other hand, it was a good sailing day for me, as we tacked back and forth in a brisk southwest wind.  Our destination was Nagasay Cove, in the Maurelle Island group.  Good fishing was reported to be in the various passes just outside.  The entrance pass, named “Launch Pass”, was the hardest one to date: a tiny, shallow rock strewn kelp choked channel with little help from the charts or guides.  We crept forward, sometimes just drifting, sometimes winding up kelp in the prop, and eventually settled into another quiet, protected cove, along with another long-line fishing boat.  A king and coho salmon season started at 5 a.m. the next morning, and they were ready to be the first ones out!  Mark and I took the dinghy over to ask for some fishing advice, which was guardedly but pleasantly given.  We went to bed with the sounds of wolves howling at each other on the islands, echoing eerily across the bay.  We were grateful to be on a boat.

The next day was supposed to be salmon fishing day, and we started out to do that into the Maurelle Islands and then out into the Ariagga Passage.  But the forecast was foul, and we soon found it to be true – driving rain and a rising southeast wind that eventually reached gale force.  After thrashing around in the outer channel for a while, we hunkered in for lunch behind an island in the “Hole in the Wall”, so called, along with a bunch of fishing boats that had been similarly driven in.  Finally we cashed it in when the wind registered consistently over 30 kts and powered our way back to Nagasay Cove, glad to be in a sheltered spot to weather it out.  The wind howled over the masthead, but that big anchor was down deep in the mud and we went nowhere.  It was a good occasion for a game of “Oh Hell”.

Tuesday the 16^th we planned to get to Craig, and in fact we did.  But along the way we spent about 4 hours looking for salmon and anything else that would bite.  The wind was down somewhat, and after a while we hooked a couple of nice rock fish, locally known as “black bass”.  We also lost a few big ones off the hook.   Mark made some fantastic “bassburgers” for lunch, and on we went, finally hooking a fat coho.  There were lots of fish boats around us, all complaining that there nothing was to be had, so we were grateful for that one.  It will go home with the Woodwards for a future celebratory supper.

By mid afternoon a big southerly was breezing up.  I called a halt to the fishing, and spread out JACA’s wings to head for Craig.  We flew across the sound at 8+ kts, with the wind now gusting to 30 or so in a driving rain.  JACA loves this stuff, and for me it is a lot better than trolling at 2 kts.  Now we are tied up and plugged in at the Craig Marina.  It is still raining somewhat, and the forecast for the next few days is wretched, particularly for heading south across Dixon Entrance, which is what we must do.  But this is Alaska, and who knows what will happen next.  A local wag on the dock here told us that tonight we might get 60 kt gusts, but so far there has been none of that.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, John and Eunice Wilcox, and Peter Murray arrive, and Mark and Joanne will leave.  It’s been a great time with them.  I’ve never been so well fed with fresh fish!   The next post, I hope, will be from Prince Rupert in about a week or so.