Post # 6 From Glacier Bay, July 30

Entry # 6.  Beginning at Juneau

After the day we arrived, in lowering clouds, we had two rainy days in Juneau.  Not to worry: the first day was largely given over to boat chores and shopping – we have a long stretch in Glacier Bay coming up, including the arrival of David and Lucas for a few days.  Crankcase oil and filters were changed, bags and bags of groceries were loaded on, and halibut “Haliburgers” at Hotbites at the head of the wharf needed to be eaten.  More of the same the following day, except that it was time to do something more strenuous.  So Jess, Frank and I headed up the Roberts Mountain trail, a popular hike for Juneau folk, which ends up at the top of the tramway that starts down at the cruise ship dock.  There is a Nepalese saying: “ratto, batto, chiplo matto”, roughly translated as “red mud slippery trail”.  This was an understatement – the trail was steep, very muddy, and impossible not to slide on. Besides, it was raining and foggy.  So we saw nothing but thick forest and a lot of mud, and managed to get a lot of the latter on ourselves.  But it was a good workout, and we all met up at the top, where there is a nice restaurant, for some hot cider and a view of the resident eagle.  In the evening we wandered around Juneau, seeing the sights and the tourist bars, and had a good Mexican dinner.



Downtown Juneau



In the marina, we had a chance to talk to some of the locals who make their living from the sea here.  A crab fisherman (a Middlebury grad) told us how he’d wandered around after college, fishing sometimes with friends in Alaska during the summer.  Then he fished one winter, met a girl in Juneau, and that was that.  At the dock, his boat was full of 5,000 pounds of Dungeness crabs waiting to be unloaded and shipped to Portland, Oregon by air, to be distributed from there.  He has two kids in college, and his wife has gone back to work, of necessity.  The long-liners were getting ready for a new salmon season opening:  there are multitudes of seasons here, allocated to various areas, which seldom last for more than two days, during which you can catch as much as you can.  As a rule, these folks can fish for two or three days, and then come back to port for two or three before heading out on a new “season”, all dictated by the government.

Things improved dramatically in the morning, with the sun largely present, and the mountains and glaciers shimmering around us.  So we headed back to the Mendenhall Glacier, and hiked the 3.5 mile East Glacier Loop trail, up hill and down dale, through ever changing vegetation depending on when in the geological cycle the glacier had last been there.  Then it was time to refuel and head on out, with a langourous  sail in the sun down the Lynn Canal to the small inlet known as Funter Bay, in a glorious sunset with fish jumping all over the place and a school of Dall Porpoises playing in our bow wave.  We’ve been fishing, too, in a thoroughly disorganized and unschooled manner.  Nothing caught yet.  It is more likely that some stupid fish will jump into our dinghy than be caught on our hook.  A phone call to Frank Kibbe for advice was instructive:  I’m too impatient and trolling too fast.  What else is new..

The road to Glacier Bay from Funter Bay is the Icy Strait, which comes by its name honestly.  But for us it was a romp.  We sailed out of Funter Bay in a brisk Northwester, and beat our way up to Hoonah in a rising sea.  Hoonah is the largest Tlingit settlement left in Alaska.  It is there, on the south side of the Icy Strait, because several hundred years ago, at the inevitable onslaught of the little Ice Age in Alaska, the Tlinget settlement in what is now Gustavus and Bartlett Cove (Glacier Bay) was ground down under the advancing ice.  The village elders had the good sense to head south.  When Vancouver first sailed there in 1790 and made his seminal charts, he showed the whole of what is now Glacier Bay as “ice field”.  That was what Muir expected when he first arrived in 1879, but by then the ice had receded some twenty five miles or so.  In any event, Hoonah is now a town of perhaps 500 souls, subsisting mostly on fishing and logging.  But, probably again due to some substantial pork, there is a large marina facility, filled with fish boats and a few of us, surrounded by a huge stone breakwater.  An ancient Tlingit burial ground, with old totems, marks the entrance on a small island.  In addition, the town boasts an Olympic size swimming pool in its own separate building.  The shower in the harbormaster’s office was nice, but the timer on the hot water wasn’t working too well.  I was full of soap and shampoo when the water went off.  What to do?  I wrapped my town around me, ran around through the building looking for the harbormaster, and when I found him he unloaded enough quarters on me to finish the job.  Big laughs all around.

Icy Strait in the morning was a flat calm in glorious sunlight.  16,000’ Mt. Fairweather, which presides over the entire Glacier Bay area, was glistening in the sun along with its entire range.  Orca whales appeared as we powered along the 25 miles to Glacier Bay.  A huge swarm of sea lions and otters greeted us at the entrance buoy, and then we were in Bartlett Cove, where the check-in point and Ranger Station is.  Our plan was to check in, get the required boaters’ briefing, and then head up the bay a few miles in anticipation of a shopping, a cleaning, and a reception for Dave and Lucas at Bartlett Cove the next day.

The whales are the most abundant in Bartlett Cove in recent memory.  Some 30 of them swim, feed, and play in this small, active cove.  They blow, bellow, throw themselves up with mouths gaping open, sing, and fully mingle with the many boats coming and going.  Happy mixture!  We pulled away from the dock about three, amidst the whales around us.  Within two minutes there was an alarm sounding below, so I went below to find it.  It was the propane stove alarm, so I opened the hatch into the engine room and was greeted by billowing acrid smoke coming out of the hatch.  Although the engine dials read appropriately, the engine was making a lot of strange and nasty sounds.  First stop was the fire extinguisher, and the second was to turn around and head into the nearby anchorage.  In a minute or so I was sure that we could drift in, and so I shut the engine down and eventually we got the anchor down.  By now the boat was pretty well full of smoke.  But the nasty sounds had stopped, and the smoke seemed to be stabilizing.

Ranger Rachel was at the other end of my VHF call to the station on shore, and she just happened to know someone she could recommend as a mechanic i(Zack) in Gustavus.  Her car was in his shop right now.  It was Friday night at 5, so I called Zack, and after some discussion he graciously consented to drive over to the cove (25 minutes) and have a look.  He came aboard, sniffed a little, and said it smelled like a starter problem to him.  JACA’s starter is on the wrong side of the engine – one needs to be a contortionist (in the bilge) to reach it.  Zack started working on inaccessible engines in his father’s fishing boat, and at age twelve was the one appointed to crawl around in the tightest spaces and fix things.  JACA’s starter had indeed fried itself, and in the process had burned out a large wire, a rubber covering, and some adjacent wires.  But the beauty of the whole thing was that JACA had a spare starter on board.  So Zack went to work, and in less than two hours the old starter was off, the new one was on, and we were all sitting in the cockpit having a beer.  In the process we got Zack’s full life story, which one could write a steamy novel about.  But he was a gem, and when I told him he’d gone beyond the call of duty he said it gave him real pleasure to help out folks like us who had a family on a boat visiting Glacier Bay.

Gustavus is the town with the airport serving the Glacier Bay National Park whose entrance is about 10 miles away.  In winter, 350 people live in Gustavus.  In summer, a few more.  The town itself is spread out over a surprisingly large area.  There are a couple of small grocery/miscellany shops, a few B & B’s, the most notable of which is The Gustavus Inn which serves a very good, expensive dinner as well, and a good pizza joint.  Pam did a reasonable shopping here, but it is quite basic.  We needed a couple of additional coffee mugs for the boat, and none were to be had in any shop.  So I was directed to the “community chest” thrift store, which was a small house-like event close to the airport.  There were plenty of cracked and scratched mugs, including a few plastic ones from the Glacier Bay Lodge.  So I picked out several and asked the lady what the bill would be: 35 cents.  It is a friendly place too – when you walk down the road every car driver automatically waves to you, and if you hang out your thumb you are immediately picked up.

Late in the day the plane from Juneau arrived, and David and Lucas stepped off into a gorgeous Alaska afternoon.  Their flight had been spectacular, of course, and the addition of whales and porpoises playing in the harbor was icing on the cake for them.  It was a great reunion on what was now a pretty cramped boat.  No matter, for the family is now almost all together for a brief few days in Glacier Bay.  I wonder if JACA has ever played host to two five-year olds before.  They are having a grand time playing all over the boat, while Pam does triple duty as the sought-after Nana, the baker of all manner of treats with the kids, and first mate.

Our good luck on the weather ran out the next morning.  We headed out early, to catch the last of the incoming tide in fog and rain, stopping for lunch at Blue Mouse Cove and heading onward to Reid Inlet for the night.  The weather was a little better there and when we turned the corner into the harbor, Reid Glacier was shining blue and beautiful right at us, even in the clouds and mist at the peaks.  The first order of business was to go ashore and touch it – this is one of the few glaciers that terminates at the water’s edge but does not calve off into the water.  While all glaciers move forward (they are getting new snow all the time), the rate of melting now exceeds the rate of advance, and Reid has retreated to the shore line, making it accessible to approach without danger of being crushed or tipped over by a wave.  The terrain around it is moon-like, representing the earliest stages of life after the glacier leaves.  Basically it looks like a gravel pit abandoned by bulldozers after a few half-hearted tries to smooth things out.  No signs of life, a few rushing streams with dirty water pouring out from underneath the glacier, and vast quantities of mud and silt covering everything.  After a little while, a few flowers begin to pop out and bloom.  Then some hardy grasses and mosses, and finally the shrubbery starts to appear after a few years.  The whole “succession” of rebirth after the glacier leaves is laid in front of you at Reid – as Jessica put it, it is a crash course in the global warming process.

In the morning we headed to a highlight of Glacier Bay:  the John’s Hopkins Glacier (via the smaller but thoroughly enjoyable Lamplugh Glacier along the way), about a dozen miles distant.  We got within about two miles of it before deciding we weren’t going push JACA through the ever thickening ice any more.  On the ice all around us were hundreds of seal pups – they are born on the ice and spend their first few months there.  The glacier rose majestically in front of us, and we could hear it creaking, groaning and occasionally calving off small pieces.  The pictures you see of JACA at the glacier were taken by another boat that followed us in and eventually passed us.  We traded pictures back at Reid Inlet the next morning!  By now the weather was deteriorating quickly, and while we wanted to complete the day with a run up to the Marjorie and Grand Pacific Glaciers visited each day by two huge cruise ships, the ice and fog discouraged us and we headed back to Reid Inlet for more glacier exploring there.  The weather was in fact worse in the morning, so those two must wait for another cruise.  We headed out to another part of the park, radar running full bore and cruise ships honking in the main channel.

The evening found us in Tidal Inlet, a long indentation with large avalanche-strewn slopes on one side, and lower green areas on the other, sprouting waterfalls every few yards.  It was calm and misty, so we picked a likely spot and dropped the anchor in nearly 100 ft of water a few yards from the shore, then unrolled the spool of stern line in the after part of the cockpit and took it around a tree and back.  JACA’s stern, in 35 feet or so of water, was a few feet from the shore, and we were snug as a bug.  The kayak went off exploring, and we fell asleep to the sounds of the waterfalls. 

No better weather in the morning, but we headed up the twenty-five mile long Muir Inlet to explore some more glaciers.  When Muir established a summer base camp at the entrance to the Inlet in the 1880’s, that’s where the glaciers started.  Since Vancouver’s time, the glaciers here have receded faster than any others in recorded history.  I wonder what our grandchildren will see fifty years from now…

The rain came and went, the fog came and went, and the clouds sometimes lifted a little to let us see the enormous peaks all around us.  A late lunch at the Riggs Glacier, followed by dinghy explorations into the McBride Glacier, completed our education in glaciers in Glacier Bay.  At Riggs, we reached the northernmost point of this trip: Latitude 59 degrees 4 minutes north, which is as far north as I’ve ever been in command of a boat.  It was worth a beer!

On the way into the McBride Inlet, which can now be done only by dinghy, a forlorn group of kayakers trying to establish camp on the inlet’s beach waved to us – it was pouring cold rain, and the water temperature was a balmy 33 degrees.  While the scenery was great, we were happy to know that we could retreat to the warmth of JACA’s dry cabin!  That night we retreated also, to the entrance of the Muir Inlet in quiet North Sandy Cove, a favorite of campers and boaters alike. It had recently been closed to the campers because of bears.  Sure enough, even before we got our anchor down there was a big black bear on shore to greet us.

With slightly better weather in the morning, we meandered our way back to Bartlett Cove.  First stop was South Marble Island, which is off limits for landing, and we soon learned why.  As we drew closer, great roaring sounds came from herds of sea lions living there.  So we shut off the motor, pulled out the jib in the faint breeze, and slowly drifted by.  A chorus of sea lions is somewhat similar to a truly awful mens’ singing chorus.  Loud fart-like barking is accompanied by a background of general moaning and groaning, producing a loud dissonant buzz that might come from a monastery of very sick monks.  Meanwhile these large creatures flop about on the rocks, and occasionally fall into the ocean with great splashes as if someone had thrown them into the swimming pool.  While watching all this, a couple of humpbacks surfaced next to us, unconcerned about anything but working on lunch.

Today (Friday July 29) has been the day to say farewell to Jessica, Frank, Zia, David and Lucas, which wasn’t easy.  Two active five-year olds on a sailboat isn’t easy on either us or them, but they behaved beautifully most of the time, much more than could be expected.  Some of this was due to Pam’s and their parents’ valiant and unflagging efforts to keep them entertained in the cabin when the weather wouldn’t let anything else happen.  We also read a lot out loud, with repeats of classics such as Charlotte’s Web and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and endless replaying of a performance of Peter and the Wolf I did with the symphony two decades ago.  But a lot of it was their inherent good nature, happiness to have a chance to play a lot with each other, and willingness to try something new every day.  It was a rare and wonderful family experience, and we’re very happy that it could happen.

We will leave Glacier Bay tomorrow, bound for Sitka.  It will be a much quieter and calmer boat.  Veteran crew member Joel Tranum has joined us.  Just before he arrived (with some good steaks from Wellesley!), a bunch of southerners came in on their little sport fishing boat.  They had been out fishing for halibut, as they do for three weeks a year here.  Today they had caught a lot, keeping only ten, the largest of which weighed 100 pounds.  All were neatly filleted and were headed for the local freezer to be prepared for shipment home with them.  They happily gave us a huge fillet – enough for at least two meals.  When they leave next week, they will be accompanied by their catch of about 3000 pounds of frozen halibut fillets in 50 pound boxes, destined for the freezers of family and friends in North Carolina.  Next summer they’ll be back for more.  And so it goes in Alaska.

Post # 5 Posted at Juneau, AK, July 18, 2011

JACA Blog entry # 5    Petersburg to Juneau.

This entry begins at Petersburg, where we arrived on Saturday July 9.  After a day of chores, in gorgeous weather, we went out to dinner at the Beach Comber Inn, a few miles done the road, driven by a courtesy van.  There we had one of the fish dinners we’ve ever had anywhere:  I had a “White King Salmon”, which is a king salmon whose flesh is white, and Pam had a smoked black cod.  We don’t have fish like this on the East coast, so it was a special treat.

The next day was also beautiful, with the great snow-capped range looming across Frederick Sound, which borders Petersburg, shining brightly.  We took a long hike around the town and its outskirts, and concluded that this is a very different place than the others we have visited so far in Alaska.  Perhaps it is because the population is 70% of Norwegian descent and 20% of Swedish descent.  In any event, it is clean, friendly and while there isn’t much tourism amidst all the fishing, it has the air of a place accustomed to living unpretentiously well and enjoying life in a beautiful setting.  There is no question, however, that this place is dedicated to fishing: the fish boats come and go at all hours of the day and night, and the crews are the most common passers-by on the streets.  In the marina, whole families come and go to work in the fleet, and little children run up and down the docks to visit fathers and mothers coming and going on the boats.  There are bunkhouses provided for the workers in the canneries and processing plants – they come from all over the world, it appears, and stay for one fishing season or the other.  The processing plants run 24/7. 

When we arrived, we tied up beside a traditional Alaska fishing boat, whose owner showed up just at that moment.  He was a man who looked to be about 70, and moved about his boat with great deliberation, packing away some food and getting things ready.  He had the air and speech of a retired English professor.  We asked him if he was headed out, and he said yes.  Did he have a crew?  No, he fished alone-even though he was pretty old he still loved to be out there fishing.  How long would he be out?  Until mid-September.  Where did he fish?  Off the Dixon entrance, near the Canadian Border, in a notoriously rough part of the world.  He turned on his motor and backed out of his slip and was gone.  We asked the harbormaster about him, and were told he was a wealthy man who never needed to catch another fish.  We wished we’d had more time to talk to him!

Early in the evening we welcomed Jess, Frank and Zia arriving on the ferry from Bellingham.  After dinner, however, Jess got violently ill and had an awful night.  In the morning Frank decided that she should go to the local hospital because she was so dehydrated.  I called a cab and told him that we’d need first to go the hospital and collect a wheel chair for her, since the boat was a long ways out in the marina, and then we’d come back to the dock and get Jess and take her to the hospital.  He said fine, but took a little while to show up.  When he did, he’d already gone to the hospital on his own and collected a wheel chair.  When we got Jess to the hospital, he wouldn’t take any fare, saying it was the least he could do to help out a sick lady.  Once in the ER, Jess was beautifully treated, checked over, rehydrated, and ready to head off with us within a few hours.

Which is what we did.  Late in the afternoon we headed across Frederick Sound to Thomas Bay, home of the Baird Glacier and a host of other glacial streams coming down from the mountains.  As we got into the bay, the water temperature dropped from about 50 degrees to about 38 degrees in a matter of minutes, and the color of the water turned to glacial green.  We anchored in the usual deep water and went ashore to find the ranger cabin and trail head to the waterfall and lake above.  On the stony beach, a couple of guys were cleaning a huge halibut they had just caught.  They were renting the ranger cabin for the week, and were spending their days fishing from a small outboard.  We admired the halibut, and were promptly presented with enough fresh fish to last a week!

Our glorious weather continued unabated for four days before reverting somewhat to the norm, and then it got better again.  Summer has come to Southeast Alaska, if only briefly.  I’ve been swimming – first in 48 degrees, and then in a balmy 54.  It doesn’t last long, but we’ve got the pictures to prove it.  No company in that activity yet, but the sunscreen has been in use for the first time here.  We all did a long, arduous hike up the Cascade Creek trail in Thomas Bay.  By any rating this was a “most difficult”, and 5-year old Zia clambered along with the rest of us, most of the time refusing any help at all.  It was about the muddiest, slipperiest steep hike we’ve done in a long time.  But the roaring cascade near us was awesome.  That hike necessitated the first swim.  The second was a balmy afternoon at anchor in Cannery Cove (Pybus Bay), looking over a serene estuary, drinking a beer and waiting for some bears to show up.  The mountains are definitely getting bigger, and shimmer white all day and into the night in the sun.

It’s been a joy watching Zia adapt to life on a boat.  She’s game for anything, even participating in the daily crankcase oil check.  She now has her own daily job, sweeping out the cockpit.  We’ve rigged a trapeze on the foredeck to let her work off some of her enormous energy.

A major highlight of an otherwise long windless day under power was sitting still in a pod of feeding humpbacks in the middle of Frederick Sound.  We came upon them, and shut the motor down.  Some came within 50 feet or so of the boat, seemingly unconcerned with us.  They blew and snorted, lifted their tails repeatedly, and sometimes even showed us their long snouts and gnarly faces.  These largest beings on earth are endlessly fascinating.

The highlight of the ride from Petersburg to Juneau has been a long day exploring Tracy Arm and it’s two major glaciers descending into the ocean.  We entered Tracy arm late in the afternoon, under power in thick fog and an adverse 4 knot current.  It is a narrow opening between two buoys, and JACA was making very slow going of it in the wild swirls and whirlpools of the rushing
 water.  We’d already seen a number of small icebergs in the area, and several appeared out of the fog.  We made our way slowly to Tracy Arm Cove, which is the only decent anchorage in the area, and a good jumping off point to explore the long deep arms of the fiord.  A huge white motor yacht appeared out of the fog behind us, and followed us in.  There were already about 6 boats anchored there, so it seemed very crowded!

In the morning the fog was still thick but we were hopeful.  We headed out into the horns of a couple of cruise ships that had already made a pass up the fiord (what on earth did those folks see?), but as we worked our way along, the fog lifted, the mist began to part, and the sun starting peeking through.  By the time we worked our way through the increasingly thick ice to the first glacier (it takes three hours to do that in JACA), it was a beautiful day, and we sat in front of the wall of the Sawyer glacier drinking in this massive river of ice slowly tumbling into the ocean.  Every now and then a piece would fall off, sounding like a cannon shot and creating a huge splash even though the piece itself seemed very small.  Just another iceberg to start down the fiord!

Then we headed over to the South Sawyer glacier, which if anything is more majestic and stupendous than the Sawyer itself.  We found a decent hole in the crush of small ice bergs about ½ mile from the face of the glacier, and left Pam and Zia making circles in JACA while the rest of us jumped in the dinghy to take pictures, and get a little closer.  We got back to Tracy Arm Cove late but exhilarated: it had been one of those days you never forget.  In the cove, a bunch of small icebergs about the size of cars were milling about.  So we icepicked some hunks of ice for the libations, and watched the little bergs meander around the harbor.  All of them ultimately wound up on the shore, stranded for the remainder of their melting lives.

Slowly working our way to Juneau, we put in at Taku Harbor, about 25 miles south of the town.  This is a nicely protected place, the site of an abandoned cannery and a few fishing cabins.  The harbor authority of Juneau also maintains a nice public dock, which on a Saturday night turned out to be very popular.  We tied up there, among a couple of small fishing boats and a couple of sailboats out for the day from Juneau.  As the evening wore on, the fleet grew bigger, so by the end we were all rafted several deep.  We’d made the acquaintance of an elderly couple (he’s 73) on their small old wooden gill netter, a typical Alaska fish boat.  Irene wanted to know what a sailboat looked like down below –she’d never been on a one.  So she got the tour, and shortly thereafter produced a big hunk of king salmon, saying that they’d been eating enough fish.  And we got a tour of the little boat – cozy, Spartan, and warm.  Larry has fished his whole life.  Now he and his wife leave home in Prince of Wales Island in May, fish all summer, and go back in October for the winter.  Every day the “supply boat” makes the rounds of the fleet in the area, bringing ice for their tanks, and buying their catch.  Larry showed me his “slips” for the last few days of fishing.  He had several days of 3800 pounds in the catch, for which he was paid an average of $1 per pound.  He and his wife do it all alone.

Meanwhile, more fish boats kept arriving, and it soon became apparent that fishing in the summer in this part of Alaska is a family affair.  Behind us was Dan, on his 45’ gill netter.  With him for the summer were his 40 year old daughter, and her 7 year old daughter, Kennedy.  Rafted along side him on a slightly smaller boat was his son-in-law (married to his daughter) and their other child, a five year old boy, plus another brother from New Hampshire.  The young family lives and works in Colorado in the winter.   She’s a special-ed teacher.  Then Dan’s son showed up on a third boat with his family aboard.  This is very different than fishing in Maine, and is a pleasure to see.  There were multiple tours of JACA and vice versa.  The kids work too: Kennedy catches the fish coming down the chute from the net as it reels in and stuffs them in the hold!  Amid great hilarity from the multitude on the dock, three of the youngsters, including the 7 and 5 year olds, were tossed into the 50 degree water and immediately fished out.  Noisy firecrackers followed.  They were all off the dock early in the a.m.

Zia and Jess had another wish fulfilled: in Taku we saw our first black bears, a mother and two cubs, foraging in the bushes near the shore while we sat quietly in the dinghy watching the show!

Yesterday morning, Sunday July 17, we headed out of Taku towards Juneau, in a sunny placid sea.  We discovered early on that the (only) head wasn’t working properly, in that it wouldn’t take in water for flushing.  Serious problem on a boat!  So I found the manual for the thing, and then began disassembling the intake side of the operation.  Sure enough, after a while, a piece of lettuce dropped out of the inner valve, and after reassembly we were good to go.  Alaska waters are full of all sorts of stuff, but what a relief!

Now we are moored in Auke Bay marina, about 11 miles north of Juneau, which is the only reasonable place for boats like us to go.  We’ve already rented a car and had a first quick trip to the Mendenhall Glacier, which dominates Juneau, and a great fish/crab dinner downtown.  At the outer edge of the marina are two huge fish boats, both from Seattle, named the Dominator and the Gladiator respectively.  Their noisy generators grumble throughout the whole marina.  Tomorrow it is going to rain all day, so the chores and shopping will begin.  JACA has been 1060 miles since Bella Bella, and we have reached the half way point, time wise.  We are above latitude 58 north, which is nearly 400 miles further north than our northernmost point in the Newfoundland trip.  I can only hope the next half will be as grand as the first!  The status of the facial hair is shown in the last picture.

Entry # 4 - Posted from Petersburg AK, July 9, 2011

Preliminary note: a few of you have requested us to post maps or some other way to show which way and where we are going.  We've tried, but everything just comes up too small to be legible.  So check your handy map of South East Alaska and coastal British Columbia - our major stops will be easy to find, at least!

Jaca Blog Entry # 4  Ketchikan to Petersburg

The first part of this entry is being written on the evening of July 5.  Out the portlights the sky is a fading blue, which for us is a welcome relief from four days of rain and wind.  We are tied to a sturdy small dock in a tiny cove called Loring, in Naha Bay, about 20 miles from Ketchikan.  It took 160 miles to get here from Ketchikan, however, due to our decision to circumnavigate Revillagigedo Island, on which Ketchikan sits.  Try to pronounce that one!

We left Ketchikan on Saturday July 2 about noon, in a lowering sky and intermittent rain.  The gale had died down quite a bit, so we were game to push on.  We headed for the Behm Canal, which circles all of Revillagigedo Island, mostly in the “Misty Fiords” national preserve.  Our counter clockwise circumnavigation took us back down the main channel from Ketchikan, against a strong foul current, rising SE wind and sea, and increasing amounts of rain.  We could finally bear off and sail up the channel, along with some whales. 

Misty Fiords comes by its name honestly:  there is a lot of mist, fog and rain.  We are in the Tongass Forest area, which is the wettest part of the USA.  After 50 miles it was getting late so we hunkered in a little cove called Manzanita (yes, the Spanish were also here early on, naming things like crazy).  The next day we headed into Rudyerd Inlet, a glacial fiord which is the centerpiece of the Misty Fiord area. It is special in its grandeur, even in very limited visibility and driving rain.  But some the wildness edge is taken off by the incessant roar of seaplanes taking tourists (mostly from the cruise ships in Ketchikan) on “flightseeing” trips into the fiords.  It could almost be Pearl Harbor:  flocks of these planes roar overhead, circle around the area and come out at low altitude, sometimes not much higher than our mast.  All this in a dense low cloud cover, fog and rain.  Some of them even land, let their passengers get out on the pontoons to take some pictures, and then roar off again.  It was all a little unnerving, so we headed on out up the Behm Channel to the next fiord, Walkers Cove.  I should say that at this point we were both bedraggled.  It was raining like hell, the temperature was in the mid-40’s, and because there were the usual logs in the area someone had to stand outside in the rain to watch for them.  Near mutiny in the crew- here is an excerpt from Pam’s personal log:

“I forgot to mention one of the unsung heroes of yesterday.  When we packed up for this adventure we brought out an enormous duffel with all our heavy rain gear and boots.  It seemed a little like overkill at the time to be schlepping that stuff across the country.  But let me tell you, that bright red bunny suit with multiple layers, flaps that came up around my neck and covered my ears, a rain hat that tied under my chin, pant legs that went over my boots and a bib with suspenders that came almost to my armpits, it was the key.  It was the crucial barrier between cold, wet, miserable and dry, warm, reasonably comfortable.  This 4^th of July I’m setting off fireworks in honor of my rain gear!”

Walker Cove is similar to Rudyerd but smaller, and we went looking for a Park Service mooring maintained in a cove most of the way in.  The idea was to have lunch and press on, but when we got there, found no-one on it, and looked around at the gorgeous granite cliffs and waterfalls even in the rain and mist, we happily picked it up and called it a day.  The cabin heater poured forth, and Pam made chocolate chip cookies.  So all became well with the world.

In the morning the rain had eased to a drizzle, so we headed for a long power to Yes Bay, about 50 miles distant.  With a fair tide, JACA made the trip at an average of 8 knots, so by a late lunch we were anchor down, again in hard rain.  Yes Bay features a lovely quiet cove, with anchoring depths of about 40 feet (compared to our average of about 80 feet).  Next door is a traditional family run Alaska fishing lodge (Yes Bay Lodge), which caters to folks who like to fish.  It’s a nice place, and we happily signed up for what was billed as a “traditional” 4^th of July dinner.  At 5 all the fishing outboards come in with the guests and their catches of the day – mostly salmon and  shrimp and crab from pots kept in the area.  The lodge freezes them, and sends the guests back on the float planes loaded with 50-pound boxes of fish.   4^th of July dinner was a barbecue:  ribs, chicken, corn, mac and cheese and blueberry cobbler.  We’d recommend the place to anyone who wants to fish in Alaska and have a nice home base to work from.

July 5 dawned slightly better and we headed out to Loring, about 25 miles distant, much of which was spent in a nice sail.  No rain!!!  Coming to the little dock at Loring was like nestling into a quiet sunny oasis.  There is a long nature walk here though the old-growth forest – the sign says it takes five hours one way.  So we went in for an hour, bear whistles and mace in hand.  There is nothing quite like a Pacific Northwest old growth forest to make you feel humble.  The trees, many of them hundreds of years old, are frequently hundreds of feet tall.  Hanging moss is everywhere, and the whole place oozes water.  Lots of evidence of bears, but we didn’t meet one face to face.

On the domestic side, we had our first speedo impeller change today.  Frank Kibbe warned us this would happen a lot.  The little paddle controlling the boat speed indicator gets hit by all manner of flotsam and the plastic blades break off.  The most common problem is logs, but for us it was a big wad of kelp that we couldn’t avoid.  The repair involves removing the paddle in its through-hull fitting, which can quickly produce a fire-hose of water coming into the boat.  Frank’s instructions worked just fine, and the first of what will likely be several new paddles was installed with only a short blast of very cold water in my face.

About midnight I was awakened by Pam calling me from the cockpit.  I stumbled out and looked at a truly comical sight.  Pam in her pajamas was waving a racquet-like bug zapper, trying to either shoo off or stun a couple of forest mice who had wandered aboard.  One of them was running back and forth across the top of the leather-covered steering wheel as Pam went at him.  Here is Pam’s version:

“The real excitement for the day came at the very end.  We were tucked in bed and Peter was asleep, when I began to hear little noises, little scurrying noises like the sounds of the mice in the ceiling at Chappy.  With more curiosity than concern, I got up and popped my head out of the companion way.  Well, indeed, there were two tiny forest mice scurrying about the cockpit, standing on the compass or crawling over the wheel.  It was very cute and all, but mice inside the boat would be a nightmare.  My first focus was to shut the ports in the cockpit that were open.  I got poor Peter up to discuss strategy.  Efforts to chase them were comical but fruitless.  Before I could cover the scuppers that feed directly into the aft storage compartment, one slipped in, came out and went in again.  We taped shut any opening that we could think of, the chain locker, the solar powered vents, even the scuppers on the hope that the little guy was back out again.  Then we went back to bed on the theory that they couldn’t get inside and when they tired of looking for something to eat on the deck, they would go back home to their cozy den in the woods.”

Too bad there are no pictures, and now several days later there has been no reappearance of anything resembling a mouse.

From Loring we made another long day of it, including a nice downwind sail up Clarence Strait, which on many occasions can be a fearsome stretch of water.  Another peaceful evening in Santa Anna inlet, and then we headed to Wrangell, arriving there Thursday afternoon the 7^th.  Wrangell has built (in large measure due to the late Senator Steven’s pork gathering abilities) a huge new boat basin behind a rock breakwater that looks like it could stop a tornado.  The docks do too, and we happily tied up alongside a largely vacant one, plugged in and went off to explore the town, which is a 15 minute walk away.  The harbormistress had counseled us against tying up in the old dock facilities in the center of town – the docks are old and rough, she said, and the power is intermittent and usually insufficient.  It is also probable that they are trying to drum up business for their new operation.

By this time we were enjoying a gorgeous sunny warm afternoon, and the Wrangell folks were delighting in it also.  Wrangell is significantly smaller than Ketchikan, and has not yet developed into the tourist center than Ketchikan can now boast.  It remains largely devoted to fishing, some boat repair and miscellaneous industrial activity, and every now and then a small cruise ship shows up.  There isn’t much for those folks to see except a nice museum dedicated to Wrangell’s colorful history. 

Our principal interest in making a stop at Wrangell was to see a little of what John Muir, who made Wrangell his home base during his “Travels in Alaska” during the 1880’s and 1890”s, had seen.  Although most of the old town burned to the ground in the 1950’s, there still are some historical (and restored) totems, and the reconstructed clan lodge of a Tlingit Chief.  All of these are surrounded by a generally dismal but friendly town, with a wide variety of people and languages, and a good dose of hardscrabble living in evidence.  We did make a special point of hiking up “Dewey Hill”, which now has a beautifully crafted boardwalk all the way up and an overlook at the top.  Muir had scrambled up this place in a heavy rainstorm, and built himself a big campfire fire to stay warm for the night.  The townsfolk saw a big glow at the top of the hill and were alarmed by what seemed like a magical happening.  Now no fires are permitted on Dewey Hill.  Meanwhile we enjoyed our first glorious Alaska sunset, and headed out from Wrangell the next afternoon.

After another peaceful and quiet night, this time in St John Harbor on Zarembo Island, we got up early to catch the current through the Wrangell Narrows to Petersburg, where we arrived today.  We are packed into the North Harbor marina, just about the only pleasure boat of any kind among wall-to-wall fish boats of all sizes and shapes.  Canneries and processing plants surround us, making plenty of noise and the occasional sharp odor.  This is a community primarily dedicated to fishing in all its aspects, and we are smack dab in the middle of it.  Humans are not the only fisherman here either: we have been watching a large sea lion off our stern chase and catch several decent-sized fish.  He thrashes about mightily and then throws himself upward out of the water with his big jaws snapping hard on his victim.  If this activity is any indication, the fishing even in the harbor is great.

Today marks the close of the third week of the trip, and the end of our time on the boat alone together.  I hate to see that part come to a close!  We have already logged more than 650 miles.  But tomorrow afternoon we welcome Jessica, Frank and Zia on board for the next two and a half weeks, which is a great opportunity to have some quality time with them.  On to the glaciers!  Meanwhile it is time for a lot of shopping, cleaning, and piles of laundry.  More on Petersburg adventures in the next entry.

Post # 3 Ketchikan, July 2, 2011

JACA Blog:  3^rd Entry.  Posted in Ketchikan, AK.

We are now in the land of Sarah Palin, although so far it looks a lot like British Columbia.  We left Prince Rupert around noon, after two nights eating out, loading up on good fresh fish, navigating a very nice Safeway store, and a nice long walk all through the town proper, on the first really nice sunny day so far.

Prince Rupert is a town with a lot of character.  It almost seems as if the folks who planted it there had a sense of self-importance that gives it some real style.  The public buildings are large and impressive, and the waterfront downtown has been nicely redone from a bygone era.  We had a particularly nice fish dinner in the fish market Dolly’s, a funky little place that ran a tiny restaurant on the side.  Our waitress, a “woman of a certain age”, was cheerful and wanted to know where we were from.  When she said Maine, she launched into the story of her daughter being wooed by a man from Portland, Maine, who is now her son-in-law, whom she adores.  She’s glad, however, that they now live somewhat closer to her, in Portland, Oregon.  We had another good fish dinner at a similarly basic spot, Smiles.

Given the late start from Prince Rupert, our plan was to do about 30 miles or so, heading part way up into the Khutzeymateen Inlet, with its famous bear conservation area at the head of the inlet.  We wound up having our first real sail, in Chatham Sound, and a good one it was. After dodging around a raft of gill netters with their quarter-mile long nets strung out in front of us, we headed up the inlet.  The scenery was spectacular, with snow fields and high peaks all around us.  So we just kept going, and arrived at the harbor at the head of the inlet well into dinner time.  No matter; as we came around the corner into the stunning anchorage a mother grizzly and her two cubs were ambling along the grassy shore.  Passing boats don’t faze these folks at all – their only dangers are from the land side.  That sight alone was worth the 55-mile day!

In the morning, back in the drizzle, we took the dinghy all around the estuary area, looking for more grizzlies.  Near the stream outlet was a large one, lazily gorging himself on fresh green grass.  It’s hard to imagine these great hulking creatures happily eating grass, but they apparently love the stuff when there isn’t much else around, such as whale carcasses, salmon swimming upstream, or some other unfortunate creature.  The park rules forbid landing the dinghy (good idea!), but you can get close just by rowing near the shore, and the bears pay no attention at all.  In another area we came across the same (?) mother bear and her two cubs, munching on grass.  She also spent some time digging up something, apparently showing her babes how to look for grubs, which are another bear tasty treat.  Although we were probably about 100 feet away, none of them paid the slightest attention to us, which meant that they didn’t know we were there.

We left the bears reluctantly, and headed back out to Chatham Sound, heading towards Alaska.  The forecast was for a light headwind westerly.  We found instead a stiff southerly, so out came the sails and we had a romping ride, zig-zagging back and forth across the border, finally winding up in a tiny protected cove (Wale Harbour) on the B.C. side.  For those two days we were sailing in tandem with a Hylas 49’, with her Canadian owners on board.  There were a couple of raucous dinners, full of politics, health care discussions and good cheer.  By now it was raining hard and it continued raining hard all the next day, when we headed out into a booming southwester which sailed us fast toward Ketchikan in a rising sea.  After 30 or so miles of that, we ducked into another completely protected cove (Foggy Bay Inner Cove), and let it pour while the heater dried us out and Pam made chocolate cookies.  These coves are amazing – even when it is blowing hard outside, we have yet to spend a night in anything other than placid calm.

We have been impressed with JACA’s sailing abilities, particularly once a little off the wind.  The Hylas 49 is an S & S design, with a medium displacement underbody much like Boheme’s.  On a close reach in 15-20 kts of wind, JACA nearly held her own – I thought we’d be left in the dust.  And then, in a somewhat dying breeze and well off the wind, JACA outfooted the Hylas, whose owner was somewhat chagrined by the whole thing.  Meawhile, the electric winch and in-boom furling are a true joy in a downpour and pitching sea.  No need to go anywhere but the cockpit to raise and lower the mainsail and get the jib in and out.  It almost seems sinful in comparison to Boheme’s old-fashioned rig.  The happiest camper for this part of the boat handling duty is Pam.

As we came up the channel to Ketchikan, two huge cruise ships came by us at very close range – it’s not a wide channel!  Two more monsters were at the large public dock.  The chief feature of the place, however, is the wild profusion of seaplanes of all sizes.  They seem to be the water taxis of the area, and their roar of take-off and landing is constant.  We are moored in the Bar Harbor boat basin, a little ways from downtown but still in the middle of a lot of activity.  Hundreds of fishing boats are around us; a large one next door is odiferous to say the least.  Given the forecast of a southeast gale, we’re glad to be snugged in, however.  Let it rain and blow! 

And rain and blow it has.  As I write this, the anemometer consistently registers well over thirty kts, and the rain is driving.  This means well over 45 kts outside.  We will likely be here for at least a day, if not two, more than we had planned.  So far we have visited the Totem Museum, which has a lot of history about these monumental artworks once found all along the coast, and the History of Ketchikan Museum, which has a lot to do with logging, sawmills, pulp making and fishing.  We’ve eaten well and walked and taxied a fair bit, but the driving rain is keeping us closer to the warm cabin than we might otherwise be.  More about Ketchikan in the next post, which will likely be from Wrangell or Petersburg.  Happy 4^th of July, everyone.