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.

Post # 7 - From Sitka, Alaska, Sunday August 7, 2011

Entry # 7:  Begin at Bartlett Cove  (Glacier Bay), on July 29, 2011

Hardly had we bid farewell to our children and grandchildren when Joel Tranum arrived (same plane), to join us on the ride to Sitka.  We had a great Dungeness crab dinner at the Glacier Bay Lodge, and in the a.m. headed off to do some reprovisioning in Gustavus.  Joel and I headed to Pep’s Packing, a place where the sportfisherman bring their catches to be frozen and packed for the ride home to wherever.  It is also the place which has won the most prizes in Alaska for its smoked salmon and halibut, and that is what we were after.  Pep’s is about ½ mile down a dirt road off the main drag through town, but we found it o.k, and loaded up.  Then we hiked back out, flagged down the lodge van going by, picked up Pam at the grocery and headed back to the boat.  By now the lousy weather had become bright sunlight with some lingering low fog which gradually dissipated.  Bummer for the kids!

Our destination for the day was Dundas Bay, which is still part of the Glacier Bay National Park, but out of the restricted area.  Along the way I tried to fish again, based on the advice from the folks at the Bartlett Cove dock.  No luck, so we wound up deep into the reaches of Dundas Bay very much alone, looking up at Mt. Fairweather and its range.  The water temperature was a balmy 52 degrees, so Joel insisted on going in to prove a point.  Hot showers felt very good thereafter!

Dundas Back Anchorage - Mt. Fairweather

In the morning the weather had shut down again, as we headed South across Cross Sound at the entrance to the Pacific Ocean, to tiny Elfin Cove.  A cruise ship went by us close in the fog, and JACA rolled heavily in the oily calm ocean swells.  Elfin Cove is a reminder of what many South Coast Newfoundland communities might have been like, had the fishing remained in some form.  Totally disconnected by land, this small community (17 permanent residents last winter) comes alive in the summer with an influx of sport fisherman to the 8 or so small lodges that cater exclusively to them.  Perhaps 150 or so folks are there at any moment, fishing from small boats owned by the lodges, as well as a small fleet of commercial fisherman who unload their catches daily onto a waiting collector boat.  There are no roads and no motorized vehicles at all: only wooden walkways clinging to the steep walls of the forest and small structures clustered around.  You can walk around the whole place in 15 minutes.

We tied up to the “free” transient dock, a sturdy facility at the outer end of the town, next to the seaplane float.  A new feature at the dock is 30 amp power, so we tracked down the operator of the Elfin Cove Power Company, working on the roaring generators that do the job.  No problem – we were hooked up in no time, with a steep hookup charge.  The planes bring and take away a steady stream of clients for the lodges, generally coming from Juneau.  I wandered around looking for someone to take me out in a small boat for a couple of hours to learn how to catch a salmon.  Dennis appeared, and the three of us hopped in.  Within two hours we’d caught two “pink” salmon that Dennis deemed unworthy and threw back, a small bass that also went back, and two nice big Coho salmon for the fridge.  I got my fishing lesson; Pam got a filleting lesson, and we were happy campers.  No wonder folks come from all over to do this!



Downtown Elfin Cove



Elfin Cove Public Dock

We stayed the night in Elfin, and spent a good deal of time talking to a variety of people, all of whom had differing points of view about what the place was all about, had, been and should be.  Some of the “locals” decried the burgeoning fishing lodge business.  Virtually all lodges are owned by people “from away”, who come in the spring and disappear in September.  Since all the floats are built, paid for and owned by the State, the community has no power over them.  The lodges get free use of them for their numerous day fishing boats.  Because the place is not a legal entity, no-one pays any real estate taxes.  Not a bad deal for a lodge owner.  But the community owns the tiny power company (all housed in a building the size of JACA’s cabin), and it can and does charge a lot for the power.  From an outsider’s point of view, it is the lodges that are keeping this community alive and, on the surface at least, prospering at some level.  But no one denies that there are many fewer fish out there than there used to be.  Who knows what this will look like 50 years from now.

From Elfin Cove we headed down the Lisianski Inlet, which is an inland shortcut to the first part of the “outside” ride to Sitka, on the western side of Baranoff Island.  About 12 miles down the inlet is another tiny village, Pelican, which, like Elfin Cove, is a totally isolated boardwalk community snuggled into the encircling mountains.  Until two years ago, however, there was a fish packing plant here that employed 100 people, so Pelican on the surface is a somewhat larger establishment.  It boasts the status of a legal town, complete with a tiny town hall and a mayor.  The packing plant, owned by a Native American investment company, has closed.  So now much of residential Pelican is for sale, and the place is struggling to find its own direction.  The boardwalk, water, power and float infrastructure is amazing and extensive, but right now only about 70 residents are here. Except for a couple of small fishing lodges, and a reasonably good fishing season for the few local commercial fisherman, the largest current employer is the school system, which exists for a total of 12 kids.  Intrigue abounds among the locals.  It didn’t take long to hear stories ranging from the imminent reopening of the plant to the plot of the investment company to turn the entire town into a resort for the tribe that owns the facility, evicting everyone else along the way.  As everywhere in Alaska, all this happens in a dramatic, spectacular setting.



Downtown Pelican



We left Pelican early morning to catch the slack ebb out of the Lisianski Strait into the Pacific Ocean.  Otherwise it can be pretty wild, and in the fog and rain we weren’t anxious for that.  All went well, we threaded our way through the rocks in the “inside passage” and finally were out in the Pacific swell for about 15 miles, headed to Goulding Harbor, a “must see” on Frank Kibbe’s list.  It was nice to feel a rolling platform under my feet again.  Some whales and multitudes of sea otters around us – one mom and her pup were as inquisitive about us as we were about her – see the picture!

Frank had told me to anchor in the “second pool”, which looked o.k. on the chart, except that there was a large rock at the entrance.  We worked our way in, slowly, trying to avoid the rock which was visible at half-tide, and when the depth got to 1’ beneath the keel I went fast reverse.  Eventually, after poking and pushing around a little, we made it into the pool and settled down in about 30’ of water.  It is a gorgeous place, typical of the West coast of Baranof Island.  A dinghy ride up into the third pool, where the big salmon stream flows out, resulted in a great bear sighting: a large juvenile grizzly was feeding on a grassy island at the head of the island.  He heard us, then about 100 feet away, stood up on his hind legs to see us, watched us for a while, and then went back to eating.  Ultimately he swam to the nearby shore, while we headed up the river as far as we could go in the dinghy.  Salmon were jumping all over the place, and when we got to a point we could go no further, there were hundreds of them swimming around and underneath us, waiting to proceed up the rocks in the stream.  An amazing sight!

I was concerned about getting out of the pool in the morning around the rocks in a much lower tide, so we went out to the first pool and anchored in a lovely small cove by a gurgling outflowing stream.  More swimming.  Then I read Frank Kibbe’s diary from the year before:  he’d hit the rocks that we’d so nearly avoided.  We laughed about it on the sat phone the next day, and all he could say was “Oh shit. I told you the wrong pool!”  Next time he’s here he’ll have the map. 

Frank also recommended another salmon stream in Lake Anna, a few miles down the coast, so we headed there also.  On a rising tide, we dinghied up to the head of the stream, close to the outlet, where there was a short waterfall with lots of water cascading over it.  In the water we could see literally hundreds of salmon massing in front of the falls.  As the tide came up so the fall was a little shorter, the salmon started to throw themselves up, trying to get to the small pool above.  Most came tumbling back down, but a few made it to the first small pool.  Trouble was, it was even worse going for them to the next area, and we could see a few of them struggle onward, in their inexorable drive to return to whence they came, spawn and die.  It is an extraordinary sight – what is it that drives them?  What is it that drives us?



One falling back - unsuccessful jump!



Eagle waiting to pounce on Salmon



Salmon massing to jump up falls

To avoid a big tide rip in the morning, we slipped out of Lake Anna at slack tide, and wound up in Double Cove for the night.  It reminded me of finding Duck Harbor on Isle Au Haut in the fog: a rocky coast in a rolling sea, and you don’t see the entrance until it is almost too late.  But it was calm and peaceful in there on a rainy night.  The forecast for the next day had been consistently bad: small craft warnings, rain etc., but the wind velocities in the forecast were diminishing gradually.  Since this was the day we’d planned our “outside” run down to the Sitka area, we were paying close attention.  Finally the forecaster said that we’d have 15 kts out of the Southeast (adverse) shifting to the Southwest (fine).  So we headed out early in a rolling calm for the 20 mile run down to Salisbury Bay.  The Pacific does roll a lot, even in a flat calm.  The wind duly came up from the SE, and we slogged our way into it, anything loose below having already flown somewhere.  Then it went SW, and we had a fine sail in typical Alaska weather: a cold rain, very limited visibility, and a 4-6 ft sea from a variety of directions.  That night we anchored in a cove off of Peril Strait, about 20 miles north of Sitka, on the cruise ship route.  Peril Strait is supposed to be full of Orca whales, so we took the dinghy out to the narrows, which sport 7 kt currents and large standing waves, to have a look.  Even at a respectful distance, it was a nasty bit of water.  No orcas either, so we headed back to JACA.  Surprise, another boat was in the cove, a converted 42’ Alaska fishing boat to a nice, comfy cruiser for a couple from Seattle.  He was clearly a dedicated fisherman, with more gear on board than most fishing boats have.  We stopped to chat, and wound up with a whole bunch of freshly caught and cooked Dungeness crabs, which made a great dinner.  Pam made some chocolate chip cookies, and I took some over for a thank you offering.  Not a very fair trade, but at least an effort to repay some Alaska generosity.

We were now a day ahead of schedule, and decided to explore some of the islands to the south of Sitka.  So we powered right by the town, and wound up in Samsing Cove, which is one of several about 5 miles south of town.  It is a lot like Maine, except that snow covered mountains are around you, and at the mouth of Sitka Sound sits Mt. Edgecombe, which an old volcano, with snow still dripping down its sides.  It was a pretty good day, so we saw more of all of this than usual.  Pam and I took the dinghy exploring in the little islets, and came upon a small sandy beach – very rare in these parts.  It looked like the Caribbean, with blues and greens in the rising tide.  Moreover, the water was a hot 57 degrees, which is about the same as Roque Island.  So off came the clothes and in we went, albeit briefly.  The sun dried us off.  Perhaps in time we will be like Darwin’s discoveries on Terra Del Fuego:  humans running around naked in the dead of winter, covered only with grease.

Mt Edgecumbe guarding Sitka

Now we are tied up at the marina in Sitka, preparing for the next leg.  Mark and Joanne Woodward arrive shortly to take the places of Joel and Pam.  I’ll miss Pam terribly.  It has been wonderful to have her on the boat these past seven weeks.  She’s my best friend and companion, a marvelous cook, and a calm, steady and competent shipmate.  One couldn’t ask for more! 

It may be another two weeks or so before the next post.  We are headed South on the outside of Baranof Island, in the open Pacific, and then Southwest to the West coast of Prince of Whales Island.  There, at the small town of Craig, I'll have another crew change and prepare to head back to British Columbia.