Ketchikan

Thursday, May 17, 2007
If you are not inclined to read this long, detailed message, suffice it to say we arrived in Ketchikan two days ago. After our short dock stop at Shearwater (they charged $1/foot and $10 for electricity, (we decided that we could use that $50 elsewhere)so we made a short trip to Wigham Cove where we found Good Medicine already at anchor. We took the other nook and a big refurbished pleasure tug, Gulf Tide took a third nook just at dark. As we headed out Seaforth Channel toward the ocean again, I put out a call to our friend, Ernie Harding, on his vessel, DX, and was pleasantly surprised to hear him reply that he would be with us in Rescue Bay that night. We continued up Reid Passage, a narrow little smooth water route, by Ivory Island then up Finlayson Channel to Rescue Bay. The ocean looked very calm, so we could have gone outside of Ivory. An email from our friends on Passage said that they even went out one more channel and found the ocean very hospitable. Soon after anchoring, Bob spotted a wolf on the shore and then spotted another one in the head of the bay. These two were dark gray and much slighter than the blond one we had seen in Fancy Cove. Ernie rafted on that night a procedure that became standard as we continued our trip up the coast. Staying with our slower pace makes him very happy to be burning less fuel, but he said that this is the slowest of his previous 11 trips to Alaska. 5-19 We stopped at Khutze Bay, an anchorage that was new to us. We motored up to the head of the deep inlet and thought we would anchor in front of the falls. We were surprised to find 3 power boats anchored and stern-tied in the spot we would have liked. The captain of Peachy Keen came by to visit after setting some crab traps and saying that he just had to meet “The Voice.” That would be me…I have the reputation of talking a lot on the VHF radio and lots of people follow me to another channel to listen in. Don’t have the foggiest notion why… Several people over the years have made a comment about enjoying listening to me on the radio. Ernie anchored in 32 feet of water and we tied alongside (rafted). Later in the afternoon with a brisk little wind blowing we noticed on our depth finders that we were only in 11 feet of water with the tide still falling. We decided to move down the Bay farther to an area behind a spit that extends ¾ of the way across the wide entrance. We spent a quiet night there after getting anchored and rafted again. The next day we ran up to Hartley Bay an interesting First Nation village and another new stop for us. Ernie said that the moorage was free, but the new signs said that they were charging a $1/foot now. We did a little walk about on the boardwalks of the neat, little village and then left to anchor in Coughlin Anchorage. This is not a secure place to be in south winds, but even the north winds that were predicted never materialized, and we spent a quiet night. The next morning we found that our Nobeltec software wouldn’t load. Not a good thing. This is our navigation software that connects into our GPS and shows our boat position on the chart. When that fails we are in panic mode at least I am. We still have all of our paper charts, but it’s just not the same reassurance that we get from watching our boat proceed in safe waters on the computer screen. Bob started up the PC, started the program and hooked up another GPS to that system. Even though that computer is in the salon, we were able to check it now and then if needed. Grenville Channel is just a long channel that is truly part of the Inside Passage, and there are no dangers except the wake from big ferries or cruise ships. As we followed Ernie out of the anchorage, Bob tried to reinstall the program several times; each time getting an error. He uninstalled the original program, then the charts, then the waypoints and routes. Finally with the computer wiped clean of Nobeltec, the program reinstalled successfully. We were in business again, but Bob still had lots of work to do to reinstall the necessary charts, waypoints and routes. Have I mentioned that we LOVE our autopilot; except for one temporary glitch. I was at the helm and had just looked down to write some notes, when Bob said in a rather puzzled voice, “Where are you going?” The autopilot had suddenly taken a hard turn to starboard and continued to turn us in a complete circle. After checking the various wires and plugs and turning it off and back on, it maintained the assigned course with no problem and has worked fine ever since. I guess that little unexpected right turn explains why ships sometimes hit rocks when there is no logical explanation other than equipment failure. 5-21 We cruised up to almost the end of Grenville to Baker Inlet another new anchorage for us. The entrance is very narrow with fairly strong current and trees hanging over both sides of the channel. Almost a magical, mystical feeling as we entered. The next morning exiting in fog was even more mystical. The fog cleared as we motored on toward Prince Rupert. We stayed in Pillsbury Cove near the entrance to Venn Passage. We had a nice quiet nice evening though winds were predicted to blow 30 kts. 5-23 An early departure saw us heading through Venn Passage, a shallow, winding short-cut out to Chatham Sound. As we neared the end of Dundas Island, the water was getting rougher and we almost elected to make a stop before crossing Dixon Entrance. As we looked out ahead of us, we saw glassy smooth water and decided to press on. We entered Alaskan waters at 10:10 PDT/11:10 ADT. Wooo Hoooo! U.S. customs allows boats to stop in Foggy Bay on the long cruise between Prince Rupert and Ketchikan. So we called them and got permission. It was nice to get off the ocean and anchored up , even if we had had such a nice crossing with only gentle swells. On into Ketchikan and a hurtful stop at the fuel dock. It could have been a lot worse, but the attendant gave us the commercial price of $2.61/gallon. We are moored in Thomas Basin in Ketchikan right downtown very close to the cruise ship dock. One sunny day, one very rainy day and now one showery day. Typical Alaskan weather. We plan to leave Ketchikan tomorrow, but we’re not sure where we are going.
Judy, Bob, Mac, Dinghy and Dock

Half-way

Thursday, May 17, 2007
We are now about half way to Alaska. We left Shawl Bay with our clean clothes and about 200 prawns; not very big, but very tasty. We made a six hour hop to Blunden Harbor and left the next morning, May 14th, to cross around Cape Caution. The weather report sounded great, and it was! There was no wind and the ocean rocked us gently with low, almost unnoticeable swells. We arrived at one of our favorite anchorages, Fury Cove, after an 8 hour crossing. It has become tradition for us to spend two days in Fury, usually we need to recuperate after the crossing... We had great, sunny weather and enjoyed walking on the white shell beaches finding Kodak moments. There were two boats with us in the anchorage each night. There was also a marine biologist who was doing a survey of the beach for the nearby First Nation village. He is researching and testing clams in order to make the beaches available for winter harvest by the First Nation tribe. From Fury, we cruised NW up Fitz Hugh Sound to Fancy Cove in Lama Passage.
Our great weather had departed overnight with a rain storm, and we found some rough water just outside of the anchorage. As we moved farther up the Sound the weather and the water both improved. We anchored in a tight little spot behind a tiny island in the cove where we had been in 2005. It turned out to be an amazing afternoon... Bob spotted our second black bear of the trip on a nearby shore. It was the fattest bear we have ever seen. As it disappeared into the trees, we noticed a Sand Hill Crane standing as still as a stick within a few feet of the bear. Later Bob was looking up at the head of the cove and saw a wolf! He (yes, he showed us that he didn't pee like a puppy when he marked a tree) walked the whole shore of the bay and we got several Kodak moments from that. We also spotted one of the big cruise ships cruising slowly by in Lama Passage. We didn't even feel the wake in our snug little anchorage. Later in the afternoon, we heard a helicoper overhead. They buzzed us a couple of times; even low enough to return my wave. Don't know the purpose, but they completed our interesting afternoon.
The crew of Last Class

Continuing On

After spending two nights anchored at Newcastle Island in Nanaimo, we decided that the weather sounded good for a crossing of the Strait of Georgia on May 6th. Whiskey Golf was not open, always a good thing. WG is a naval training range that is directly in the path of cruising boats leaving Nanaimo to cross the Strait. When they are open, both U.S. and Canadian navies use the range for unarmed torpedo practice. Unarmed or not, we wouldn’t want to get hit by one. When closed, we cruisers are free to transit across the range. That was a good thing, but the swells from the SE kept us rocking and rolling for the 3 hour crossing. At one point even the captain and his chair got upset. Mac nearly had a nervous breakdown and the first mate wasn’t far behind. It was our worst crossing ever, but it could have been a lot worse. We didn’t even take any salt water over the bow! We anchored in Pender Harbor for two nights after hearing dire weather warnings. Malaspina Strait can be very nasty, too. From there we went on to one of our most favorite anchorages, Squirrel Cove. With only 5 other boats at anchor it looked a lot different than the July-August fiasco when over a hundred boats are often there. From Squirrel we have to time our departure in order to arrive at the Yuculta (yew-cla-tah)Rapids in time for slack water. Actually, there are 5 rapids to transit, Yuculta, Gillard, Dent, Green Point and Whirlpool. We usually stop after the first three, but with a fairly low current speed due to the phase of the moon, we were able to go through all of them and anchor in Forward Harbor. This is a natural stop to wait and see what Johnstone Strait is going to dish out. Early the next morning we got the weather report stating that winds were supposed to ease, so off we went. It was a very nice 3 hour cruise on water that had been nearly impassable just a few days before due to Gale Force winds of over 40mph. We went on to Lagoon Cove Marina, always a must stop. We fueled up there at $1.10 a liter!!! As we came through the Blow Hole, we spotted our first bear of the trip on the Minstrel Island shore. A very pretty, shiny, black bear. Even though we were the only visitors at the dock, Bill cooked up some prawns for us and we had a nice visit with him and his summer crew. On to Shawl Bay Marina to have another traditional visit and do laundry. We’ve done our first pawning here with catches of about 50 per pull. Our next challenge is Cape Caution, our longest ocean voyage. It’s 86 miles from Shawl Bay to Fury Cove. About 50 of that is open ocean. The weather has been nice, so we are hoping it continues.

Newsletter from trip to Alaska

Originally sent to friends and family after leaving the dock on May 1st.
After a long month at the dock waiting for people to finish work that we had contracted to be done over the winter, we are finally underway. The boat is loaded down with food, water, fuel and the many unnecessary items that we seem to pack with us. However, our pockets are empty after paying our maintenance and repair bills. The most frustrating repair was the nonfunctioning alternator. After several trips to Bellingham and much head scratching by the experts, we found out that the wiring harness had been wired wrong at the factory. Fuses kept blowing and we even left the dock once, thinking it was fixed, but no.....When we did leave the slip in Anacortes on May 1, we had a bit of a scare when the engine gave a big shudder and shut down. Guess it was air in the fuel lines as it started up and has been fine ever since.We are in Nanaimo BC now and hope to cross the Strait of Georgia ASAP. Barring any other unforeseen happenings we are on our way to Alaska; our 4th trip.Will be sending out updates when possible.
Judy, Bob, two cats and a dog