We departed at oh-dark thirty in order to hit slack at Tlevak Narrows, about 19 miles from Craig. Even though we were only about forty minutes past slack, we already had a 2 knot current (in our favor fortunately) in the narrows and nearly knots after exiting. Fortunately, the whirlpools and overflows the guide book talked about had formed by then.
The original goal for the day was to pass around the bottom of Prince of Wales Island at Cape Chacon. The day before, the weather forecast suggest that tomorrow (8/29) would be marginal. After listening to the updated forecast, we realized the front was delayed so pulled up short for the day and went into a lovely anchorage, Kassa Island Bay.
The area we are transiting is seldom visited by recreational boats because it is a little out of the way from the main routes between Ketchikan and points north or west. People are missing out because it is lovely area and offers some great opportunities.
We saw a number of humpback whales and one occasion had to back off to neutral because a whale passed within a few hundred yards of us and we weren’t sure where it was going to come up. As far as sea otters, when the DavidEllis entered the bay in which we were anchoring, they startled a big pod of sea otters which took off away from them by porpoising through the water. That was a behavior none of us had ever seen in sea otters, who are mostly blasé about boats. We speculated that the otters may be hunted by the native Americans who live at Hydaburg, a community about 20 miles away, and are more fearful of boats.
Today’s mileage – 53.2
Cumulative mileage – 2375.2
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