2025 Annual Wrap Up

Our 2025 cruising season bore a remarkable similarity to 2024, the same number of cruising days (122), similar number of engine hours (530 in 2024 versus 520 in 2025) and miles traveled (3,091 in 2024 versus 3,099 in 2025.  We did leave a bit later (May 4 in 2024 versus May 16 in 2025) and anchor out a bit more (73 days in 2024 versus 78 days in 2025).

One thing we tried to do was visit (or at least anchor) in different spots.  A new destination for us was Ford’s Terror off of Endicott Arm.  But, we also managed to use different stops while traversing mostly the same routes.  Overall, we recorded 13 new sites that we hadn’t used in past years. We may not visit them every year but we now have 384 different places in which we have either anchored, tied to a buoy or tied to a dock.  It makes planning routes and stops a lot easier with a long list of choices to draw on.

	Year	# of Days	At Anchor	At a Dock	On a Buoy	Distance Traveled	Engine Hours	Gen. Hours	Time Idling
	2010	129	57	66	5	3,221	517.1	40.4
	2011	115	81	33		3,465	577.4	31.3
	2013	151	99	50	1	3,667	630.0	53.3
	2014	141	86	48	6	4,052	720.8	34.8	48.5
	2015	104	67	31	5	3,580	629.2	28.7	42.4
	2016	141	99	39	2	3,979	700.0	51.9	68.6
	2017	140	91	46	2	3,817	656.5	62.2	51.1
	2018	112	71	40		3,170	528.6	33.9	38.2
	2019	118	82	35		3,816	649.5	16.3	56.6
	2020	63	42	12	6	2,527	399.7	32.8	11.5
	2021	110	81	26	2	3,317	554.0	66.0	27.5
	2022	139	88	47	3	3,584	613.6	19.5	42.9
	2023	139	84	54		3,024	510.4	36.0	33.7
	2024	122	73	48		3,091	529.8	24.8	26.9
	2025	122	78	43		3,099	520.2	33.3	29.3
		1,846	1,179	618	32	51,409	8736.8	565.2	477.2

As a footnote to the table above, if you add up the nightly stops (at anchor, at a dock or on a buoy), the total, 1,829, is 17 short of the total number of days, 1,846. The difference is the 15 days at the end of the trip when I don’t count the night we return to our homeport and two days in 2020 during Covid when we did overnight passages and did not stop.

The “Time Idling” is the total of the estimated hours during a day spent trolling for salmon, servicing prawn pots, or sightseeing (e.g., whale activity or glacier viewing).  I make these estimates to give me a better idea of my true cruising speed.

Below is a map of our stops in the 2025 cruising season. Clicking on one of the “dropped pins” will pull up some information about the stop. At the top right of the map is an icon which will open a separate window that may be easier to navigate.

The map below shows all of the places we have stopped overnight during all our cruises through 2025. It is similar in style to our yearly cruise map except that when the marker for a particular spot is selected, the data for the spot is the total number of times we’ve stayed and in which years. 

As a word of caution, the location of the mark shown on the map is an “average” of ALL the stops and may not actually represent the location ANY one stop. For destinations that are popular, we may have dropped that anchor at many different places and the average spot isn’t the best or even a safe spot to anchor.

Eating our Way South - Port McNeill to Bainbridge Island

Port McNeill continues to be a great place to transition from the relatively quiet North Coast of British Columbia and the very busy South Coast.  In recent years, several new eateries (e.g., Devils' Bath Brewing, Lata's Kitchen) have added to its attraction. It is fitting to consider Port McNeill as the start to the "eating our way south" voyage. 

An early start Monday, August 25 had us fighting ebb current in the western end of Johnstone Strait.  By staying close to the south shore (Vancouver Island side) we reduced its impact on us.  That early start, though, put us at Race Passage about the time of the turn to flood current.  From then on, the current would be in our favor and boost our speed.  In fact, we were going to reach Seymour Narrows north of Campbell River too early.  We pulled off at Otter Cove, just south of Chatham Point to wait for the current to slacken.  It being late afternoon, lots of other boats, both pleasure and commercial were also adjusting their speeds in order to reach Seymour Narrows during the window of safe transit.  We ended up sliding in behind one large fish processing boat and ahead of another.  After the narrows, we headed towards the nearby Gowlland Harbour for the night.

The next day, we again started early as we were hoping to get into the Gulf Islands. Our speed and the sea conditions were good and we able to transit Dodd Narrows, SE of Nanaimo, that evening.  After covering 95 miles in 13.6 hours, we anchored in North Cove on Thetis Island for the night.
  
It was a comparatively short hop (16 miles) the next day to Montague Harbour on Galliano Island.  While there were many (>50) boats here, the anchorage can easily hold them.  The dock at the nearby provincial park gives access to a pleasant trail and large lawn for us to play ball with Drake.  The marina in the harbor has a store offering ice cream and a restaurant (The Crane and Robin) serving food and adult beverages. We spent two nights anchored in Montague.

The Gulf Islands are compact so we traveled an even shorter distance (10.4 miles) to  Russell Island part of the Gulf Islands National Park.  In contrast to Montague Harbour, the anchoring area is compact and the bottom not particularly good (very rocky). It does have a dinghy dock and a loop trail that goes around the island.  Several nice beaches dot the north side of the island and Drake got to go wading in one of them.

The next day, August 30, we headed to Lyall Harbour on Saturna Island.  We took the "long way", 15.3 miles, around the bottom of Pender Island so that our batteries would be fully recharged. We were anchored a 1/4 mile or so south of the Saturna Island public dock which offers free dinghy access.  The BC Ferry Terminal for Saturna Island is here as well.  The incoming ferries throw a wake which bobble boats at anchor but, fortunately for the anchored boats, there are only 3 or 4 ferries a day.  During our 2 days anchored in Lyall Harbour, we ate once at the Saturna Lighthouse Pub, located next to the ferry dock, and had ice cream twice from the take-out in the same building as the pub.

On September 1, Labor Day, we traveled the 5 miles over to Port Browning Marina on North Pender Island. Coincidentally, two other boats, BarbEric (Barb and Eric) and Suzy Q (Suzy and Bob), from our yacht club also came into the marina.  All six of us dined one evening at the Port Browning Pub.  While at the marina, Marcia & I twice got some treats from the nearby Vanilla Leaf Bakery. Drake enjoyed his time here because of the large lawn and a non-muddy low-tide beach for play.

After two nights, on September 3 we crossed the border back into the USA. Our first stop was at the Deer Harbor Marina on Orcas Island. Here, our culinary desires were satisfied by Mathews Smokehouse and Island Pie.  For our decadent treats we relied on Lopez Island Ice Cream served up at the marina's store.  Each evening of our three night stay, we took a walk south from the marina to a viewpoint from which we watched the setting sun over Deer Harbor and the many islands of the archipelago.

From here, we headed to Garrison Bay on San Juan Island.  We stopped briefly at Roche Harbor to pick up some fresh produce and indulge in ice cream before anchoring for the night.  English Camp has an excellent dinghy dock and a nice trail system.  We'll often go to shore three times a day for walks and ball play.  One of our walks took us over to the Westcott Bay Shellfish Company for lunch at their shoreside restaurant.

To hit favorable currents, on the afternoon of September 9, we headed through Speiden Channel across the north side of San Juan Island and then up President Channel along the east shore of Orcas Island.  Our destination was Echo Bay on Sucia Island.  Echo Bay has no dinghy dock so we used our kayaks to go to shore.  The excellent trails on Sucia Island allow most of the major bays on Sucia to be explored on foot.

After two nights in Echo Bay, we headed towards Anacortes our final stop before returning to Bainbridge Island.  In the Spring we had arranged to meet friends, Peg and Roy, from our climbing days with the Mountaineers club at Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes. Roy and Peg take trips from their home in Portland in their RV.  Cap Sante Marina recently added an RV park next to the marina so we our respective traveling homes were within walking distance of each other.  We invited another climbing friend, Craig, to join us for the visit.  We made a pilgrimage to the summit of Mt Erie, an Anacortes City Park, where we had participated, taught and led a variety of Mountaineer field trips more than forty years earlier.

For the final day of our trip, September 14, we traveled the "inside" route through the Swinomish Channel, past La Conner, down Saratoga Passage joining Puget Sound south of Whidbey Island.  We arrived at the Queen City Yacht Club Bainbridge Island dock shortly after 5 pm.

Leg Statistics - 21 Days, 360 Miles, 57.7 Engine Hours

Ketchikan to Port McNeill

This being our 15th cruising trip, you would have thought we'd have at least heard of the Ketchikan Blueberry Festival (its 50th), if not attended it. It is held on the first Saturday in August.  As an excuse, I offer up that at the end of the season, our time in Ketchikan is focused on getting in and getting out ASAP.  This year, with nice weather forecast, we hung around for the Blueberry Festival. It turns out it is a kind of a street fair with several streets closed off to traffic and and booths selling crafts, art and food.  Despite the presence of passengers from three cruise ships (actually a modest number by Ketchikan standards), the event seemed very community focused.  If we are in Ketchikan on the first weekend in August in the future, we'll definitely try to attend.

We did leave Ketchikan on Tuesday, August 5. We stopped on the way out of town and fueled up.  It turned out the fuel price in Ketchikan was about 50¢/gallon cheaper than the price in Washington, so we took on about 750 gallons to take us south and possibly back north next Spring. We anchored the night in Sitklan Passage Cove which is conveniently located for crossing Dixon Entrance and entering Canadian waters.

The next day, August 6, we headed into Prince Rupert staying at the Prince Rupert Rowing & Yacht Club (PRRYC) marina.  We had an usual event at the Safeway grocery store where Marcia did shopping for produce we couldn't bring in from the USA and I waited outside with Drake.  The store was quite busy and it was taking Marcia more time than I and Drake wanted it to.  Drake was very good at making eye contact with people going in and out of the store and responding enthusiastically when the eye contact was reciprocated.  Later, I was a confused and flummoxed when a customer came out from the store and said "Here, a man in the store asked me to give this to you to buy a toy for the dog," and then handed me $3.50.  There had been a pan handler outside the store's entrance earlier but he probably left when he saw his competition, a cute and friendly dog.

We left at first light the next morning, but not before a quick walk to the Tim Horton's for some morning treats and cheese tea biscuits for later.  We put in a full day and did the entire length of Grenville Channel before anchoring the night in Hawk Bay on Fin Island.

One of the reasons for putting in a long day was so that we fish the early bite off at Turtle Point on the NW corner of Gil Island.  We joined a couple of sport fishing boats also working the area.  Marcia caught and released a couple of pink salmon but never even got a hit she thought was a silver or king salmon. We returned to Hawk Bay for a second night.

Rather than try fishing the area further, the next day we elected to continue our southbound journey and headed towards Bottleneck Inlet in Finlayson Channel.  Initially conditions weren't too bad even though the winds were 15-20 knots but later in the day they edged up a notch to 20-25 knots and we had pretty choppy head seas. The protection offered by Bottleneck Inlet was a welcome relief for ourselves and the three other boats with which we shared the anchorage.

The next morning, we had light rain and poor visibility but the winds weren't too bad initially.  We elected to exit Finlayson Channel into Milbanke Sound and Seaforth Channel rather than cutting off at Jackson Passage and using Mathieson Channel / Perceval Narrows into Seaforth.  Unfortunately the seas were building and we were hit by 3-foot short period seas on our starboard beam as we approached Ivory Island which caused us to roll unpleasantly.  It was about five or six miles of that so we decided to put our stabilizing fish in the water to dampen the rolling.  We continued through Seaforth Channel to Gunboat Passage and anchored in Forit Bay that night.

Next morning we fished near Rattenbury Point at the NW corner of King Island in Fisher Channel.  Nothing but a few pink bites for our efforts.  We headed south in Fisher Channel, dropped a couple of test prawn pots in the entrance to Evans Inlet then explored the head of Evans Inlet for an anchoring site.  We found a couple spots that were doable but they were deep (75' to 90') and exposed to westerly wind and chop.  We decided to go with the known quantity of Codville Lagoon for the night's anchorage.

The next day, we headed back north up Fisher Channel and fished the west side of the channel along the shoreline of Denny Island about a mile south of Gun Boat Passage.  Again, only a few bites from pink salmon. From here we headed back to Evans Inlet and retrieved the prawn pots we dropped there. More disappointment, when we pulled empty pots.  Since we were pretty close to Codville Lagoon, we dropped the two prawn pots in a popular prawn site. By this time, we were getting close to the afternoon salmon bite so we crossed Fisher Channel, entered Lama Passage and fished (with no luck) the SE corner of Denny Island from just west of White Point to about a mile north of Start Point.  We finished this meandering by returning to Codville Lagoon and anchoring at its north end.

We were getting a bit tired of fishing with no catching so with a very early start on August 13, we first retrieved our two prawn pots with several dozen (yay!) mostly small (boo!) prawns and headed up to Ocean Falls.  Even though we arrived before 10 AM, the notorious Ocean Falls winds were blowing us off the dock.  Fortunately, there were other boaters on the dock who got our lines secured and the boat tied to the dock.  Later that day, fellow Queen City Yacht Club members, Ann and Craig Wilbour on Shot-8, tied up on the other side of the dock from us.

We ended up spending 4 nights at Ocean Falls. There are not many shoreside services but the road running from the top of the dam behind the town to the community of Martin Valley gives you a chance to stetch your legs a bit.  The docks are in good repair, the power ample (the power plant at the dam is less than a half mile away) and the water is clean.  We did have rain (heavy at times) for about 2-1/2 days and some gusty wind a few times but it was more pleasant than spinning around on an anchor and not being able to leave your boat.

Finally, on August 17, continued south into Fitz Hugh Sound. Our destination for the night was Bitter End Cove at the far southeast corner of Fish Egg Inlet.  On the way in, we dropped three prawn pots. It was a quiet night by ourselves.

The next morning we headed out and started fishing the shores of Addenbroke Island north of the lighthouse.  There were other boats from the local fishing lodges fishing as well.  The action seemed to be mostly pinks but near slack current, Marcia hooked and we landed a King salmon, our first salmon of the season. We called it quits for salmon fishing and headed back into Fish Egg Inlet to check our prawn pots.  Unfortunately two of the three pots had octopus in them.  The octopus enjoy the easy pickings of the prawns already in the pot and deter anymore prawns from entering the pot.  While we did harvest a decent number of prawns, we elected not to reset the prawns as we judged the possibility of continued octopus predation as high. The two octopus returned to the water to hunt again and we headed back to Bitter End Cove for the night.

On the morning of August 19, we again headed out to Addenbroke Island hoping for a repeat of our prior day's success.  Again the action was disappointing until near slack current when Marcia hooked and we landed a coho salmon.  At this point we felt that Drake needed some shore time so we crossed Fitz Hugh Sound and entered Kwakshua Channel towards Pruth Bay.  We anchored near the head of the bay with good access to the docks of Hakai Institute.  They are kind enough to allow public access to their docks for transiting on their trails over to the broad sandy beaches on the ocean side of Calvert Island.  The beaches are considered the finest beaches along the inside passage and provide welcome relief from confines of the boat.  We spent two nights anchored in Pruth Bay and went to shore five times.

After one last beach visit on the morning of August 21, we stored our dinghy back on our boat deck and exit into Hakai Passage and made our way to the NE corner of Hecate Island where we fished along the shore of Hecate Island outside the entrance to Goldstream Harbour.  Marcia caught another coho salmon before we called it a day.  We went into Goldstream Harbour where Marcia cleaned her salmon and we had lunch.  Afterwards we proceeded to Safety Cove along east shore of Calvert Island to anchor for the night.

Since fishing was slow, we decided to take advantage of the fine conditions (light winds, low seas) and head south around Cape Caution on August 22.  Depending on your route, you have 30 - 40 miles in which you are exposed to ocean conditions.  If ocean conditions are good, the route is no big deal.  If conditions are bad, you could die or fear your imminent demise.  In between are various degrees of unpleasantness that depend on your tolerance or misfortune.  We always try to stack the odds towards "no big deal" by choosing benign conditions.  While we had fog most of the way, we only had modest rolling waves out of the WNW and did not put our stabilizers in the water.  Our speed was good and we arrived in Port McNeill about 10 hours after departing Safety Cove.
  
Leg Statistics - 18 Days, 569 Miles, 107.2 Engine Hours

Juneau to Ketchikan via Sitka

As mentioned in the previous blog post, reprovisioning was a major purpose stopping in Juneau.  While the stores are 4 or miles away from the harbor, Juneau has a pretty good bus system on which to ride.  In previous years we'd rent a car for a day to do our shopping but, because of having competition from cruise ship passengers, it became expensive ($200/day), even for a "rent-a-wreck" service, and require reservations weeks in advance.  For Costco, we take the bus to get to the store (or at least within walking distance) and then a ride share service to get ourselves and our Costco-size groceries back to the harbor.  For the Fred Meyer store, the bus stop right  is right next to the store and carrying the groceries (mostly produce) in shopping bags is fine.

When we arrived at the Statter Harbor in Auke Bay, the purse seine boats had been out fishing.  But their opening had closed and many seine boats returned to the harbor.  Since moorage was tight, on our last night at the dock we allowed a seine boat to raft to us.  Fortunately they were leaving early in the morning to head out for the next opening.  So, shortly after 5 am on Wednesday, July 16 we headed southbound in Stephens Passage.  The currents and wind were generally favorable so were able to get to Hobart Bay, a distance of 78 miles.  We dropped prawn pots in the outer bay before going into the protected cove where we anchored the night.

The next day, after pulling prawn pots (okay, but not as good as we hoped), we headed to Pybus Bay at the SE end of Admiralty Island, where we dropped the prawn pots.  We anchored in the cove created between the San Juan Islands, east of Pybus Bay. Marcia put down a "meat hook" to see if she could entice a fish to bite. In the early evening, we noticed the rod pointing downward and after some effort we had a 34" halibut on board.  We had a fright when we heard snuffling and realized that some sea lions from acolony on the island south of the nearby West Brothers Island were cruising by. Marcia quickly got the halibut on the cleaning table and fileted it.

Following that success, the next morning we were hopeful as we pulled the prawn pots set the previous day.  Hopes were dashed by the poor results we had.  We decided to brighten our day by heading to Honeydew Cove and its excellent dog play beach. 

At this point, we decided to head back to Sitka to spend a few days with the forecasted good weather.  Sitka is a lovely town and our earlier visit stop had been hampered by rain.  We left early the next day, Saturday, July 19, headed up Chatham Strait, turned NW at Peril Strait then timed the evening slack at Sergius Narrows.  We anchored the night in Schulze Cove, just south of the narrows.

We arrived back to Sitka in the sun the next morning, and immediately took Drake to the nearby dog park. We also walked to the Harbor Mountain Brewery for our lunch of pizza and a salad.  The flowers in the meadows through which the trail runs were in full bloom. The next day our friends David and Mary Kay from the Diesel Duck, Shearwater, returned to Sitka and they came over for appetizers in the evening. For our last day in Sitka, we got our ice cream fix from milk shakes at the classic-style fountain in the Harry Race Pharmacy.  We also picked up a fourth prawn pot at the LFS Marine Supply store.

We left Sitka the morning of July 23, retracing our route from a few days before. The stretch down Chatham Strait to the entrance of Takatz Bay (our anchorage for the night) was a real grind as we had head winds and an adverse current all of the way.

The next day had us heading further south to Gut Bay.  We dropped prawn pots in our usual spot and anchored in the south cove.  The winds coming from offshore traveling over the mountains of Baranof Island found their way into the anchorage until the late evening.

The next morning, July 25, we hauled up a mediocre numbers of prawns in our pots, decided not to reset and headed over to Honey Dew Cove. Once again, Drake applauded our decision when he got a couple of play sessions on the gravel beaches there.

From Honey Dew we timed our entrance to go into Wrangell Narrows on the dying flood current.  Shortly before the southern terminus of the Narrows, we pulled off and anchored on the SW side of Keene Island.  It was a new anchorage for us and came recommended by David Cohn on Shearwater.

The following morning we exited Wrangell Narrows, and made our way down Zimovia Strait along the west shore of Wrangell Island.  A gill net opening was scheduled to start at noon and we managed to get south of the area before the gill netters started to string their nets across the channel.  We dropped prawn pots before we headed into Thom's Place for the night. The weather was sunny but it also came with afternoon sea breezes that stayed a steady 15 knots until the sun began to set.

The next morning's prawn harvest was pretty good but we were in our "homeward bound" mode and so headed south to Santa Anna Inlet.  Prawn pots were dropped in Sunny Bay and on the south side of Deer Island before we anchored for the night.  Clouds had moved in so the afternoon sea breezes were absent.

We retrieved a disappointing number of prawns from the four pots we had set the day before, but being hopeful, we dropped two pots in Vixen Inlet.  After the pots were down, we anchored nearby in a somewhat exposed open bight.  Despite some early evening winds, the weather was kind to us and conditions were good overnight. 

With a very early start and retrieval of the prawn pots (a "so-so" haul), we headed down Clarence Strait to Ketchikan.  We arrived in Bar Harbor about 11:30 AM on Wednesday July 30.

Leg Statistics – 15 Days, 586 miles, 100.1 Engine Hours

Sitka to Juneau via Glacier Bay

The early summer weather in SE Alaska has been a real disappointment.  Even SE AK residents are apologizing for the weather rather than dismissing us lower 48ers as "weather wimps".  Fortunately, despite the weather, we got all our chores done and reprovisioned for the next leg in our cruise, but we did keep one eye on the doppler radar to evade the major showers that came through.

We left Sitka on July 1 and anchored that night in Kalinin Bay on the north side of Kruzof Island.  The next day, with a forecast for generally modest winds, we elected to travel an offshore route along the west side of Chichagof Island, cutting back inside via Lisianski Strait between Yakobi and Chichagof islands.  Sea conditions were good with a steady 10 knots of wind from the west and 2-3 foot seas, mostly slightly port of bow. John and Kathleen, with whom we had buddy-boated into Fords Terror, told us about the USFS public dock at Bohemia Creek on Yakobi Island.  The dock is associated with a USFS shelter on shore and in front of the shelter is a bit of "lawn" on which Drake could play ball.  

We headed towards Icy Strait and Glacier bay because we had obtained a permit in February for a July 9-13 entry into Glacier Bay National Park. The NPS operates a permit system because the number of private vessels allowed in Glacier Bay at a time is 25 (commercial vessels have different limits) with an individual's permit being no more than 5 days (4 nights) in length.  As we left Sitka, so that we could lengthen our stay in the park, we began putting in applications for a permit (you are allowed to have two permits at a time) to precede our original July 9 entry.  Obtaining a permit is a bit of "the luck of the draw" because starting in 2025, they are allocated through a lottery system.  On our third attempt, our application was picked such that we successfully received a 2-day permit starting July 7.

From Bohemia Creek we headed east into Icy Strait. As it turned out, Kathleen and John were in the same area of Icy Strait, having come the from opposite direction after dropping off some guests in Hoonah. They were fishing (successfully!) for halibut in Mud Bay. Rather than join them, elected to anchor a few miles north on the shallow stretch of water on theeast shore of Lemesurier Island.  Since the forecasted wind was for westerlies, the island did a fine job of sheltering us for the night.

The next morning we headed over to the spot where John & Kathleen had successfully caught halibuts. We were equally successful.  At the end of the fishing session, our two boats headed west towards North Inian Pass.  Our original destination was Mosquito Pass but we were concerned that other boats were already anchored there so elected to go into Inian Cove for the night.

The next morning, Laysan left early to catch favorable currents and conditions in order to head out Lisianski Strait and make their way into the protected anchorages Chichagof Island's west coast.  We had a more leisurely departure and made the 2-1/2 mile trip over to the anchorage in Mosquito Pass, where the boats from the night before had departed.  Besides being a lovely anchorage, it has a lovely beach offering Drake some fine ball play. While there, a flotilla of 6 sport fishing boats, presumably from one of the lodges in the nearby community of Elfin Cove, came over for picnic on the beach.

After two nights at anchor, on July 7 we got an early start east towards Glacier Bay.  We were delayed a bit when our anchor came up completely encased in bull kelp.  We were able to get it out of the water but the kelp prevent the anchor from being pulled into its secure position on the bow.  It took about 15 minutes, most of it while underway as the anchor was out of the water, to pick away at the kelp with a boat hook to clear the anchor.  Once in the park, we immediately went to the public dock in Bartlett Cove so that we could attend the annual boater orientation program required by the NPS.  That time on the dock also allowed us to top off our water tank and take Drake down to an area offering quite good ball play.  We were able to leave in time to catch the last of the flood current through Sitakaday Narrows.  Our anchorage for the night was Shag Cove in Geikie Inlet.

The next morning we headed up the west arm of Glacier Bay towards the Margerie Glacier.  At the head of Tarr Inlet, the Margerie glacier is the only tidewater glacier in the park fully accessible to cruise ships.  It probably has more photos taken of it than any other feature in the  Glacier Bay National Park.  We had been told at the visitor center than that it had recently calved a large piece of ice. There was a great deal of ice in the water but it was widely spaced and pretty easy to scoot around.  The area immediately in front of the glacial face was mostly clear of ice and we thought that face had receded significantly since we started visiting the park in 2010. After leaving the ice we anchored the night along the mainland shore NE of Russell Island.  This was new to us but we had seen other boats anchor here in the past.  Not an anchorage you'd use in a storm but in the settled conditions we had it was quite scenic.

From here we first passed by Gloomy Knob looking for mountain goats where we managed to spot four (we had also seen goats here the day before).  We then took a side trip down to South Marble Island to see the sea lion colonies and the bird nesting in the cliffs.  We headed north and went up the east arm of Glacier Bay.  We anchored the night off of a stream exiting from the south shore of Wachusset Inlet about 1-1/2 mile west of the where it joins with the east arm.  On our previous visit here in 2022 we saw two brown bears here but nothing this time.

The next day was a relatively short trip (17 miles) down to North Sandy Cove.  The forecast had rain and slightly elevated winds and North Sandy is one of the most protected anchorages in the park.  The small cruise ship Sea Wolf (https://seawolfadventures.net/) was anchored when we arrived but left a few hours after retrieving its guests from their kayak paddle.  After Sea Wolf left, we had the anchorage to ourselves.

For our last night in Glacier Bay we returned to Bartlett Cove.  When we first arrived we went to the public dock and took Drake to his ball play area.  We spent about an 1-1/2 hours on the dock so that we had time left on the "dock clock" (the NPS asks that you not spend more than 3-hours on the public dock in a 24-hour period).

On our last day in the park, July 12 (our original permit had us in the park until 7/13 but with the two extra days on the front end we amended the original permit to 4 days), after pulling the anchor we went to the public dock, took Drake for a ball play session then headed out. We managed to ebb out of Glacier Bay and hit the turn to flood current shortly after we turned east to head towards Juneau.  That night we anchored in Funter Bay on Admiralty Island.

With another early start, we left Funter Bay and arrived at Statter Harbor in Auke Bay about 8:30 AM on Sunday, July 13.  With both the seine and gill net commercial fishing boats having openings, and people taking their sport fishing boats out during the weekend, we've found that Sunday morning increases the probability of finding a space in the chaos of the open transient moorage of Statter Harbor. Our tasks in Juneau mainly involve reprovisioning at Costco (the only Costco store in SE Alaska) and Fred Meyers. Playing and walking Drake will fill up the rest of the time (mostly).

Leg Statistics – 13 Days, 379 miles, 64.3 Engine Hours

Petersburg to Sitka

After four days in Petersburg, we headed out on June 14 with plans to rendezvous with John & Kathleen (MV Laysan, sistership to Alpenglow) in four days at Tracy Arm Cove.  Until then, we were going to hit some anchorages we had never stayed in before.

First on the list was Cascade Creek in Thomas Bay.  John & Kathleen visit it often because of its proximity to Petersburg (<20 miles away).  In our past visits to Thomas Bay we've stayed in the Ruth Island Cove, just across the bay from Cascade Creek. Two other boats were already there but we followed John & Kathleen's instructions and found a fine anchorage nearby.  We launched our dinghy and motored over to the beach in front of the Cascade Creek Trail head. We only hiked a half-mile or so before coming back.  While the trail goes all the way to Swan Lake, it reportedly hasn't been maintained regularly and has blockages from tree falls.

The next day we stayed in Thomas Bay and motored 6-1/2 miles to Scenery Cove near the northeast corner. We arrived near low tide so took the dinghy to shore to see if the "sandy beach" we could see was suitable for Drake ball play. Sadly it was not suitable, being too water saturated. We were sinking several inches with each step and the sand clinging to our rubber boots. When we got back to the boat, it took many buckets of salt water to clean sand off and pump it mostly out of the dinghy.

After two days of relaxing, it was time to start fishing.  We traveled north around Cape Fanshaw and headed to Hobart Bay.  During our only visit to Hobart Bay in 2018 as we were going in, we noticed a float for a presumed prawn pot.  I noted its location on our electronic chart and this was going to be our chance to see if there was anything there.  We dropped two "test" pots as we went into the very protected NW Cove where we anchored for the night.

The next day, we went out to retrieve our test pots (hoping for good results) and then head to the Windham Bay, the next bay north.  As we exited the protected portion of Hobart Bay into the outer bay we noticed some pronounced waves buffeting us.  Retrieving the two pots became a real and unpleasant challenge but we were rewarded by a good number of prawns in one of the pots.  We proceeded north in Stephens Passage but it was clear that the conditions were not as forecasted (North 10 kts, Seas 2 ft or less).  A quick refresh of the National Weather Service forecast showed that it had been updated to North 20 kts, Seas 5 ft!  At the same time as were getting beat up, about 6 or 7 miles south of us, John and Kathleen were exiting Port Houghton and starting north with the intention of going to Holkham Bay to anchor in Tracy Arm Cove.  We were to join them the next day after we pulled the test prawn pots we were going to set in Windham Bay.  We both decided that it made no sense to bash into short steep heads so each of us turned around and went back to our previous anchorages, declare a "weather delay", and slide the schedule one day later.

Conditions were dramatically improved the next day and we did proceed to Windham Bay, drop two test pots and anchor the night in the "nook" on the south side of the bay's entrance. We retrieved them the following morning, harvesting a fine collection of prawns.  We then continued to Tracy Arm Cove in Holkham Bay, just inside the entrance bar to Tracy Arm.

John & Kathy had guests with them and they wanted to show them one of the supreme sights in SE Alaska, Fords Terror off of Endicott Arm.  We had never been there before, being intimidated by the name, the poor charting and its tricky entrance timing.  We jumped at the chance to tag along behind John & Kathleen who had been there five times previously.

The Juneau high tide time plus 50 minutes is the time John recommended for being at the entrance of Ford Terror. With a cushion so as not to be late at the entrance, for June 20 we agreed on 0540 departure from Tracy Arm Cove (an excellent description of entering Fords Terror is at the Slowboat web site). Having done it several times before, John went first and I followed.  The timing was excellent as neither the currents going over the shallow or at the 90-degree elbow were an issue.  I did have alarms from the some of my instruments that receive GPS signals when they temporarily lost their fix due to satellites being blocked by steep cliffs.

The hype about the scenery in Fords Terror is not overblown. There are an abundance of waterfalls and cascades over the rock faces which soar over the glassy waters. We were anchored in the West Arm and used our dinghy's to explore the East Arm. We spent three nights there and were fortunate to have all to ourselves the first night.  Four additional boats came in the second night and four more the third.

While our entrance to Fords Terror went smoothly, we felt a little more pressure when exiting as seven other boats were exiting on the high tide of June 23.  Though we weren't the first boat through, we did have six other boats, all faster than our stately pace, behind us.  Fortunately, everything was fine and once out of the narrow entrance channel any faster boats that needed, passed us by.

At this point, we parted ways with John & Kathleen as they needed to take their guests to Juneau where they would fly out while we were heading to Sitka. The timing of our exit meant that we had a late arrival to our anchorage in the West Brother Cove we like so much.  We spent two nights there so that Drake got to play on both of the gravel beaches bordering the cove.

We had lovely weather in Fords Terror, but after our second night in West Brother it began to change to clouds and chances of rain. We continued our journey towards Sitka stopping in Ell Cove on Baranof Island for the night.  During the low tide cycle, we got to watch a brown bear working the shoreline and looking for a meal.

From Ell Cove we traveled to Ushk Bay on Chichagof Island for one night then continued to Sitka the next morning.  It was raining in Sitka when we arrived but the winds were calm, making for an uneventful docking.  It didn't take long for Drake to have his first (of many) play session in Sitka at the nearby dog park.

Leg Statistics – 14 Days, 356 Miles, 61.2 Engine Hours