June 21 to July 1 – Exploring the the Area

Our first set of guests are arriving in Wrangell on July 4.  We want to be in Wrangell on July 1 to get the boat cleaned and  to enjoy the holiday celebrations (the Harbor Master advised us that Wrangell takes its Independence Day holiday pretty seriously). We used the days before our return to Wrangell to explore areas we passed through quickly last year en route to Juneau.

On June 21, we left Wrangell after lunch to travel a short distance to St John Harbor on the north end of Zarembo Island. The route from here goes through the Wrangell Narrows, a sometimes busy, narrow and shallow channel to Petersburg. A slow boat like ours ought to time its transit near slack, as well. We could have done it that evening and spent the night in Petersburg but we elected to do it the next morning and spend the night at anchor in St John Harbor. We did get to stare regularly at a derelict hull washed up on the shore. We don’t know its history.

The day’s mileage was 20.8 with the cumulative total at 920.9. The anchor site was here.

June 22 was an oh-dark thirty start to hit Wrangell Narrows as we planned. The trip through was a bit easier than last year because the visibility was better and the current was less. We continued past Petersburg and aimed for Thomas Bay. A few miles north of Petersburg we were hailed on the radio by Josh, the captain of Ursa Major. Marcia spent about seven weeks on Ursa Major in early 2006 crewing a transit from Baja to Seattle. Ursa Major is a 65-foot wood trawler that takes guests on tours in Alaska and Baja. We crossed paths with Ursa Major about four times last year.

At the northeast end of Thomas Bay the Baird Glacier has receded back from the water’s edge but still is visible. The aptly named inlet called Scenery Cove is a short distance from there. Unfortunately, the depths here were a bit deeper than we like so we continued to the south end of the bay and anchored in the cove at the SE corner of Ruth Island.

The sun was bright and the boat warmed up nicely. I took a nap in the afternoon (on account of the early start, of course) while Marcia did her fish gear fussin’. We did not bother with our crab pots because commercial crabbers had amply covered the area with their pots.

Distance traveled today was 52.6 bringing the total to 973.5. We anchored here.

On June 23 we continued our voyage up the east shore of Frederick Sound and rounded Cape Fanshaw. While we saw a few humpback whales in the distance, we didn’t get show that we did last year with a pod of whales actively feeding relatively near.

Wanting to explore areas we hadn’t been, we headed east into Port Houghton just north of Cape Fanshaw and anchored in Sanborn Canal. While the Douglass “Exploring SE Alaska” describes this area as seldom visited it speaks well of it. We shared the anchorage with three other boats.

One of the boats had a styling similar to the classic George Buehler Diesel Duck with which our boat shares a heritage. As it turns out, we saw Gray Pelican in 2007 on the extended cruise we did that summer on our previous boat.

The rain began to fall shortly after we arrived and continued steadily through the night.

We traveled 54.0 miles bringing us to 1027.5 total nautical miles since leaving Seattle. Our anchor site was here.

The next morning, June 24, the rains became less steady and more “occasional.” We crossed Stephens Passage towards Gambier Bay. We saw more whale activity but nothing very close. Based on the positions where we observed the whales diving, they were feeding at the upwellings associated with underwater terrain changes.

The entrance to Gambier Bay is very scenic, the route working its way through many islands. The bay itself is quite large and Snug Cove, our anchorage, was hardly what I would call snug. It could easily hold a dozen boats at good anchoring depths and ample swinging room.

The trip was 30.3 miles, increasing the total miles to 1057.8. We anchored here.

Having been on the move steadily the last several days, on June 25 we took a rest day. We dropped two crab pots amongst the commercial pots also scattered throughout the cove, our prawn trap and went fishing. Of all those activities, only the fishing was productive. Marcia pulled in a 25 inch halibut (weight undetermined). After cleaning, Marcia got three 2-person portions from it. One went into the freezer and the other two were retained for consumption in the next couple of days.

We motored the next day, June 26, southwest towards Pybus Bay. We to the scenic route between the Brother Islands and inspected, from the outside, the anchorage on the west side of the West Brother. Josh on the Ursa Major speaks highly of it but the charts are poor and rocks are around so we wanted to eye-ball it before trying it sometime in the future.

We continued on to Cannery Cove in Pybus Bay. A fishing resort is at the entrance to the cove but the anchoring site is a mile or more further in. Later we were joined by two other vessels. But were bigger than we were so they stayed further out.

The cove is quite scenic with a large mountain cirque rising above a meadow. During our time there, we saw bears twice. The first time was a sow with two adolescents. Since Cannery Cove is on Admiralty Island, the bears were brown bears (aka grizzly) since those are the only type of bears on the island. Later we saw it a solo bear. Based on its color (it was darker), it was a different bear than seen earlier.

We covered 32.8 miles (a total of 1090.6) to get here.

We remained at anchor June 27 to again try our hand at catching local seafood. In a reversal of our experience in Snug Cove, the crab traps gave us one nice keeper crab, the prawn trap gave us 16 prawns (8 spot and 8 striped) but fishing drew a blank.

While we were harvesting local seafood, another “crew member” was harvesting horse flies. We aren’t sure where we picked up our spiders, but after their display of ridding us of flying pests we are glad they came aboard.

The next day, June 28, we departed across Frederick Sound to another area we hadn’t visited. We tucked into a lovely anchorage called Honeydew Cove on Kuiu Island. This certainly met my definition of a cove as you’d be hard pressed to put more than two boats in here. 

While we didn’t visit the beach, it looked lovely and inviting for a later trip. A rock cliff at the end of the beach even had a stone arch to add to the ambiance. The only draw back, which we were not to discover until the next day, was huge amounts of kelp on the bottom. Fortunately our anchor apparently penetrated it as when we tested the anchor before shutting down the engine, it was fine.

The day’s journey was 25.7 miles for a total of 1116.3. We anchored here.

When we hoisted the anchor on June 29, we had extra 8-10 minutes to clear the kelp from the anchor and chain. When the anchor cleared the water, you couldn’t see the anchor through all of the kelp draped over it. Raking the kelp off with the boat hook eventually cleared most of it off.

Keeping with the spirit of exploration on this loop, rather than returning to Petersburg and the Wrangell Narrows, we used Rocky Pass to go from Frederick Sound to Stephens Passage. We read the various guides, reviewed blogs and accounts posted on the Internet and studied the charts ahead of time. We timed our transit to hit a key section, Devils Elbow, at high slack (i.e., high tide before the water begins to ebb out).

The chart clip to the left shows the tight turns through the navigation markers. The circles around the route waypoints are 100 yards in radius (200 yard diameter). The numbers on the chart show the zero tide depths in feet not fathoms (6-feet). Since we draw nearly 6 feet, at zero tide we’d only have 3 or so feet under the keel. Fortunately, we had an extra 12 or so feet on account of it being high tide but seeing only 16 feet on the depth sounder does give you pause. The route is well charted so using electronic aids made the route feasible for us.

As we exited Rocky Pass, the wind increased to the 20-25 knots on our nose. While not uncomfortable, pounding our way through head seas to our anchorage in La Bourchere Bay on Prince of Wales Island was tiring. Our distance for the day was 51.2 miles bringing the total distance to 1167.5. Our anchor site was here.

After listening to the weather radio on June 30, we expected another bouncy ride but they never showed up, although we did have some heavy rain showers. We could have made it to Wrangell but we elected to anchor again at St John Harbor on Zarembo Island. We want to find space on the Reliance Dock in Wrangell and it fills up more in the afternoon. We figured a mid-day arrival would give us a better chance.

Distance traveled was 29.1 miles, a total of 1196.6. The anchor site was here, less than two boat lengths from our June 21 anchorage.

The wind was blowing pretty briskly as pulled anchor on July 1 and made our way to Wrangell. Fortunately, we got on to the Reliance Dock during a lull as the direction of the wind was blowing us off. We covered 20.9 miles, a total of 1217.5. Our position on the dock is here.

During the eleven days of our Fredericks Sound loop, we covered 317.4 miles while putting on 53.3 engine hours.