Ketchikan to Petersburg and the Little Norway Festival

Our Ketchikan stay ended up being a couple of days longer than we had hoped when some pretty stiff winds came up which push the forecasted in seas in Clarence Strait beyond our comfort range. Drake didn’t complain because he got a few extra walks and play session (when it wasn’t raining, anyway).

We left at first light on Saturday, May 13 with 15 to 20 knot winds on our stern.  Fortunatey, the seas were following and not annoying at all.  By the time we turned off of Clarence Strait into Ernest Sound, the winds were down to around 10 knots.  Before turning into Santa Anna Inlet for the night, we dropped some prawn traps to soak over night, our first fishing effort of the season.

We were the first boat in the anchorage that day (another boat came in later) and we went close to its head and dropped our anchor. The winds were light but there were clouds which ultimately unloaded a good dose of rain at night.

The next morning we went out and pulled the pots, harvesting a sufficient number of prawns to warrant resetting them. We then returned to Santa Anna for a second night.

While in Ketchikan we learned that the Alaska Fish & Game Department had moved the commercial prawning season from beginning on October 15 to May 15.  When we went out to retrieve our second set, we could see several commercial prawn fishing boats preparing to drop pots at the official start time of 8 AM.  As we retrieved our last pot, a commercial boat came by and confirmed whether we were resetting (we were not), then proceeded to drop a string of its own in the area we had just vacated.

Our original plan after retrieving our pots near Santa Anna Inlet was to travel a bit further up Ernest Sound to reset prawn pots in an area we had fished last year. After seeing the activity by commercial boats we decided to not get in their way by putting our meager three down.. Instead we headed directly towards Berg Bay, an anchorage in Eastern Passage (east of Wrangell Island). As we headed towards it we saw two other pleasure craft coming from the other direction head in and anchor.  Deciding the “two’s company, three’s a crowd” we elected to bypass Berg Bay ending up in Roosevelt Harbor on Zarembo Island. This also allowed us to arrive in Petersburg a day earlier.

The next morning, May 16, we departed our anchorage and timed our entry into Wrangell Narrows so that we arrived in Petersburg at “high slack” (the slack current accompanying high tide).  The harbor in Petersburg is infamous for the amount of current that flows across its docks.  It can be a humbling experience to dock when the currents are strong. Our docking was uneventful and we tied up just near where our sistership Laysan, owned by Kathleen and John Douglas, has a permanent berth..

The main reason we left Puget Sound as early as we did was to arrive in Petersburg before the start of the Little Norway Festival. Petersburg was established by Scandinavian settlers and has an annual festival held on the weekend near May 17, the Norwegian holiday of Constitution Day. It had been about five years since we had last attended.

Besides ourselves, we were expecting Kathleen & John, who were returning on 5/17 to their boat, Laysan, and our friends Natala & Don Goodman. Natala & Don arriving on 5/18 in their float plane.

All of us had an excellent time at the festival, attending many of the events (especially the ones involving food). Marcia even joined Kathleen & John on a 4-1/2 mile run/walk working off some calories.

The main events of the Little Norway Festival ran from Friday, May 19 through Sunday, May 21. Don & Natala flew off on Monday to stay at a US Forest Service cabin on a mountain lake SE of Juneau. John & Kathleen returned to their list of chores to get Laysan ready for anther cruising system. We continued to fritter our time ashore in Petersburg and targeted to leave later in the week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(The good photos are courtesy of Kathleen and John Douglas, the others are mine)

Cruise 2023 – Let the Fun Begin – Bainbridge to Ketchikan

After a cooler and wetter than normal April, we cast off lines under clear skies in the early hours of April 29. Our destination for our first day was Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes where upon entering we promptly tied up to the fuel dock and filled 1044 gallons of diesel aboard. 

Our normal practice is to fill at the end of the prior season but with fuel well above $5/gallon at the time we decided to take a chance that they would go down before we took off in 2023.  Fortunately, our bet paid off and we only paid $4.30/gallon (now down to $4.19 but who counting those 1044 x $0.11 = $114.84 anyway).  That fill should cover our travel this summer until we depart Alaska at which time we’ll take on a few hundred gallons for the southbound trip.

Our practice is to go to Alaska relatively quickly then linger in BC on the return trip.  We got pretty good at fast trips in 2020 and 2021 when direct and expeditious trips through BC were required.  After leaving Anacortes we traveled first to Nanaimo through the protected waters of the Gulf Island. The next day was the slog up the Strait of Georgia to Gorge Harbor in preparation for dealing with bottleneck of narrow channels getting into Johnstone Strait.

We’ve developed a liking to the “middle route” that cuts through the Octopus Island (the other two routes either go via Seymour Narrows or the Yuculta/Gillard/Dent trio),. From Gorge Harbor we made our way to the Hole-in-the-Wall for the evening slack before the ebb.  The narrowest section of Hole-in-the-Wall, Upper Rapids and Lower Rapids are all relatively close and we were able to scoot though them in less than an hour. Our anchorage for the night was Otter Cove just south of Chatham Point in Discovery Passage.

With the good weather, we started the next morning at first light and were able to ride ebb current nearly to the western tip of Cracroft Isand in Johnstone Strait. After a little bit of slogging through Blackney Passage we popped into Queen Charlotte Sound and made our way to Lady Boot Cove (aka, “East of Eden”) for the night.

The forecasted conditions at Cape Caution for the next day weren’t bad but they were expected to be better the day after, May 5.  We elected to do a short day from Lady Boot Cove to Blunden Harbour to position ourselves a bit closer to Cape Caution.

The west wind blew steadily at about 15 kts overnight but were forecast to lay down as the day progressed. It was bouncy, primarily wind waves rather than swell, for the first few hours but it was more annoying than anything.  Because of ebb current coming out of Slingsby Channel, which can create rough conditions from the incoming swell or wind waves meeting the outgoing current, we elected to angle out beyond the Storm Islands before setting a more northerly route towards Cape Caution.  We dropped the stabilizing “fish” into the water to reduce our rolling as we became more beam to the seas.  As forecasted, the conditions improved and the run into Fitz Hugh Sound was uneventful.  Taking advantage of the fine weather, we pushed to Fancy Cove in Lama Passage for the night.

We saw (via AIS) several pleasure craft come out of Port Alexander on Nigel Island the take Gordon Channel out beyond Pine Island before turning north towards Cape Caution. We’ve not gone that way before but it looked intriguing and we might try that route in the future.

From Fancy Cove, we headed out Seaforth Channel around Ivory Island, into Milbanke Sound and north into Findlayson Channel. North of Klemtu we took Sarah Passage into Tolmie Channel and finally Graham Reach.  We anchored at the “Green Spit” bar partway into Khutze Inlet for the night.

The next morning we continued the northbound journey up Grenville Channel and into Chatham Sound.  Vessel traffic was light although the BC Ferry, Northern Adventure, en route from Port Harday on Vancouver Island to Prince Rupert passed us along the way. We spent the night in the southeast facing bay formed by the two Kinahan Islands near the entrance channel for Prince Rupert. Conditions were settled and what wind there were came from the NW.

In the late morning, we crossed into Alaska waters uneventfully with good sea conditions.  As we motored up the channel between Duke Island and the mainland, we used the CBP Roam app on our phone and obtained our clearance number. We always like a morning arrival at Ketchikan on account of (usually) lighter winds so rather than pushing on to port we dropped the anchor in the outer cove of Kah Shakes. Like the previous anchorage it is a fair weather anchorage but was perfectly fine in the conditions we had.

A very early start (helped by the switching to Alaska Daylight Time) allowed us to arrive in Ketchikan at 9 AM on May 9 in the Bar Harbor marina, ten days from our Bainbridge Island departure.