Sitka Soggy Sitka

Keeping with our 2023 “style” of cruising, we’ve been staying in the Sitka area the last two weeks. The first five days after we arrived on June 3, we were on the dock.  We did lots of walks around town and on the nearby trails.  Drake was able to get two play sessions a day at the dog park a short distance from the harbor.

We did leave on June 8 with the intent to poke around south of Sitka on the west coast of Baranof Island. Our first night was at Dorothy Cove in Necker Bay a bit over 40 miles of cruising from Sitka. Most of that distance is actually protected by islands from direct ocean swell. We had one exposed section of about 5 miles for which we put our stabilizing “fish” in the water to lessen the roll from the incoming waves hitting us on our starboard side.  They did dampen the boat’s motion and improve Drake’s experience and, hopefully reduce his anxiety.

Unfortunately, about that time the weather became a bit colder and drearier. After two nights in Dorothy Cove and with a forecast for windier conditions, we decided to get back north of the exposed open coast section.  We stayed one night each at Jamboree Bay and Sevenfathom Bay before heading to Leesoffskaia Bay, a few miles south of Sitka.  The temperatures remained cool with highs in low 50’s and low’s in the mid 40’s.. Winds were generally 10 to 20 knots with occasional rain showers.  Not exactly the weather for lounging on deck.

After two nights in Leesoffskaia, we traveled the short six miles to Sitka Harbor and tied up at the transient dock on June 14. Since arriving, a strong front has passed by dropping over 1.5 inches of rain and bringing high winds with accompanying heavy seas off shore. We’ll stay a few more days on the dock waiting for a forecasted period of fine weather then head north.

Petersburg to Sitka – Soaking it all in

Besides our goal this year of attending the Petersburg Little Norway Festival, we had a goal of slowing down our pace and spending more time along the route. Part of the reason is to give the third member of our crew, Drake, our ship’s dog, more time ashore. The other is that Marcia has decided not to pursue a chinook salmon this season. The last couple of years we’ve invested considerable time and effort in their pursuit. At least for this season, we’ll see if we can get comparable enjoyment traveling more leisurely.

Certainly we started off on the right foot by spending 9 nights in Petersburg.  It is a lovely town with wonderful trails for walking,.but we finally cast off our lines early morning on Thursday, May 25. While we had good conditions when we left, deteriorating conditions were forecasted. We headed towards Henry’s Arm in Pybus Bay, an anchorage we find more comfortable in stormy conditions than the nearby Cannery Cove. We did drop several prawn pots in the bay before anchoring.

The forecast proved to be correct and the next morning was a windier and a bit drippy.  We checked the wind reports at nearby automated stations and conditions were consistent with the forecast, about 15 knots.  We knew we were going to spend a second night in Henry’s Arm but decided to retrieve our prawn pots rather than having to do them the next day before moving to a new anchorage.  The wind was out of the south as was the current from the incoming tide. We approached the pots from the south to keep from “tripping” over the line as we pulled the pots in.  With wind and current boosting us along, we approached the floats pretty fast and Marcia had to work quickly to snag the line and bring it aboard. Once Marcia snags the line, I come down from the flybridge upper helm to help retrieve the line.  We don’t have a pot puller so we retrieve the line by hand which was quite a workout in the conditions. The first two pots had poor results the last one made all our efforts worthwhile.

The next morning conditions were similar but the wind direction was forecasted to be more easterly. We hoped it would be more of a quartering wind rather a pounding head-on.  We angled across Fredrick Sound towards the NE corner of Kuiu Island. The winds were 15-20 knots but the seas were not too bad (although Drake did not agree with that assessment). Our destination was Honeydew Cove which is tight to shore with a couple of sea stacks protecting it.  The wind abated in the last quarter mile as we approached the anchorage.  One of the features of Honeydew is its gentle (by SE Alaska standards, anyway) sand and gravel beach.  In addition, there are some flattish spots with grass-like vegetation between the shore and the forest, a perfectly acceptable ball play area for Drake.  And it was a perfectly acceptable anchorage in which to spend a second night, so we did.

Our next stop was to Warm Springs Bay on Baranof Island.  It is a popular destination because of its scenic nearby cascade from Baranof Lake, the secure dock and the access to hot springs fed tubs or a lovely pool next to the river. Because it can get quite “zoo-like” during the summer, we had not been here since our first cruise to Alaska in 2010.  The current from the cascade can make docking a challenge so we came in near low tide when a rock spit at the cascade’s mouth bared itself and redirected most of the current away from the dock.

The dock, now managed by the Sitka Harbor Department, was replaced sometime after our 2010 visit and is in good repair.  A small community of homes are nearby and serviced by a board walk that connects to the dock. There are anchorages nearby but we wanted the easy access to shore of simply stepping off the boat. We even found a flat-ish patch of ground covered by grass-like vegetation that served as Drake’s ball play area. We spent three nights on the Warm Springs Bay dock, walking the 1/2 mile or so to Baranof Lake once or twice a day, taking the occasional soak in the hot tubs, watching the other boats that came in, and relaxing (not sure what from, though)..Several mating pairs of harlequin ducks were foraging along the shores nearby. 

From here we continued up Chatham Strait then Peril Strait and tucked into Baby Bear Bay just east of Sergius Narrows for a night.  Our last night before Sitka was in the outer cove of DeGroff Bay on Krestof Island.  On June 3, we made the short 11-mile cruise into the busy Sika Harbor.                

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.

2022 Wrap Up

Upon returning to our winter moorage, we are often asked what was the highlight of our cruising season.  I think this year the ability to leisurely cruise the British Columbia coastline stands out.  The previous two years, 2020 and 2021, were races up and down the coast between the BC-WA border and the BC-AK border.  In the Covid years we did those routes in six long days with only four or five anchorages along the route.  This year, it was 12 days/11 stops northbound and 36 days/35 stops southbound. 

Another highlight was the number of new (to us) places we visited. We went to 14 new anchorages, one new mooring buoy (Bailey Bay on Behm Canal) and one new marina (Port Browning on Pender Island).  Many of the new anchorages were on Southeast side of Kuiu Island. Its nice to know that without much effort, we can visit places we haven’t been before.

We are getting totally accustomed to cruising with our ship’s dog, Drake, on board. While he is a good trooper, has never been sea sick (yet) and knows exactly where on the boat to do his “business” (the bow near the windlass where it is easy to clean), it is absolutely clear from his joy when we drop the kayaks to paddle to shore or tie up at a dock, he’d prefer that we never leave the dock. His explanation is that we could then play with him and his ball several times a day. We’ve reached a compromise and now try to spend an extra day at the dock beyond what our shore tasks might require.

The final numbers for the trip are 139 days/138 nights out (88 nights at anchor, 3 nights on mooring buoys, 47 nights at the dock). We were fortunate to have the solitude of being the only boat in the anchorage 41 nights.  We traveled 3584 nautical miles and put on 613.6 engine hours.  Of that, 42.9 hours were idling associated with fishing or sightseeing.  We only had to run our generator for 18 hours.

The map below shows all of our stops this last cruising season. Clicking on one of the “drop 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.

NOTE: – The map was updated in November 2025 to include the tracks of our cruise.  Color changes are merely to help differentiate one day’s travel from another and denote nothing special with the exception of “green” for the first day of travel and “red” for the last day. As these tracks are our actual route and not our intended route, you may notice deviations from a straight path to accommodate other vessel traffic, sea conditions, temporary stops in order time a narrows, or fishing.

Port McNeill to Eagle Harbor – The Last Leg

We departed Port McNeill on Monday, 8/29 with blue skies and calm winds. Timing the currents in this run down Johnstone Strait so that they were favorable (or at least not horribly adverse)  pushed us towards mid-day travel rather than our preferred morning hours. 

Our destination for the night was Port Harvey on Cracroft Island. While in Johnstone Strait and approaching the turn-off for Port Harvey, we saw ahead what we first thought was a sea lion cruising by but turned out to be a black bear swimming across Johnstone Strait from Vancouver Island to Cracroft Island. We’ve seen bears swimming across channels in Alaska and BC before but this one was paddling across waters that are frequented by orca (i.e., killer whales).  The orca here are probably focused on the migrating salmon but there could be the odd-ball whale that might want to expand its diet a bit.

The next morning, again because of the current timing, we didn’t leave the anchorage until about 10 AM.  While waiting, we watched some of the migratory fowl paddle by.  While mostly Canadian geese, we did see a lovely pair of Trumpeter swan.  According to Wikipedia, they are the heaviest living native bird in North American.  Seeing them next to a Canadian goose, the size difference is striking (forgot to take a picture).

While we hit Race Passage exactly at slack (or more precisely, “slack-ish”), our timing at Seymour Narrows was early.  Rather that jetting through with 7+ knots of current we killed an hour by checking out Small Inlet in Kanish Bay on Quadra Island.  We still had 5+ knots of current boosting us through Seymour and got twisted and turned by boils and whirlpools that extend for a mile or two downstream of the narrow section.  We joined several other boats in Gowlland Harbor for the night.

The next day we slogged our way south down the Strait of Georgia and anchored in Northwest Harbour about 10 miles north of Nanaimo. It is well protected from the SE winds that were blowing at the time.

An early start got us to Dodd Narrows about a half-hour after slack but fortunately it was the slack before the ebb.  We scooted through in no time and made our way to Montague Harbour on Galliano Island.  The presence of a marina, with restaurant and store serving ice cream, and a BC Provincial park, with a grass field for ball play, made it an attractive destination for all onboard.  We spent three nights here.

Continuing our leisurely cruise style, on Labor Day, 9/5, we traveled 11 miles to Lyall Harbour on Saturna Island.  We’ve often used this anchorage as our jumping off point for a short hop across to US waters, but in all those times we never taken the dinghy over to the public dock in Lyall Harbour and gone to the pub just above the dock.  We enjoyed a delightful lunch on an outside and dog-friendly deck with a view of Plumper Sound.

The next morning we made and even shorter 4-1/2 mile trip to Port Browning Marina on North Pender Island.  Our yacht club designates Port Browning as a satellite outstation and we are able to moor at a reduced rate.  It too has a pub with an outside deck.  It also serves ice cream in its onsite store and has ample fields in which we could engage in ball play with Drake.  Once again, everyone is happy.

In the small world category, while in Port Browning, we met Chris and Sandy who own the classic Diesel Duck Moken which is in Langkawi, Malaysia. On account of Covid they have not visited their boat for two years.  They were on the boat when Covid first became an epidemic and spent several months on board and not able to cruise anywhere before being able to return to their home in Canada on Pender Island.

We finally made the return to the US on 9/8, anchoring briefly in Roche Harbor in order to go to shore, mail an oil sample for analysis taken during the oil change in Port McNeill, get ice cream and play with Drake in the local dog park.  After those “chores”, we continued on to Garrison Bay for two nights.  The English Camp National Historical Park is situated on Garrison Bay and has a dinghy dock giving shore access to several miles of trails. One of the trails goes to the Westcott Bay Shellfish Company which, during the summer months, has a restaurant serving lunch. Not surprisingly, oysters are featured on the menu. Marcia did a excellent job of shucking a half-dozen raw oysters of the dozen oysters we ate.

Our penultimate cruising destination was Deer Harbor on Orcas Island. Our yacht club leases dock space at the Deer Harbor Marina and we ended up having that space to ourselves for three nights. The rest of the marina, however, was quite busy and we watched boats come and go.  One of the boats that arrived was the “older sister” ship to ours, “Umiak.”  The owners, Ann & Jim, purchased it from the first owner about three years ago.  They live in Minnesota but the boat stays in Sidney, about ten or so miles north of Victoria, BC.

We took the final leg of our summer cruise on Tuesday, 9/13 and crossed, with generally favorable currents, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, plodded down Admiralty Inlet, and found our way into Eagle Harbor.  We were secured to the dock where the boat will spend the winter with the engine off at 1845.

Ketchikan to Port McNeil

Our 2022 southbound journey was a return to our pre-Covid cruising practice. We typically like to cross Dixon Entrance into British Columbia the end of July or first part of August. Our experience is that August weather in SE Alaska is a transition to more Fall like conditions with increased wind and rain.  That was certainly the case this year.

We left Ketchikan on Wednesday, August 3.  We stopped at the fuel dock as we left and took on 300 gallons of diesel.  When we compared SEAK fuel prices with those in Puget Sound, we saw it was nearly a dollar a gallon less in Puget Sound so only took on enough for an ample safety margin for the trip home..

The general flow of cruising boats is south and as we headed out, we saw via AIS five other boats positioning to cross Dixon Entrance. It is about 85 miles from Ketchikan to Prince Rupert so most boats like ours split the trip up so that they aren’t arriving in Prince Rupert too late in the day.  Foggy Bay, about 38 miles from Ketchikan, is a popular stop but we prefer an anchorage closer to the border.  We headed to Sitklan Passage Cove which leaves us with only a 39 mile trip the next day to Prince Rupert.

The last two years, when we were doing direct transits through Canada, we’d did a “touch and go” immigration clearance in Prince Rupert and did not stay the night. This year, we made reservations at the Cow Bay Marina for two nights so that we could reprovision in Prince Rupert with “freshies” (Canada prohibits the importation of certain vegetables, fruit and raw meats) for our slower southbound journey.  Additionally Drake could get ample ball play on some of the lush grass in the Prince Rupert parks.

After two nights, we took off from Prince Rupert and headed out to Bell Passage, about 18 miles west so that Marcia could try her hand at catching a Coho salmon.  Alas, after 2 hours she’d only hooked a pink salmon which she released and we moved onto Kelp Passage Cove for the night.The weather forecast was indicating sunny weather in the upcoming days but they would be accompanied by strong northwesterly winds.  While they would have been generally on our stern, which is usually a more comfortable direction, we decided we’d pull a long day before the winds arrived and head to McMicking Inlet on Campania Island.  In 2020, we stopped at McMicking after our 236-mile overnight dash north up the coast and found such rest and relief in the anchorage that we’ve been wanting to go back ever since (first impressions matter).

We spent two nights at McMicking and found it lovely but our activities were restricted by the strong NW winds that arrived as forecasted.  The lovely sand beach at the entrance of the inlet was about 2 miles from our anchorage and we decided that using the dinghy in the choppy conditions that the wind was kicking up in the inlet would not be pleasant so we never got down to them. Perhaps next time.

Our next stop was Chapple Inlet on Princess Royal Island. On the way we trolled along the SE shore of Campania Island and Marcia landed a Coho salmon.  We spent a couple of nights at the head of Chapple Inlet before continuing the southbound journey through Laredo Channel. That night, we anchored off Quigley Creek at the south end of Laredo Inlet.

While we had hoped to spend more time fishing the outer channels, the weather forecast was suggesting we’d have better conditions further south near Bella Bella and Shearwater. The next morning, despite some fog, we made our way through Meyers Passage, across Finlayson Channel to Jackson Passage and anchored in Rescue Bay on Susan Island.

Our change in fishing venue was vindicated when the next day, after exiting through Percival Narrows into Seaforth Channel, Marcia caught a large Coho. The next four nights we anchored in various spots in the Seaforth Channel area while fishing with some success.

As a reward to Drake for putting up with our fishing schedule, we headed over to Ocean Falls for two nights where Drake would have shore access for walks and ball play. He even got to cool off in a small stream on one of our walks.

At this point, we were nearly two weeks out from Prince Rupert and decided to head over to Shearwater Marina and forage for some fresh fruit and produce. While there, we crossed paths with fellow Queen City Yacht Club members Barbara and Tom Wilson (MV Toba). Also spending the night at Shearwater Marina was the seven boat flotilla from NW Explorations (one trip leader boat and six charter boats).

From Shearwater we continued south into Fitz Hugh Sound where we spent six nights. We fished many days in the area and Marcia continued to catch salmon. 

One of our nights at anchor was in Pruth Bay from which, through the courtesy of the Hakai Institute, you can access some lovely beaches on the ocean side of Calvert Island. While returning along the trail from North Beach to West Beach, we had a very close encounter with a wolf. Marcia was in the lead, followed by Drake then Kurt, holding Drake's leash, in the rear. Marcia heard running ahead of her and looked up to see a wolf running towards her along the trail. She made the decision to start shrieking in her loudest voice to startle the wolf. The wolf gets about 10 feet away from her and darts to Marcia’s right (the wolf's left) up a shallow drainage. Within five or so seconds of Marcia first hearing the wolf's foot fall, it was out of sight into the vegetation along the drainage. We made continued (briskly) to West Beach and saw multiple wolf tracks in the sand that had not been there when we traveled it an hour or so earlier.

Since the wolf exhibited no aggression during our brief encounter and made haste to get away from us, we figure it was simply happenstance our paths crossed.  The under growth is quite thick so the trails are the preferred route to travel when trying to get somewhere. The sightlines were blocked by vegetation, the wind was light and we weren’t talking so the wolf may have not known we were on the trail heading toward him until he turned the corner on the trail as it wound its way through the forest.

For our last anchorage before rounding Cape Caution, we used the very popular Fury Cove on Penrose Island. We took Drake to shore for play on the sandy beach on one of the small islands bordering the cove.

While not bad conditions, we did keep our stabilizing “fish” in the water for about six hours from north of Cape Caution until we were well into Queen Charlotte Strait and sheltered from ocean swell. The winds were out of the north and strong enough that when we docked in Port McNeill, we were glad the marina had a spot on which we were blown rather than off of.

We are spending three nights in Port McNeill for boat chores (its time to change the engine oil again), relaxation and better weather (strong SE winds are forecasted). We are happy to find out that two new eateries have opened up in town (Lata’s Kitchen and Devil’s Bath Brewing) and are trying both of them while here (postscript: both were good and recommended).

Juneau to Ketchikan

After six nights in Juneau we headed out of Auke Bay on July 12 headed towards Gambier Bay, on Admiralty Island. It turned into a real slog between Douglas and Admiralty Island as we had an adverse current instead of the predicted favorable current.

Once in Gambier Bay, we anchored in the SE arm of Snug Cove which is smaller and less used than the larger area to the west. We ended up spending three nights here while we tried to find a productive prawn area.  After six pots in three locations with mediocre results, we’re scratching Gambier Bay off the list of prime prawning areas..

The weather at this point has become more unsettled with a series of weak fronts separated by only modest sun breaks.  At least the temperatures are moderate and we haven’t had to run the furnace to heat the boat.

Fortunately, one of the sun breaks coincided with a stop at the lovely West Brother Island anchorage.  Drake got to play on the beach there before high tide took it away.

With another soggy front forecasted, we headed to the village of Kake on Kupreanof Island for a couple of nights where we’d have shore access for walks.  While there we reconnected with our yacht club friends, Ann and Craig on Shot-8, whom we had last seen in Sitka about a month earlier.

From Kake we headed to a rendezvous in Security Bay on Kuiu Island with Kathleen and John who cruise on our sistership Laysan.  While we’ve met up with them in Petersburg several times we’ve never anchored out with them. The next morning, we first fished for halibut near them by Kingsmill Point (they were successful, we weren’t) before going our separate ways. They were headed out towards Sitka while we headed back into Fredrick Sound..

With another front coming through, we decided to spend the time in Cannery Cove at Pybus Bay. While very scenic and often with good bear viewing, Cannery Cove is  open to the east and doesn’t offer great protection from weather out of the southeast.  It was a little bouncy and slightly annoying at times.

After two nights in Cannery Cove, we headed out to fish for halibut at a spot than had worked for us last year.  Unfortunately, the spot is not at all protected and the weather hadn’t quieted down enough for us to fish it so we headed over to fish Cleveland Passage just north of Cape Fanshaw which is relatively protected.  Marcia managed to pull in one halibut before we left for our anchorage that night at Read Island Cove in Farragut Bay.

An early start from there saw us through Wrangell Narrows with the morning high slack and we docked in the Reliance Harbor in Wrangell that afternoon. Once again, another front was forecasted for SE Alaska and we decided it’d be more pleasant at the dock than in an anchorage.

After three nights in Wrangell, we headed out with better weather forecast in hand down the East Passage and anchored in Berg Bay.  We had stopped there in May on the northbound part of the trip and enjoyed it because of easy shore access to an area for Drake to play, which he did again on this return visit.

We continued a down East Passage and into Blake Channel and anchored in Fools Inlet. Part of the reason for our taking the route we did was to look for new prawn sites so we dropped prawn pots hoping to stumble on the “motherlode” of prawn sites (spoiler alert, we didn’t find it). Next we went to Santa Anna Inlet for a night and finally to Vixen Harbor. 

We had looked at the write-up for Vixen Harbor every time we had passed it during our travels in Ernest Sound.  The charts suggest is virtually impassible but the guides say it is doable but requires careful navigation.  Recently, I came across the very complete description provided by Kevin Morris of the Slowboat website.  Fortified by his description and overhead drone images, we entered its narrow channel and anchored uneventfully. 

After watching the entrance channel through a tide cycle and taking the kayak through it with a handheld depth sounder, its least depth (zero tide) seems about 8-feet.  A mid-channel route is probably safe but at high tide, favor (ever so slightly) the west side of the channel (starboard side while entering) as it seems to be a bit steeper.  When exiting, we waited for a rising tide and a tide level of about 6-feet before leaving.

From Vixen Harbor we headed down a docile Clarence Strait and, rather than arriving in Ketchikan in the evening, we went to Deep Bay off of Moser Bay.  Friends Brenda & Pete have a cabin here and Brenda came out to our boat in her skiff and we caught up on things going on in our lives.

The next morning, July 30, we headed into Ketchikan arriving shortly after 9 AM.  From here we’ll wait for suitable weather to cross Dixon Entrance and clear into Canada at Prince Rupert.