Merlin's Gremlins Banished?

Morning clouds looking east

On Father’s Day we crossed the huge Chatham Strait to head down the narrow Peril Strait on the way to Sitka. In spite of its name, pretty Peril Strait did not give us any problems, and we saw more humpback whales. Our anchorage that evening was Appleton Cove where we were able to share a Park Service buoy with Xanadu. We put out the crab pot (caught a star fish) and had fun watching a grizzly on the beach.

The next day we only traveled four hours to our next anchorage—Baby Bear Bay. No bears in sight although I rang my bear bell constantly after seeing fresh bear poop on the beach when walking Katie. We set the crab pot again but only came up with more starfish the next morning. Lots of sun, and we had a very pretty and calm ride to Sitka. We did have to time our trip to go through a VERY narrow area called Sergius Narrows at slack tide. A ferry had called everyone on the radio to let us know they were coming up behind us. Fortunately, they passed us in a wider spot. It was fun waving to the passengers on the ferry.

Susan and Katie kayaking

Sitka is now our favorite Southeast Alaska town.There is lots of history here with 22 historic sites, including a National Historic Park in the middle of the city. The city was occupied by the Tlingits, the Russians, and then, of course, us after our purchase of Alaska in 1867. It’s a well-cared-for town and the views of the numerous islands in Sitka Sound and Mt. Edgecumbe (a Mt. Fuji look-alike) are outstanding. The marina where we are staying is filled with big fishing boats, and there is lots of activity on the docks as they come and go.

Rod worked on getting a new part for our broken generator while Roxie and I did laundry and grocery shopping. He was finally able to locate the part in Florida, and they sent it on an overnight shipment (big bucks!). We couldn’t imagine that it would really arrive that quickly, so John and Roxie moved on for a while, and we waited for the part. We had fun exploring Sitka and celebrating our 44^th wedding anniversary with a dinner out at a brand-new restaurant owned by the local Native Americans. It could have been better. You would think that after three whole days of practice they would have their act together.

We were thrilled the next day when our part came when they said it would. It took Rod a half-day to install it and now the generator works! We will leave Sitka on Sunday, June 26^th to hopefully rendezvous with Xanadu and see if everything is working right on Merlin.

We will be back in Sitka to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday with Patrick and Natalie who are flying in on July 2^nd.

We may not be blogging for awhile, but welcome your e-mails to our regular e-mail address!

Signing out,

Susan, Rod, and Katie

  

Gremlins Attack Merlin

Merlin at Verney Falls (B.C.)--taken by John

Early on June 16^th we left Hoonah in pleasant weather. Our plans were to find a nice spot to anchor on the west side of Chatham Strait—a huge north-south body of water that we would traverse in sections in the next few weeks. The first (of three) problems came when our depth sounder stopped working. It had briefly given us trouble the day before but Rod had talked to a marine electronics technician by phone and we thought we had it fixed. We were now out of cell phone range and any anchoring is tricky when you don’t know how deep the water is. After consulting with John and Roxie, we decided to head for Tenakee Springs, a town with a marina and maybe a cell tower.

Tenakee Springs, Chichagov Island

After tying up to the guest dock, we explored Tenakee Springs. The town is supposedly a retirement community for Alaskans, but we found it to be very rustic. The homes are on stilts along the shore with a 6’ dirt path running behind them. The only traffic is an occasional bicycle or ATV. There is no potable water, garbage service, sewer system, or cell service. The ferry does call here twice a week and there was a small cruise ship that visited while we were there. There is a communal hot springs bathhouse with separate hours for men and women that John and Rod used. (Too rustic for Roxie and me.) We also enjoyed WI-FI at the local coffee shop and very much enjoyed chatting with some of the residents. Roxie and John had caught two halibut on the way here and we enjoyed some on Xanadu that evening.

Rod fishing near Tenakee Springs

We did a layover at Tenakee Springs so we could go out fishing in the bay the next morning when the tide was right. All of us got on Xanadu and tried our luck. Unfortunately no one caught anything. Our second problem came that day when we found that our generator had stopped working. The water pump to it was broken. Fortunately, John could give us some power from his boat to charge up our batteries, etc., but we needed phone service to order a new pump.

Our third problem occurred that same day. We ran out of water even though our tank had shown that we had plenty. See what I mean about gremlins? Since the water at the dock was not potable (drinkable), we needed to move the boat the next morning to find a place with water and cell service. We did happily celebrate John and Roxie’s 44^th wedding anniversary that evening with brownies, ice cream and a shared bottle of wine.

The closest place to get water was Angoon, a Tlingit village on Admiralty Island, a place we had planned to visit anyway. After passing through a tricky entrance with a swirling current even at slack water, we tied up to some rickety docks and found a man working on the water lines. Instead of standing around watching him, we did the mile walk to town and found a well-stocked general store and friendly residents. The town reflected very basic living and fishing was the economy. When we got back to the marina, the water line was fixed and we were able to fill our tanks. Yea! There was cell phone service here, but only for AT&T customers.

Water arch near Elfin Cove

We will head for Sitka tomorrow—a two-day trip to see if we can get help with our mechanical problems. More on that in the next blog post and more pictures.

Signing out,

Susan, Rod, and Katie

Out to the Ocean!

From Dundas Bay (part of Glacier Bay National Park), we headed to the small village of Elfin Cove. To get there we passed through the beautiful Inian Islands and saw a horde of sea lions churning up the water as they actively fished. We also had to briefly cross open ocean, but very calm on this day. Both boats got space at the dock in Elfin Cove, home to several fishing lodges. A boardwalk encircles the cove (no roads) which made a nice walk for us. We had a beautiful view from our boat of a glacier across Icy Strait. Also, we were just down the dock from the seaplanes landing to take away happy fishermen and their big boxes of fish.

Seaplane leaving Elfin Cove

The next day we headed out into open ocean again to head down to another inlet named Lisianski and went about twenty miles to another small village named Pelican. The harbormaster greeted us at the dock and described the town’s recent economic decline and how services had been curtailed. For example, the Laundromat and grocery store are now closed. The docks, however, were solid and the residents very friendly. We had dinner at the local bar and grill (the infamous Rose’s) and were shocked that it allowed smoking. Once again, “Main Street” was a boardwalk.

View from our moorage in Pelican

Back up the inlet to Elfin Cove the next day to spend more time there. Rod and I bought a 12# king salmon from a fisherman on the dock. After we got it cut up and put in our freezer, we got out the kayaks and had a lovely paddle—even peaking our noses out into the ocean just a bit.

General store in Elfin Cove

After studying the tide tables, we set out the next morning to try to catch some bottomfish, especially halibut. No luck, so on to Point Adolphus again to do some whale watching. We had the best show ever! We had headed toward two other boats that were drifting, including a tour boat with cruise ship passengers on it. The three boats soon became surrounded by 12+ humpbacks which were swimming and diving in pairs and threesomes. It was thrilling! Rod got a great video.

Humpback Whales

Back to Hoonah where the highlight was a salmon dinner. We used John and Roxie’s barbeque and the fish was delicious!

Today we start our trip down to Sitka to meet Patrick and Natalie for 4^th of July. There are lots of places to stop in the meantime.

Signing out,

Susan, Rod, and Katie

Glacier Bay National Park

We had our earliest departure, 5:40 am, on the trip so far which earned us calm waters back across Icy Strait to Bartlett Cove and the check-in point for Glacier Bay National Park. On the way we lingered at Point Adolphus as we had heard that we would always find humpback whales there. This turned out to be true as they were all around us. At one point, we turned off the engine and sat there listening for their breaths as they came up for air. It was thrilling! We also saw many sea lions.

Then it was time to move on to Glacier Bay. The National Park has put into place many rules in order to protect the whales. Any pleasure boat has to obtain permission to enter the park and only 25 recreational boats are allowed in Glacier Bay at a time. Since this is early in the season and not as many boats seem to be in Alaska this summer, we did not have any trouble getting a permit to enter. Secondly, we had to check in with the rangers and attend an orientation upon arrival. Lastly, our dog was not allowed anywhere in the park except on paved roads near the Glacier Bay Lodge. We had worked out a plan before we even arrived in Alaska that John and Roxie would have Katie for a whole day while Rod and I went on a park tour boat. John and Roxie had done the tour boat trip three years ago. This worked out great. The tour boat was a high-speed catamaran which took us some 65 miles to the top of Glacier Bay. There was a park ranger with us all day who interpreted what we were seeing and answered our questions. She and the rest of the crew were wonderful about spotting wildlife and getting us as close as possible to all of the attractions. The highlights for us were twice seeing grizzly bears on the beach, mountain goats on a rocky hillside with a baby goat, an island covered with huge Steller sea lions, and the very cute sea otters. I also added a couple of birds to my life list—tufted puffins and yellow-tailed loons. Near the top of Glacier Bay, we saw the glaciers that the area is so famous for. There was quite a bit of ice in the water and our tour boat ran right through the patches without any worry. We had wonderful weather today which made our trip even better. Two notations we made in our Log were that we got to 59 degrees North latitude today which is just below the border between Alaska and Yukon, Canada.

Margarie Glacier

The next morning both boats went to the next bay to the west called Dundas Bay, still in the confines of the national park, but one does not need a permit to enter. It is rarely visited by cruising boats so offers solitude and plenty of chances to see bears and sea otters which we did. We anchored in the head of the bay overnight. Here we got as far west as we will be—136 degrees West longitude.

Our next destination is Elfin Cove, across Icy Strait and very close to the Pacific Ocean.

Signing off,

Susan, Rod, and Katie 

John Hopkins Glacier

  

Whales, Winds, and a Tlingit Village

Alaska Marine Ferry

Glad to be tied to a solid dock in Auke Bay, a suburb of Juneau and close to the much-visited Mendenhall Glacier which we saw as we were coming into the harbor. We had a great internet connection so spent much of the afternoon catching up on e-mail, etc. Felt a little bit of a local connection as the Alaska Marine Ferries came in and out (the ones that stop in Bellingham) and also the Snow Goose, the charter yacht that you B-ham people have all seen tied up in front of the Bellwether Hotel.

Our two boats at the Swanson Harbor float

Our weather continues to be exceptionally good. However, we can now count on a definite pattern — calm in the mornings and the wind coming up sometime in the afternoon and lasting until sometime during the night. Therefore, we do our traveling in the mornings and are safely anchored or up to a dock by noon or so. This was our way at our next stop—Swanson Harbor at the southern end of the Lynn Canal. Even though it was an extremely well-protected harbor, the wind blew very hard and boaters who came later spoke of huge waves out in the main passage.

The next morning, we had a good trip across Icy Strait (even with that ominous name) to get to Hoonah—the largest Tlingit village in Alaska. Hoonah was surprise—it had a nice marina behind a huge breakwater and a walkable town with some services at the top of the dock. Two other Nordic Tugs were also there and we had met both owner couples before so fun to catch up with them. In the afternoon, John, Roxie, Rod, and I got ice cream cones in town and did a 1 ½ mile walk (with Katie, of course) out to Icy Strait Point, a destination that many cruise ships have added to their itineraries. The Hoonah Tlingits, once dependent on logging and fishing, renovated an old salmon cannery into an attractive and interesting resort. There are many activities that the cruise ship passengers can choose from, but the most unusual is the zip line ride. Riders are trucked to a point on the mountain 1300’ above the sea and placed in a harness for their 90-second ride down the mountain paying $120 for this experience!

Us at Icy Strait Point Resort--Hoonah

We left Hoonah the next morning for a two-hour trip down the bay to Neka Bay with the promise of seeing humpback whales and good crabbing. At least we got one of the two. We had a humpback surface right next to our boat, take two blows and two dives, and then a final dive after showing us his tail. Very exciting to see so close! Neka Bay was pretty and we had it all to ourselves, but turned out to be a dead zone for crab and fish. Nothing even took the bait.

We changed our entry permit date to June 10^th so we head for Glacier Bay National Park tomorrow!

Signing out,

Susan, Rod, and Katie

Amazing Alaskan Sights--Part II

We loved the wonderful sunshine that greeted us this morning as we left Hobart Bay at 6 am. We were soon passed by the Sea Princess, a cruise ship that I think my mom was on once. Then our cruise partner, John, radioed us that there were icebergs ahead! Some looked as big as that cruise ship that had just gone by and others were blue in color. We knew there were icebergs up Tracy Arm and Endicott Arm that emptied into Stephens Passage where we were, but we never dreamed that we would encounter them. We tentatively motored over to one of the smaller ones with John close behind us. Just as we were pulling away, the ‘berg fell apart, sending out waves and scaring us just a little. We spent some time going from one to another, this time staying our distance. John and Roxie gathered some ice bits called “bergies” for our happy hour drinks that evening.

Photo by Caples

We found a wonderful place to stay that evening called Taku Harbor. It had a huge, practically new dock connected to shore and like everywhere else this summer, we were alone. There was a trail along the shore. One way lead to the ruins of an old cannery where the guys loved looking at the old equipment. The other way went to a Forest Service cabin that was open for inspection.

Dinner on Merlin tonight—crab cakes and prawns. Later that evening the small cruise ship, Safari Explorer, came in and anchored. The passengers waved at us as we were out setting our crab pots.

Our destination the next day was the big city of Juneau. We motored up the beautiful Gastineau Canal with soaring green hills on either side of us. Downtown was fun with lots of gift shops and the bustle of people off the cruise ships. We looked up a family member of an acquaintance who owns a historical tavern and she gave us the lowdown on living and working in Juneau as we sipped on Alaskan Amber beer. We spent an extra day in Juneau to do shopping and laundry.

We are on to Auke Bay as a gateway to Glacier National Park where we have a permit to enter on June 13^th. I probably won’t be doing any blogging for a time due to lack of a phone/internet connection.

Signing off,

Susan, Rod, and Katie

Dinghy Transport

Amazing Alaskan Sights!

Alaska Coast Range

We left Wrangell at our usual departure time (6 am) in a low cloud. Our challenge this morning was traversing the Wrangell Narrows, a very narrow passage that is marked with some 65 numbered navigational buoys. As long as we kept the red ones on our right and the green ones on our left, we were in deep enough water. A clerk in Wrangell, when she heard where we were going, warned us that it might get scary if the Alaska ferry (the one that comes into Bellingham) was coming south as we headed north. A small boat like ours just moves over and waits for the bigger boats to pass. Also, the towns at either end were having fishing derbies on this weekend, and there were going to be plenty of fishing boats zipping up and down the Narrows. Fortunately, we did not encounter any large boats, the water was calm, and the fishing boats had already gotten to where they were going. We arrived in Petersburg about lunchtime and the very nice harbormaster put our two boats in slips next to each other. Petersburg has a huge fish processing plant and life there centers around fishing. The town was founded by a Norwegian (from Tacoma!), and a Norwegian motif remains (kind of like Poulsbo, WA). None of the restaurants were open because of the holiday, but we had a great dinner of King Salmon on Xanadu, compliments of a local fisherman who, when asked by Roxie, gave her more than just a fish head (for bait). The salmon was wonderful!

Baird Glacier--Thomas Bay

The next day, we woke up to brilliant sunshine and predicted highs of the low 70s! It took us only about four hours to get to our overnight anchorage—Thomas Bay off of Frederick Sound. There we saw two Alaskan Amazing Sights. One was the Baird Glacier coming down to the water’s edge. Our cruising guide had not told us to expect this, so a wonderful surprise. The second Amazing Sight was a moose running on the beach. The moose is Alaska’s state land mammal, but not always seen by visitors. Our good luck held the rest of the day as both boats got their limits of crab. We had great Crab Louies the next evening.

While going into Stephens Passage the next day, we saw our third Alaskan Amazing Sight with some icing on the cake. Dall’s Porpoises chose our boat to play in the bow wave. I know some of you have seen this, but it was a first for us and very thrilling and beautiful to watch. This kind of porpoise looks like a small Orca whale, and can move very fast through the water. They also have a great sense of fun. The jackpot of this experience was seeing humpback whales blowing and diving around us at the same time as the porpoise show!

We spent the night at Port Houghton (Sanborn Canal) and the next night at Hobart Bay (Entrance Island) where we actually found a government float to tie up to—just room for our two boats. Katie loved getting off the boat for the rest of that day.

Still on our way to Juneau.

Signing off,

Susan, Rod, and Katie

Hint: I don't know what works on your computer, but on mine if I double-click on a picture in the blog, it enlarges it and makes for better viewing.