Day 74 - Southeast Alaskan Balderdashery; Rod

Wet, wet, wet. Windy and wet. Wind in the wrong direction, soggy, and wet. As much as it grieves me to report less than ideal conditions, today's primary silver lining was in the safe and successful voyage from one anchorage to the next. Alas, that is hardly anything to gush about.

Sure - the anchorage is beautiful. It's scenic, remote and we have it to ourselves. During the day the forest covered hills were shrouded in ancient, primeval looking misty tendrils of low clouds and fog. As we slid along the coast of Prince of Wales Island, purse seiners and fishing trawlers occasionally emerged out of the mist like ghosts from the past telling stories of hardscrabble lives at sea.

But as breathtaking as today was, it was a beauty we have come to expect. We're like wizened veterans of life in a remote cottage perched above the sea, hardly noticing the grandeur that abounds.

OK, I'll admit, that was a suit I was trying on more for the curiosity of fit than for the style. And I'll confess it feels a little tight under the arms. I guess we'll stay a little longer and see where tomorrow's fashion takes us.

If all goes according to plan, tomorrow we'll head in to Ketchikan for hot showers, a nice restaurant, blog uploads and full tanks.  In the words of Timbuck Three: "The future's so bright we gotta wear shades." And foulies.

Day 73 - A Whale of an Ovation; Rod

The boat is abuzz with animated discussion of the days whale watching activity. Arriving at the anchorage late in the day at high water slack, we were greeted by a pod of wales blowing and breaching - not a bad start for our new crew. One energetic whale with a flare for showing off obliged his gaping audience by throwing himself into the air in a rotating half-gainer a mere fifty yards from the boat. Bravo!

We started the day with a southbound transit of the Wrangell Narrows. While I steered the boat through a maze of navigation aids, Tom glassed the buoy numbers and Sue recorded them in a log and followed our progress on the paper chart. We timed our passage more for our arrival at tonight's bay than for the direction of the current through the narrows, so we were headed against it for most of the day. We were bucking three knots at one point.

On arrival at the anchorage, Sue went straight to work cooking thick slabs of fresh halibut on the barbecue. Encore!