We arrived in Petersburg yesterday and have been taking care of all the normal business of cleaning and refilling for the next leg. Petersburg is a lovely little fishing town and we've hit it in perfect weather. The nice thing about this stop is that we are going to take a short two week break. Vi will fly home, Kay will meet up with her son Chris, and I'll head back to Seattle for a couple weeks. The tough thing about doing a summer long trip like this, as much as I'm loving it: it doesn't leave time for the other things I like to do with my summer. This break is a small compromise toward that need. I'm missing the Cascade trails and Seattle tennis courts.
So today I fly out and this blog will take a two week break as well. When we resume on July 25th, Tina, Sue (Bob's SO), and Tom (a friend of Tina's family) will be joining us. We can look forward to winding our way down the infamous Wrangell Narrows toward Ketchikan, Then up around Revillagigedo Island and into the Misty Fjords before returning to Canada via Prince Rupert. It promises to be a spectacular leg.
Until then…
(I'll post a few pics when I get home and have better wifi throughput.)
July 12, 2016
Day 57 - Cannon Fire on Frederick Sound; Rod
Today was another whale watching day. Vi has a list of things she wants to see while she's with us. The Aurora Borealis and breaching whales had yet to be "ticked off" the list. Both were looking rather doubtful this morning as we plodded along under leaden skies, too far from shore to see much of anything.
We'll need three things to see the Northern Lights: dark skies, clear skies, and well… an active Aurora. I read something that said the best time to see one is late summer or early fall. That might have nothing to do with the phenomenon itself and everything to do with the first two of those three requirements: earlier and it's not dark enough; later and it's not clear enough. In our case we see neither clears skies nor dark skies. So… that's not an item that Vi is likely to be able to tick off her list, on this trip anyway.
As for the breaching whales, all that was needed was a little luck. We've seen plenty of whales, blowing and rolling their tails out of the water, but none that were breaching on this leg - until today.
Shortly before heading into Portage Bay for the night's anchorage, Kay spotted blows on the other side of the sound. This was the same place that Frederic, Marta, Lavanya and Jason had seen some with us as we exited Read Island Cove three weeks earlier. As we did then, we decided to cut the engine and drift a while to see what happened; a lot as it turned out.
The experience was a lot like watching icebergs calve in the sense that we were scanning a large area watching for something to happen in the mist of a lot of sound and activity. From roughly a mile away to the closest individuals, we kept our eyes on dozens of blowing, rolling breathing whales, all up and down the channel. The sound and sight of all that activity with no one else around, was surreal.
Then, once every so often, one of them would come surging up, its entire massive body clearing the water before crashing down again with a thunderous roar that we could hear from miles away. Some were so far away that we couldn't see them through the afternoon haze, but we could hear them; the sound carried easily across the water like cannon fire. Some were much closer; one surprised us, breaching a hundred yards from the boat. Another rolled it's back out of the water within a hundred feet - close enough that Kay started banging the hull to make it aware of our presence. Close was way cool, but too close could be dangerous for it and us, so we tried to keep our distance.
In all we watched the show for a couple hours and Vi got to tick breaching whales off her list. Now if the skies would just clear and the night would get dark for a change.
We'll need three things to see the Northern Lights: dark skies, clear skies, and well… an active Aurora. I read something that said the best time to see one is late summer or early fall. That might have nothing to do with the phenomenon itself and everything to do with the first two of those three requirements: earlier and it's not dark enough; later and it's not clear enough. In our case we see neither clears skies nor dark skies. So… that's not an item that Vi is likely to be able to tick off her list, on this trip anyway.
As for the breaching whales, all that was needed was a little luck. We've seen plenty of whales, blowing and rolling their tails out of the water, but none that were breaching on this leg - until today.
Shortly before heading into Portage Bay for the night's anchorage, Kay spotted blows on the other side of the sound. This was the same place that Frederic, Marta, Lavanya and Jason had seen some with us as we exited Read Island Cove three weeks earlier. As we did then, we decided to cut the engine and drift a while to see what happened; a lot as it turned out.
The experience was a lot like watching icebergs calve in the sense that we were scanning a large area watching for something to happen in the mist of a lot of sound and activity. From roughly a mile away to the closest individuals, we kept our eyes on dozens of blowing, rolling breathing whales, all up and down the channel. The sound and sight of all that activity with no one else around, was surreal.
Then, once every so often, one of them would come surging up, its entire massive body clearing the water before crashing down again with a thunderous roar that we could hear from miles away. Some were so far away that we couldn't see them through the afternoon haze, but we could hear them; the sound carried easily across the water like cannon fire. Some were much closer; one surprised us, breaching a hundred yards from the boat. Another rolled it's back out of the water within a hundred feet - close enough that Kay started banging the hull to make it aware of our presence. Close was way cool, but too close could be dangerous for it and us, so we tried to keep our distance.
In all we watched the show for a couple hours and Vi got to tick breaching whales off her list. Now if the skies would just clear and the night would get dark for a change.
Day 56 - Waterfalls and Swimming Grizzlies; Rod
We enjoyed a routine day under way today, a rather short 30 miles in two foot chop with a 12kt wind on the nose. We plodded south down Chatham Straight, around the corner and into Frederick Sound. We were back where we were two weeks ago after a circumnavigation of Admiralty and Chicagof Islands, the A and C in the ABC Islands. It occurs to me that a worthwhile future objective might be an ABC circumnavigation, adding Baranof to the mix.
After a cloudy, blustery, choppy morning, the weather and the waves settled and we enjoyed another gorgeous afternoon. We pulled into Chapin Bay around 1pm and set out to do some beach walking.
The chart says the bay has been used for log storage, but it's empty of any such use now. In fact the bay is pristine and looks like it might have a thousand years ago, though perhaps the trees were older growth at that time. In any case, it just us, the trees, and ample numbers of deer flies and jelly fish.
The bay is a long one so it was good for a sorely needed three mile or so round trip leg stretcher. Now Kay and Vi are out scrubbing the hull with a boat brush and laughing themselves into hysterics (I won't ask.)
We play a game now and then trying to remember the names of the coves we've been to in order. It occurred to us that if we had given each place a nick name that might have provided clues that would have made each location more easily recalled. Perhaps this would be Boat Brush Bay.
Last night we gathered wine, cups, and cameras and motored the dinghy out of the cove, around the point and up to the base of a huge waterfall. We parked the dinghy on the rocks in the sun and enjoyed the waterfall with a cup of wine in the waning light. On the way back to the boat, we startled (or were startled by) a grizzly clambering along the shoreline close to the boat. Running out of passible terrain, he slipped into the water and paddled across the entrance channel and into the woods on the other side. It's hard to imagine getting that close to a grizzly on land. Even being in the water in something as insubstantial as a dinghy was a little unnerving at that distance of a hundred feet or so. How fast can Grizzlies swim? We were counting on something slower than a four horse outboard.
So last night it wasn't just Ell Cove we were in (so named for the shape of the cove), but Waterfall Excursion Bay, or perhaps Swimming Grizzly Lagoon.
After a cloudy, blustery, choppy morning, the weather and the waves settled and we enjoyed another gorgeous afternoon. We pulled into Chapin Bay around 1pm and set out to do some beach walking.
The chart says the bay has been used for log storage, but it's empty of any such use now. In fact the bay is pristine and looks like it might have a thousand years ago, though perhaps the trees were older growth at that time. In any case, it just us, the trees, and ample numbers of deer flies and jelly fish.
The bay is a long one so it was good for a sorely needed three mile or so round trip leg stretcher. Now Kay and Vi are out scrubbing the hull with a boat brush and laughing themselves into hysterics (I won't ask.)
We play a game now and then trying to remember the names of the coves we've been to in order. It occurred to us that if we had given each place a nick name that might have provided clues that would have made each location more easily recalled. Perhaps this would be Boat Brush Bay.
Last night we gathered wine, cups, and cameras and motored the dinghy out of the cove, around the point and up to the base of a huge waterfall. We parked the dinghy on the rocks in the sun and enjoyed the waterfall with a cup of wine in the waning light. On the way back to the boat, we startled (or were startled by) a grizzly clambering along the shoreline close to the boat. Running out of passible terrain, he slipped into the water and paddled across the entrance channel and into the woods on the other side. It's hard to imagine getting that close to a grizzly on land. Even being in the water in something as insubstantial as a dinghy was a little unnerving at that distance of a hundred feet or so. How fast can Grizzlies swim? We were counting on something slower than a four horse outboard.
So last night it wasn't just Ell Cove we were in (so named for the shape of the cove), but Waterfall Excursion Bay, or perhaps Swimming Grizzly Lagoon.
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