July 29 - 30 – Starting South

We arrive back at the boat in the pouring rain, but things are fairly dry inside and the propane fireplace quickly warms us up.

In the morning we are happy to see our friends Grahame and Shirley on Tangleberry pulling into the slip beside us. It is good to see them again, having been on our own since Prince Rupert, almost a month ago. Grahame’s sister, her husband, and teen-age granddaughter have been with them for a couple of weeks and are catching the ferry here to return to their vehicle in Prince Rupert. We join them all for their last dinner together at a restaurant on the waterfront.

Finally, in the morning, we say goodbye to Tangleberry and their guests, and we leave Petersburg, starting the long trip home. G&S will go north for another day, hoping to see whales and icebergs, then will probably catch up to us in a few days.

We motor south through Wrangell Narrows in pleasant weather, and have a choppy trip into Wrangell Harbour. Our jib furler is acting up – one more job for Cliff to do tomorrow in Wrangell while Orma spends time at the cleanest laundromat north of Port McNeill.

After a delicious dinner of Oven Baked Sesame Halibut with Cranberry Salsa (ask us for the recipe) we have a game of crib and Orma writes the blog while Cliff tries to finish his Michener book.

July 27 – 28 – From Juneau to Petersburg, via Sitka, by Ferry

The return voyage to Petersburg takes 24 hours, thanks to a side trip to Sitka, a small town out on the Pacific coast. If the big cruise ships do visit Sitka they have to travel outside in the open seas, but the ferry takes the same route as small vessels through Peril Strait and the turbulent Sergius Narrows. Cliff, who is reading Michener’s “Alaska”, is especially interested in visiting Sitka, the nineteenth-century Russian capitol. Since the ferry waits in Sitka for four hours to ensure transiting the narrows at slack tide, it is possible to go ashore and visit the town. The only problem is that, today, this wait occurs between 3 and 7 in the morning and Orma decides she would rather stay in bed in the comfy cabin we have secured for this trip.

Cliff joins another enthusiastic fellow and they explore the streets and alleys as dawn comes up over the dormant volcanoes and island-studded harbour surrounding this very attractive town of 2,000 inhabitants. Since the original colonial outpost was constructed of wood, very little in the way of buildings remains, but the main sites are reserved as parks and a small orthodox church still dominates the main street.

A naturalist placed on the ferry by the Tongass National Forest provides commentary about the flora, fauna, and geology of the area. As well as local residents, the clientele on the ferry is made up of adventurous individuals backpacking through Alaska, folks with campers or motorhomes driving on and off at villages along the way, seniors on bus tours, and teenagers from Chicago on a 46-day bus, hiking and camping trip. The fellow Cliff walked around Sitka with was the still-smiling, very special bus driver for the teens.

We are sorry when this interesting vacation from a vacation comes to an end, but are still pleased to get back to our home away from home.

July 25 - July 27 – By Ferry to Juneau

The trip from Petersburg to Juneau takes about 13 hours on the Alaska State Ferry, Taku. Unfortunately, the fast ferry which goes in half the time has been diverted to Haines for the state fair. The cabins are all taken, so we stay up for the night in the comfortable recliner lounge, blankets and pillows provided. Orma watches a movie for a while, and neither of us sleeps much. The cloud cover is almost down to the waterline, so daylight doesn’t bring much scenery our way, but there are interesting passengers and pretty good ferry food and the time passes quickly. There are a few whale sightings along the way, and we scour the beaches with binoculars for any sight of bears, but see none.

We are met in Juneau in the pouring rain by the car rental guy, and make our way to Sepel’s Hallow B&B. We do a quick drive-by of Mendenhall Glacier, then drive into the city for dinner at Hangars on the Wharf. This is a lively, Friday-after-work place, and we enjoy observing the contrast between well-dressed businessmen (suits and ties, no less), and more typical Alaskans with long hair, bushy beards, plaid shirts, jeans with suspenders, and gumboots. Juneau, a city of 30,000, is the state capitol and therefore attracts a lot of lawyers and accountants. Like most of the other towns in this part of Alaska, it is not accessible by road. If you want to bring your car, you have to bring it on the ferry.

Saturday morning, after a big breakfast, we drive again a short distance up the road to Mendenhall Glacier, this time hiking along some of the trails and enjoying the brief and rare blue sky. Then it’s back to town for lunch, a browse through the cruise ship shops and docks, a visit to the state legislature, the state museum, the mining museum, the coast guard station to watch the docking of the USS Juneau, a quick survey of all the marinas in town, a stop at Wal-Mart and Fred Meyers, and dinner at the Mongolian Grill, before returning to our B&B for a good sleep. We are told by several people that it has rained for 24 days straight until today.

At the legislature we see the rare 49-star US flag. Alaska was granted statehood in 1959, only a few months before Hawaii and not many of these flags were produced.

Sunday morning is cold, rainy and windy again. We find our way to Glacier Bay Baptist Church for a good worship service and friendly people. For lunch we join a couple from Athens, Georgia, who have driven in their motorhome to Skagway and come on the ferry to Juneau.

After lunch, we visit the McCaulay Creek Fish Hatchery and are fascinated by the aquariums and the tour commentary. The fishing industry is alive and well in Alaska. Millions of fish hatched and released here return every year to donate eggs and milt for millions more hatchlings It is one of the miracles of creation that these salmon are so imprinted with the exact location of their birth that they can travel thousands of miles back to the same place to breed and die.

July 21 - 25 – Waiting in Petersburg

After making the decision to park the boat for the time being, we are much more relaxed. The weather has improved, too. While we intend to leave on the Alaska State Ferry for Juneau on Monday, we find it impossible to locate any accommodation in Juneau until the weekend, so we change our ferry reservations to Thursday night (actually Friday morning at 3:00a.m!). In the meantime, we enjoy the quaint town of Petersburg and its environs.

Petersburg was founded by Norwegian immigrants and still retains some of its Scandinavian flavour sporting tidy waterfront homes, some on pilings, many decorated with traditional rosemaling. In the harbour there is never a dull moment, with fishboats, cruising boats, ferries, and large yachts coming and going. Children fishing on the dock pull in buckets of herring to be used as bait for catching bigger fish. A delightful book store, several chandleries, “Locks by the Docks” where Orma gets a hairdo, a popular library which offers free internet, good grocery and hardware shops, mediocre restaurants, and very friendly people all help to pass the time.

On a rare dry day we take the boat south down the island to the mouth of the LeConte Glacier, the southernmost tidewater glacier in North America. We encounter chunks of ice (“bergy bits”) floating or hung up on the shore all along the way, and as the sky clears we catch views of the glacier in the distance. The entrance to the bay is very shallow and too clogged with ice for us to get close, although aluminum jet-drive tour boats from Petersburg seem to have no difficulty. Across Frederick Sound we enter a quiet anchorage at Ideal Cove, then take the dinghy just outside the cove to jig for halibut. In five minutes we have a fish up to the boat, but it gets away just as we are about to net it. Many nibbles and forty minutes later, we have a halibut in the boat! By this time, the wind is biting and so are the small flies, but Cliff toughs it out, filets the fish on the deck of the big boat, and we have our first halibut dinner of the trip. There is enough fish in the freezer for several more meals, too.

Returning to Petersburg Harbour the next day, we find the current challenging and docking is difficult, but with a little help from neighbours we tie up again. We meet new cruising friends, Cindy and Darren, on Orion, from Port McNeill. Next morning we manage to paint the canvas with a new coat of waterproofing (60F and no rain at the moment is as close as we are going to get to the label’s instructions for 70F and no moisture for 24 hours). The day is quite lovely – we go for a long walk and have fish and chips outdoors for dinner—but by the time we leave for the ferry in the middle of the night, it is pouring out again.

July 20 – Decision Made--Turnaround Point for Skylark

We are getting tired of motoring along in the cold rain and fog. The long-range forecast still calls for rain every day and highs in the low 50’sF. It will take us two and a half more days to reach Juneau, and at least as long to come back this far, into the prevailing south wind. Having come this close, we’d still like to see Juneau, but there’s an easier way to get to Juneau from Petersburg. It’s called the Alaska State Ferry.

We are still trying to make up our minds on Saturday night, but when we hear the rain and see low clouds and fog on Sunday morning, we motor out of Portage Bay and turn south. Our trip back to Petersburg is punctuated by our first ICEBERG sighting, the appearance of a small humpback whale, and the antics of a group of seals playing on a marker buoy.

We are tied up at the dock in Petersburg once again, and have made reservations on the ferry tomorrow, overnight via Sitka to Juneau. The rain is pounding on the roof, but we are warm and cozy, full of crab, and looking forward to a different adventure tomorrow.

July 19 – 20 – Portage Bay

Anxious to push north, we leave Petersburg dock early Friday morning for our planned destination, Hobart Bay in Stephens Passage. A brisk south wind and fair tide carry us along Frederick Sound, and we are excited to catch a glimpse of breaching whales and a distant view of Baird Glacier, but soon the wind is brisker, the waves are larger, and we have second thoughts about our itinerary. Should we head out across the wide sound and into Stephens Passage, or bail out at the north end of Kupreanof and go into Portage Bay for the night? When we are in the lee of K. Island, all seems benign and we wonder if we are being too conservative, but caution prevails and we turn left into the narrow entrance to Portage Bay. We find ourselves all alone in this big, enclosed bay. There is excellent holding, and lots of swinging room – and boy do we swing, all night. The SE wind funnels up two wide valleys, into the narrow bay, and howls all night. The shallow water and current opposing the wind create a rough chop, giving us a rocky night and bringing back memories of the breezy anchorages of the Caribbean.

Next morning, the wind gradually abates, the clouds rise and we see occasional bursts of sunlight. Around us there are dozens of crab traps – we wonder how we missed them in the rough water yesterday – so we put out our crab trap late in the afternoon when the water is smooth enough to put the dinghy down. Two hours later, we retrieve the trap. Hanging on to the top, one enormous starfish (I thought it was an octopus at first) and inside, four crabs, one an extra large keeper. We look forward to crab for lunch tomorrow!

July 15 – 18—Petersburg, Alaska

We spend another day in Wrangell, catching up on emails and blog, then leave at 0800 to catch the right tides for transiting Wrangell Narrows, a very skinny and scenic pass between Mitkof and Kupreanof Islands. We meet one of the Alaska State Ferries but fortunately there is a wide spot where we can pull over and let her pass. The red and green markers all along the 20-mile passage remind us of the Intra Coastal Waterway on the US east coast.

At the north end of the narrows, we arrive at the busy town of Petersburg, home of one of the top fishing fleets in the world. Cruising and fishing boats are interspersed at the dock, and we find ourselves between a nice sailboat we met in Wrangell and a working fishboat which arrives later in the day. Large fish processing plants, where the boats come to unload, are on either side of the marina. There is definitely a fishy smell in the air, and the water around us is yucky, to put it mildly, but we have seen many dead and dying cannery towns along the way, so it is good to see a healthy economy built around this natural resource.

We plan to stay just one day in Petersburg, but next morning we discover an electrical problem which requires an extra day at the dock. A well-stocked marine hardware store at the top of the dock has available all the supplies we need, so Petersburg is a convenient place to do the repairs.

July 13 – 14 – Wrangell, Alaska

For once we raise the anchor without getting wet, and the fog lifts as we leave Berg Bay. Blue sky begins to break through, and the tops of mountains emerge out of the clouds. The little town of Wrangell sparkles as we arrive at the dock. We do our chores as quickly as possible, check in at the marina office (moorage is only 30 cents/ft. here) and walk into town.

Most shops are closed today, Sunday, but we notice a bright, clean Laundromat, a large supermarket, and a big hardware/marine store. There are bright murals painted on the sides of buildings, and people walking in the sun are smiling and friendly. We check out the hotel restaurant for tonight’s farewell dinner, then continue walking to a spot marked “petroglyphs” on the map.

We find an area of black rocks on the beach, unmarked except by other people looking around, and we join the treasure hunt, discovering here and there the carvings of an ancient culture. Their date is unknown –- anywhere from 1000 to 10,000 years old – and they have survived because they are on a beach of soft shell bits rather than sand, a beach that sustains little wave action.

The rain begins again as we walk back to town. Fortunately, we closed up the boat and most of us brought rainjackets just in case. We stop at the Stikine Inn for a delicious, Alaska-sized dinner.

Monday morning Rick and Sharon fly out on Alaska Airline's "salmon thirty salmon" to Juneau, and we get on with a work day at the dock – laundry, groceries, boat cleaning inside and out, an oil change and the persistent little repair jobs that keep coming up. We had hoped to get the blog up-to-date, but we run out of time and will stay another day in this friendly, relaxed, no-nonsense little town.

July 12 – Anan Bear Conservatory won’t let us in.

We chug along on a slow, relaxed, flat calm rainy morning, towards Anan Bear Conservatory. It sounds really neat from the guide book – walk the boardwalk to the waterfalls to see the bears catching fish in the river, have a guided tour by park rangers, etc. We arrive in the rain (“wouldn’t this be beautiful in the sun?!”, we say). The anchor is not holding well, so Rick and Sharon don their rain gear and go ashore first, while we stay with the boat. They return sooner than we expect, with the sad news that because we don’t have the necessary permit and the park is fully booked, we can’t go in. Our guide book failed to mention that necessity. The several seaplanes we have seen flying in tourists from Ketchikan or Wrangell must have bought up most of the permits. It’s a big disappointment, but a lesson learned, and now we will be sure to apply for permits ahead of time. Fortunately, the stop was pretty much en route, so we motor slowly, dragging the fishing line, along a narrow channel to our anchorage at Berg Bay.

July 10-11 – Meyers Chuck and Santa Ana Inlet

We make a last trip to town in Ketchikan to see if we can replace our squashed prawn trap, (no luck) then stop at Safeway to top up our groceries. The sun is coming out, and we are happy to get away from the dock to continue our northward journey.

We decide to troll around the point into Ernest Sound, and after a half an hour, we finally CATCH A SALMON!! -- just the right size for dinner. That will be salmon dinner two nights in a row. We usually catch fish with Rick and Sharon at Lake of the Woods, and we are pleased to return the favour here in the Pacific Ocean.

Our anchorage at Meyers Chuck is in a beautifully sheltered bay, surrounded by a surprising mix of shacks, cottages, and big houses. There is a large government dock with plenty of room, but we decide to anchor out, and we have a delicious salmon feast to celebrate our 43^rd anniversary.

On Friday, we awake to a cloudless, warm morning. Cliff goes for an early morning row in the dinghy, and meets a lady at the dock who is selling cinnamon buns. What a treat to have for breakfast in the sunshine on the deck.

We fish along the shore and again catch a salmon and a small rockfish. That will be salmon dinner three nights in a row! Tomorrow we’ll have pork chops.

Tonight’s anchorage at Santa Anna Inlet is pristine and beautiful. We bushwhack through the rainforest, shaking bear-scaring noisemakers as we go, to Lake Helen, a short distance inland, and get back to the boat just before the rain begins again.

July 8 – 9 -- Crossing Dixon Entrance. Alaska at last.

After a stormy, uncomfortable night at the dock, it’s another cold, drizzly day. goodbye hugs and We creep out of Rushbrook Marina at O-dark-thirty, withwaves to a sleepy Tangleberry crew. Venn Pass out of Prince Rupert is a tricky, but well-marked shortcut, and we are pleased to see fishboat traffic we can follow heading out in front of us. Cruising friends Pierre and Danielle on Lyla are not far behind.

We are almost out of cell phone range when Cliff phones US Customs and Immigration requesting permission to stop overnight at Foggy Bay, AK, before clearing in at Ketchikan.

Dixon Entrance is the most daunting piece of water we have had to traverse, being open to the North Pacific for twenty-five miles. The swells and chop today are not bad, and we motorsail across with no problems. We sing “O Say Can You See” as we cross the border, and we are in Foggy Bay, a quiet anchorage, by lunchtime. On the beach, rooting for food, we see a big brown bear (relative of a grizzly), and later a smaller black bear. We have an afternoon snooze, an early dinner, play a game of Scrabble, and hit the sack early.

Next morning we complete the trip to Ketchikan. For the first while the water is rougher than yesterday, a most inopportune time for our holding tank to back up. Fortunately the seasick pill I took holds until the mess is cleaned up. Then the pass narrows, the water smoothes out, and we motor in comfort to Tongass Narrows.

Suddenly, OH MY GOODNESS!, there are cruise ships and seaplanes and ferries everywhere in this narrow channel! An official-looking inflatable roars along beside a cruise ship, machine gun manned, daring anyone to make a threatening move. Vancouver Harbour was never like this! We approach the fuel dock but have to wait our turn, it starts to pour, we are in the seaplane runway, the noise is deafening – give us Dixon Entrance anytime!! Our friends on Lyla cross behind an arriving cruise ship to find themselves in front of one departing! Lyla almost becomes sandwich meat.

We are finally tied up at Bar Harbor Marina having a relaxing cup of tea, when the US Customs officer arrives to check us in. “Are you the gentleman who woke me up at 4:30 a.m. yesterday to ask for permission to stay in Foggy Bay?” he inquires. Oh, oh, this is not starting well. But he turns out to be an exceptionally nice customs officer, and doesn’t even ask if we are bringing in contraband beef or citrus (we are). Pierre and Danielle had not asked for permission to stay in Foggy Bay, and they had their knuckles severely rapped.

Ketchikan is built on a steep island, so it is about four blocks deep and ten miles long. We are surprised to see how far along the shore development stretches. The town capitalizes on its gold rush history, still having many older buildings and new ones sporting false fronts and hitching posts. The long walk from our marina to town is along a commercial street, but once we reach the downtown cruise ship area, we think, “Hey, we’ve been here before!”-- Virgin Islands, Nassau, Puerto Rico, Grenada, etc. The only difference is the weather and the name embroidered on the t-shirts!

We treat ourselves to a salmon dinner at Annabelle’s and hike back through the rain to the boat.

July 3 – 7 Rushbrook Marina, Prince Rupert. Rick and Sharon join us.

Rushbrook Marina caters mainly to commercial fishboats, and they are jammed in, two or three deep, all along the dock. It seems most of those on the inside are derelict, and more than half have “For Sale” signs posted. The active and/or liveaboard boats all seem to have big dogs, so we walk the dock very carefully. One night a boat three docks away burns to the waterline. We can’t believe we slept through the entire event! Another morning Cliff witnesses a police incident where a fisherman is threatened with taser, thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and arrested for assault. We are in the wild and wooly north!

The rain settles in again. We take a cab to a grubby and expensive laundromat , getting that job out of the way for another couple of weeks. We return to find a big eagle sitting on the top of our mast – very picturesque, but he could make a mess and do some damage to the antennas up there, so we shoo him away.

Another day we go grocery shopping at Safeway. A cab brings us back to the dock, but we still have to carry the bags down the long, long, walkway to our place on the last finger. Fortunately the tide is not low when we arrive. The ramp from the top can be almost vertical at the bottom of a 26-foot ebb.

Rick and Sharon Bowering fly in from Winnipeg, arriving in pouring rain. It is great to see them and we look forward to ten days of cruising together. In the meantime, we are waiting for weather and parts, so we make like tourists in Prince Rupert.

A visit to the North Pacific Cannery Museum involves a walk to town, a 30-minute bus ride to Port Edward, and a three-hour stay at this very large, very cold, very empty, very interesting display. According to the tourist brochure, “Built in 1889, today the North Pacific Historic Fishing Village is a National Historic Site. It is the most complete cannery that remains of these remote villages that once dotted the West Coast. Experience mouth-watering food, dining, cozy lodging, wildlife, and beautiful scenery, with live performances, tours and exhibits in this wooden cannery village suspended on pilings over an estuary of the Skeena River.”

We arrive hungry, to find on Saturday nothing but the buildings open, almost nobody around, no food, no live show, and no return bus for four hours! We have seen it all after a couple of hours, so break down and order a $40 cab to take us back to town. We meet Grahame and Shirley in town and have an early supper of fish and chips.

Sunday morning we make our way to the Baptist Church to experience a great service, excellent sermon, and very friendly people. They invite us to lunch (their “Sandwich Sunday”), where we have and chance to visit and glean some local knowledge.

Later, we visit the beautiful Museum of Northern BC, with its impressive artwork. Many First Nations people also visiting the museum, and we discover that there is an elder’s conference happening in P.R. Richard Baker, an artist from the Capilano Reservation, invites us to attend the banquet, but we decline, a decision we may regret when looking back.

We spend quite a bit of time at a funky little internet café (“Cowpuccino’s”) using their wireless connection.

Early Monday morning we hear Sharon’s cell phone ring, and with much excitement hear the news that they have a new granddaughter and we have a new grandneice, Cadence Leora, born to Matt and Nicole a few hours ago.

Later in the day, Cliff tracks down the courier delivery, to find that it won’t arrive Monday – maybe Tuesday, or maybe Wednesday . . . . Since the weather forecast is favorable for crossing Dixon Entrance on Tuesday, we decide to jury rig the sail parts, abandon the high-speed courier parcel – maybe pick it up on the way back—and leave early Tuesday morning.

Tangleberry is still rafted to us, so we switch places at the dock to be on the outside for an early morning getaway.

July 2 – Foggy trip to Prince Rupert

We awake to thick fog. We leave the anchorage following our “breadcrumb trail” (GPS record of our path in last night) and with the help of our radar and Grahame’s AIS, which identifies large ships in the area, we pick our way through traffic and islands to Prince Rupert Harbour. The fog lifts as we come in, and we see our FIRST cruise ship (we had thought we’d be ducking them all the time!) at Prince Rupert dock.

Moorage is hard to come by in P.R. We have reservations at Cow Bay Rowing and Yacht Club, but the space they offer, on the outside of the breakwater, doesn’t look good. We move on to Rushbrook, ½ mile out of town, where we are lucky to find a boat just pulling out. We get one place at the dock, where we raft up with Tangleberry.

We take a quick walk to town, where we find a well-equipped marine store and pick up some things we need – no sail slugs though. Cliff returns to the boat to do some work, and the rest of us browse around town.

Prince Rupert has suffered “cloud failure” – it’s a bright sunny day. We still feel chilly and are wearing jackets, but the local girls are out in shorts and tank tops, grabbing summer while they can. The town is clean, attractive, and spiffied up for the cruise ship season. Lots of tourists are out walking. We have a delicious dinner at the Cow Bay Café. Civilization feels good.

July 1 -- Happy Canada Day

We leave Hartley Bay in sunshine and have a great ride up Grenville Channel, riding the flood tide all morning with a south-east breeze. We sail under mainsail alone on smooth water for over an hour at speeds approaching 9 knots, gybing every 15 minutes or so as the wind shifts back and forth. Finally we have a hard gybe, breaking three plastic sail slugs (things that attach the sail to the mast), so the fun ends and we motor the rest of the way to Lewis Island anchorage, just 20 miles from Prince Rupert. We will order new sail slugs from Vancouver and have them couriered to P.R.

This will be our last evening anchored with Tangleberry, so Shirley and Grahame row over and we have barbecued hamburgers on Skylark, enjoying the quiet, broken only by distant booms of fireworks in Prince Rupert.

Monday, June 30 – Majestic Mountains and Hartley Bay Hospitality

We still have blue sky and sunshine. The scenery today is breathtaking as we motor up one side of Gribble Island and down the other side along Verney Passage. After a while we stop counting major waterfalls. The breeze comes up and we sail for an hour or so, then we take a right turn into the native village of Hartley Bay, famous for having rescued the passengers on the ill-fated Queen of the North a couple of years ago.

We decide to stop early today and stay here. When the fuel pump attendant returns after siesta, we are pleased to discover that there is no charge for moorage or power at the dock. This is a first!

We walk through the village on well-maintained boardwalks. Transportation here is by ATV, golfcart, motorbike, bicycle, or foot. We go to the home of a lady we have been told sells bread. Belle invites us inside for a nice visit, and tells us about her family. She says many of the young people leave for Prince Rupert and get into drug problems there. Those we see in town are bright and attractive.

The town children enjoy the summer weather and are having fun in the water, jumping off the dock, the roof, the raft, and even Grahame’s boat.

We had yesterday’s catch for dinner on Skylark, and later took a run – because the black flies were so bad – through town to take some photos. We are thankful for the screened-in cockpit on our boat.