Fin Island is a remote, uninhabited island southwest of Hartley Bay — completely off-grid, only reachable by boat or float plane, and home to a BC Whales Research Station that overlooks Squally Channel which is a prime whale-watching area. It is part of the Lax Kwil Dziidz/Fin Conservancy, and is traditional territory of the Gitga’at and Gitxaala First Nations. This new-to-us-spot was a hit! (Credit to Ralph on Kali for … Read more
We timed leaving Kah Shakes as perfectly as the last time we were here: leaving on a minus tide (-2.2ft). Rather than leaving at 6am, ten minutes after low tide, we waited until about 7am when it was just about zero. Mid channel is fine, and we had no less than 14ft of depth, but it is definitely quite narrow and bordered with rocks. The sky looks a bit stormier … Read more
We left the dock in Meyers Chuck early! We planned a ~65nm day all the way down to Kah Shakes Cove with a pit stop in Ketchikan to mail a package and top off with fuel. (A 5:30am departure meant we didn’t order cinnamon rolls from Cassy to be delivered warm to Airship at 7am.) 🙁 Conditions were nice in Clarence Strait and we had an easy, uneventful cruise into … Read more
It’s been quite rainy the past couple days, and we’ve had a lack of wildlife, so not a ton of photos to show so far. We had a quiet night in Portage Bay, then continued on down Frederick Sound toward Petersburg. We planned a long day today — 60nm or so — from Portage Bay, past Petersburg and down Wrangell Narrows, across Sumner Strait to Exchange Cove. As long as … Read more
Kevin and I flew home for a few days for some family business, then returned to Juneau on the fourth of July. But we were so tired that we slept through the midnight fireworks completely. Oh well. On Sunday we had a down day…did some shopping, met friends Dan and Eileen for dinner, and thought about coming up with a rough plan for our route home (but still haven’t yet…I … Read more
As often happens, the last day of the flotilla is a whirlwind. We left Wood Spit around 6am for the 43nm cruise north to Juneau. Julie took this photo of Airship just after we pulled up our anchor. We arrived in Juneau, and after a bit of hustling we all eventually got space on the dock…some in slips in Aurora, some at transient dock space in Aurora, some in Douglas, … Read more
First, here are two pics from sunset last night that came in after we published yesterday’s post — one facing west, from Greg on True Grit: And one of True Grit taken by Adrienne on Evenstar 55, facing east: Right after these photos, the fog rolled in thick and amazingly fast! Also, since the shrimp haul has been quite successful here, I made shrimp risotto last night and I forgot … Read more
We left Tracy Arm Cove around 7am — out through the Tracy Arm bar, in over the Endicott Arm bar, and up Endicott Arm. We spotted a couple whales just as they dove — probably working on the same breakfast these seagulls were. We arrived at the entrance to Ford’s Terror just after 10am (about 20 minutes before the Juneau/Wood Spit high tide around 10:20am). Of course we had a … Read more