Day 19 | 2025 Flotilla to Alaska | Pond Bay to Ketchikan

At 4am this morning, while at anchor in Pond Bay, we were startled awake by what sounded like a loud and distressed “Hey!! HEY!!!” or “Hey! HELP!!!” A male voice. Kevin bolted up from the pillow and said “Did you hear that???”  I had, but thought it was in my dream until that point. We threw on clothes lightning fast and ran up to the pilothouse, opened the doors, and … Read more

Day 18 | 2025 Flotilla to Alaska | Prince Rupert to Pond Bay

Conditions this morning for Dixon Entrance still looked fantastic, so we were off the docks by 5am. Turns out, we weren’t the only ones. This is what happens when the weather window is as good as it was today (and yesterday): We transited Venn Passage, a twisty but nicely marked channel, calm in the early morning (in theory), but small fishing charter boats zooming past on either side add a … Read more

Airship | Vixen Harbor, Ketchikan, Kah Shakes Cove, Foggy Bay

After Bradfield Canal, we spent one night in Vixen Harbor on our way to Ketchikan. The entrance to Vixen Harbor is always a fun transit…we’ve written posts about it several times before (here’s one), but the charts are wrong, and the route that looks best on the charts has only about a foot of water, and the other route looks to be intertidal (which is likely why more people don’t … Read more

Airship | Bradfield Canal

We haven’t ever been up Bradfield Canal, so after we left Berg Bay, at the bottom of Blake Channel we turned left up Bradfield Canal and headed for an anchorage just past the Harding River. We saw two humpbacks spouting in the distance, twice, but didn’t see them again after that. We dropped the hook in about 60 feet and promptly took off in the dinghy to explore some of … Read more

Airship | Sokolof Island and Berg Bay

We left Petersburg yesterday morning around 8am. A beautiful, mostly clear, sunny day! We transited Wrangell Narrows riding the current in and then also out…it’s fun when the timing works and you get a current boost the whole way through! We stopped and anchored on the east side of Sokolof Bay, a spot we were in once before (over July 4 in 2018). We dropped the anchor in about 30 … Read more

Airship | Portage Bay to Petersburg

We had a nice quiet stay in Portage Bay. We didn’t even put the dinghy down…we did some work, played some music, worked on art…and did a little boat clean up to get ready for another guest! Friends Brian and Allie on Knot to Worry came into Portage on our second day, and this morning before we left Brian sent us this cool photo he took of Airship the night … Read more

Airship | Keku Islands to Portage Bay (And So Many More Whales)

**Note: There are no non-whale photos in this post. Not one.** We left our beautiful spot this morning and headed out into Frederick Sound assuming we’d see more whales, which we did. I got this cool shot of a nice white fluke, and our friend Andrea had an ID super quick for me (see photo caption). The further we went, the more whales we saw…HUGE groups of them together! We … Read more

Airship | Red Bluff Bay to Keku Islands

Yesterday afternoon in Red Bluff Bay, we dinghied up river to look for bears, but saw only salmon…but SO MANY salmon. A little hard to tell in the photo, but this is what the water looked like on either side of us as we ventured up the river. We met last night on Brian and Allie’s boat Knot to Worry (along with two friends traveling with them, and another boat … Read more