Today was basically chore and explore day in Ketchikan: grocery shopping, laundry for those who needed it, picking up packages at Frontier Shipping, etc. Today was a little less rainy than yesterday, but still gray and moody. A good day to work on any boat projects or just see the town in the rain. (It has rained a LOT so far this trip.) The group met for dinner at Bar … Read more
We left Foggy Bay this morning around 7:00 a.m., headed for Ketchikan. We had some light swell at first, and a little more than light swell later in morning (and some fog) but overall it was a pretty smooth cruise. Arriving in Ketchikan was uneventful compared to past years when it takes all the concentration and focus you have to keep track of the incoming and outgoing boat traffic, float … Read more
Sleeping in this morning was difficult—something about the combination of sunrise around 4:00 a.m., several days of departing at the crack of dawn, and heavy rain pelting the deck had us up long before we should have awoken. Later in the morning, Ralph on Rubicon called on the VHF to let everyone know there was a brown bear on shore. The first brown bear of the trip! We enjoyed watching … Read more
Our last long day! Alaska! Getting out of boat jail! We’ve been lucky with the weather this trip and we hoped it would continue today. Environment Canada called for southeast 25-35 knot winds, which didn’t sound too promising. NOAA said southeast 25 knots, still not great. The screenshot below shows the Windy route planner, which shows the predicted weather along our route as we travel it, and the worst conditions … Read more
Goodbye Alaska! We’ve had a great couple months wandering around Southeast—the best weather we can remember (except for that one week of smoke), excellent bear and whale watching, and just a few boat gremlins—but in order to have a leisurely trip down the outside of Vancouver Island with decent weather, it’s time to head south. NOAA predicted 10 knot winds and Environment Canada said wind light. Windy showed single digit … Read more
With our time in Southeast Alaska rapidly dwindling and a favorable weather forecast for Dixon Entrance tomorrow, we departed Punchbowl Cove this morning bound for Foggy Bay, a good jumping off point for Dixon Entrance. Along the way we passed New Eddystone Rock, a dramatic spire that rises more than 200 feet from the depths of Behm Canal. NOAA predicted 15 knot winds and 3 foot seas and inReach weather … Read more
Today we headed south from Walker Cove to Punchbowl Cove, about 19 nautical miles. Punchbowl Cove is normally our second preferred anchorage in Misty Fjords, but definitely not for lack of beauty, which it is rolling in! The reason is that normally Punchbowl Cove is very heavily trafficked…float planes and tour boats are in and out of the cove ALL day, making it feel almost as busy as the city … Read more
Misty Fjords National Monument is one of the most scenic places in Southeast Alaska. Waterfalls of all types, from dainty-looking ribbons to furious torrents, plunge into the ocean. Sheer walls rise thousands of feet into the misty skies. In the places sufficiently horizontal for soil to gather, scars from landslides abound, illustrating just how tenuously the soil and vegetation cling to the cliffs. We’ll visit two of the most dramatic … Read more