We left Ketchikan around 9:00 a.m. and had a beautiful, calm cruise up Clarence Strait: Clarence Strait can be a nasty body of water. It’s 100 nm long and four miles wide. Current runs to several knots. When the wind blows, it gets ugly. Any day of calm water is appreciated! Our destination was Meyers Chuck, a community of about 20 people on the northwest corner of Cleveland Peninsula. There’s … Read more
Today was a lay day in Ketchikan. We figured people could use a day of rest (or chores or exploring) since we’ve been moving swiftly since meeting at Roche Harbor a couple weeks ago. Now that we’re in Alaska we can reset the pace a bit. Yesterday we were lucky enough to see some sun, but today was mostly rainy and gray (because…Ketchikan). The morning started with a bit of excitement. A small boat … Read more
This morning in Foggy Bay was still and quiet. We worked on the flotilla plan early, and then took the dinghy out (quietly) to look for bears and explore the bay before meeting with each boat to go over the plan for the next two days. Kevin took the Mavic up for some aerials of the anchorage before we took off toward Ketchikan. The cruise from Foggy Bay to Ketchikan was … Read more
January 27 – February 4, 2017 Will you be attending the Seattle Boat Show this year? If so, we hope to see you there! Our team at Slowboat will be giving a handful of free seminars at this year’s show. Come see us! Slowboat seminars, along with date, time, and location: iPhones, iPads, and Boats: Tips from a Twenty Something Cruiser Sam Landsman Saturday 1/28/17, 2:00 p.m. | Stage #4 Club … Read more
Last summer I took eight boats (nine including mine) from Anacortes to Southeast Alaska. Naturally, we experienced a few failures along the way. Below is an accounting of those failures, how we addressed them, and what lessons can be taken away. Failure: Inverter cabling This “professionally-installed” inverter cabling was woefully undersized—2 AWG rather than the specified 2/0 AWG, and the lug was 2/0 sized and poorly crimped to the cable. … Read more
“Can I call you right back? A couple orcas just surfaced right in front of the boat and I don’t want to hit them,” I frantically told the U.S. Customs officer as I eased the throttle back. “No problem, that’ll happen,” the officer responded. Welcome to Alaska. We were motoring north in Tongass Narrows, on our way into Ketchikan after a three-week transit through British Columbia. Anchored in Foggy Bay … Read more
(Updated June 2024). Ford’s Terror might just be the most beautiful place on the planet. Cliffs—absolutely enormous granite walls, really—rise from water’s edge to snowcapped bowls and peaks 5000 feet above. Countless waterfalls, some trickles, others torrents, plunge from these peaks. Bears forage ashore. Dolphins frolic around anchored boats. The scale of Ford’s Terror is difficult to comprehend and impossible to convey. It’s like Yosemite, but with water in the … Read more
We left beautiful Klag Bay on Thursday morning (August 4), backtracking out Smooth Channel a little ways to see if we could locate the island where Radioville lived. Bill Pierre in Rose’s Bar in Pelican told us to look for a red shack, and in the Evergreen book Sam had, we managed to find reference to Radioville with a line from the description box to an island (lower left)… The Douglass guide, … Read more