Skull Cove was foggy and gray as we left and headed into Queen Charlotte Strait toward Malcolm Island. We made plans to meet up with friends Carol and Park in Sointula this afternoon. (You might remember them from last year’s Alaska flotilla, on the Nordhavn 50 Akeeva.) Sointula is on Malcolm Island, just four miles or so from Port McNeill. A group of Finnish settlers came to Malcolm Island from the Nanaimo coal … Read more
Guess what? We liked Skull Cove enough to stay a THIRD day! There is so much to explore around here, and with decent internet we are able to get a lot of work done. It’s also nice to have some down time before we start our next flotilla in three days! This morning we decided to visit Nakwakto Rapids near max ebb. Well, we decided to visit NEAR Nakwakto Rapids, … Read more
We left Khutze with a simple goal: anchor somewhere near Shearwater with good internet! We hoped to catch up on some work, and more importantly, pull all the weather resources we could to look for a weather window to get around Cape Caution. Our route south took us through lots of narrow passages. Hiekish Narrows (filled with floating logs), Jackson Narrows, Perceval Narrows, and Reid Passage. Jackson Narrows is particularly fun. … Read more
Frosty Bay was gray with drizzle when we awoke — first gray day in quite a few! We made coffee and pulled anchor just before 9:00 a.m. and continued down Seward Passage and into Ernest Sound. I had plotted our course all the way to Meyers Chuck, but we really wanted to stay somewhere we hadn’t been before. Between Anan and Meyers Chuck there aren’t many anchorages that seem like … Read more
Yesterday morning we decided to check on a permit for Anan Wildlife Observatory since we’d be passing right by today. July 5 is the very first day of the high season and the first day each year that you need a permit to visit (read: there’s a good chance to see bears). Prior to July 5 and after August 25 you don’t need a permit. As I mentioned yesterday, we were … Read more
We left Point Baker and headed toward Wrangell, stopping to fish for halibut around Vank and Sokolof Islands in the afternoon. We didn’t catch anything and thought we’d fish again the next morning, so we anchored for the night in a little bight on the SE corner of Sokolof Island — a decent anchorage with a distant view of Wrangell. In the evening we saw a small brown bear on … Read more
We got an early start on Saturday morning from Red Bluff Bay. Conditions were nice and calm on Chatham Strait, barely a swell felt. We cruised the 27nm distance to Chapin Bay, on the southern tip of Admiralty Island, and anchored up at the head of the bay in about 50 feet. It rained off and on, but we went out for a dinghy excursion anyway. We chose the next … Read more
Clarence Strait, more than anywhere else in Alaska, has beaten me up. It’s a big body of water, open at the south end to Dixon Entrance, and even with just 15 knots of wind on the bow, it gets uncomfortable. From McHenry Anchorage I planned to head south in Clarence Strait to Kasaan Inlet to meet up with Tom and Caroline on Silver Bay. The weather had other plans. I … Read more