Last week we spent three nights in Auke Bay, where we took advantage of the land base to rent a car and reprovision, visit with friends, and we even got to take a nice hike out to Nugget Falls at Mendenhall Glacier. We picked up Kevin’s brother on Friday night and left Auke Bay early Saturday morning. Our plan for the next two weeks is to do a counter-clockwise loop … Read more
We said goodbye to Dan and Eileen this morning as they de-rafted from Airship in Gut Bay. We hope to meet up with them later in the summer! Super fun time buddy boating down the outside of Baranof Island! Chatham this morning was nice and calm (no photos) and by the time we turned off into Kelp Bay the wind had picked up just slightly creating less than a one … Read more
After the winds died down yesterday afternoon, we had a serene, completely calm overnight in Puffin Bay. We pulled the anchor this morning around 7am and headed for Cape Ommaney. We were hoping the fog would burn off by the time we got to the cape so we could at least see what it looked like. Pretty soon we were definitely feeling the drama of our 3+ knots of current … Read more
We left Scow Bay a little early this morning (7am) since we had a longer day than the past few (a whoppin’ 33nm to Redfish Bay). I wish we had just a bit more time to slow down and pop in and out of more anchorages, but I guess it leaves us more to see the next time we do this leg. It’s interesting…the west side of Baranof Island is … Read more
Finally, a good weather window lined up with our plans to get on the outside of Baranof Island for a few days! We got up at 5am in Baby Bear to transit Sergius Narrows near the 5:30am slack, which meant (a) we got into Sitka before 9am, and (b) we were tired, so immediately after getting settled in our slip, we took a nap. 🙂 We’d been in touch with … Read more
We spent a week or so in Juneau after the flotilla ended…visiting with friends and family (Laura’s brother Jason flew down from Anchorage with a friend for a visit), and made good use of the rental car we reserved (used the Turo app for the first time…will definitely do that again!) We took a couple trips to Western Auto & Marine, Jerry’s Meats & Seafood (smoked salmon, double smoked bacon, … Read more
Once again, everyone wants to know what time Airship is going to leave, so we say 6am, and when we get up at 5:30am, two of the other three boats are long gone and one is pulling its anchor. Fine then. 🙂 Conditions in Stephens Passage were calm and even glassy for our cruise north into Juneau. We watched a humpback breaching to the left of a cruise ship (hope … Read more
Every summer during the flotillas, almost every evening, there’s discussion about what time people want to leave in the morning. Sometimes we have a reason to need to leave early (weather, timing for current and tides, things like that), and when we don’t have a reason to leave early, we leave it up to the individual boats. We’ll put in the written plan, even “Leave whenever you want today!” Inevitably, … Read more