More Alaska photos

An iceberg aground at Tracy Arm cove.

Grass and sedge.

Sumdum Peak to the left, and Sumdum Glacier in the middle.

Alaska photos

Scenery Cove, where we anchored near the Baird Glacier. Early the next morning we found ourselves surrounded by a school of colorful kayaks as they paddled by us. It was a bit surreal as we had thought we were alone! They had camped at the head of this cove.
Ice berg in Holkham Bay, at the entrance to Tracy Arm.

Humpback in Frederick Sound. There were so many of them, most not as close as this one. We turned our engine off for a while to drift though, and we could hear the whales breathing all around us. We also spotted a sea otter with her two kits - they crawled all over her as she swam along. We also saw what was unmistakably a shark fin that crossed in front of us. We assume it was a salmon shark, which are fairly common up here. It was a bit creepy to see.

Baird Glacier.

Buoy Bingo

Wrangell Narrows is the shortest route from Wrangell to Petersburg. The entrance is shown above. The passage has been dredged and features roughly sixty aids to navigation which mark the rocks and shoals you want to avoid. It is a common suggestion to make a list of all markers and check them off as you pass them, especially if it is your first time through the narrows. So we made a list and decided to call it Buoy Bingo. It wasn't exactly like bingo but it had a nice ring to it. Playing Buoy Bingo kept Matt and I on our toes, but in the end it was probably the most fun bit of navigating we have done.

It is a bit hard to make out, but all those things in the water are buoys and markers. The greatest challenge was figuring out the sequence, since perspective (as in which are closer) wasn't always obvious. Without binoculars this would have really sucked.

One of the logistics to transiting the narrows is to enter from either the north or south end at the last hour or two of the flood, depending on the average speed of your boat. That way you ride the flood in, and then once you reach the midway point, the tidal currents change and you ride the ebb out. The above photo was taken at about the mid point, and we are meeting all the south bound boats. Some sections of the narrows are also, yes, rather narrow. The largest cruise boats don't go through, but the Alaskan ferries and smaller cruise ships do use the narrows. So, another part of the game is to monitor VHF and AIS to know who's coming, and to plan to pull over if you need to to let the larger boats by. We met the ferry Matanuska, who was southbound, in one of the narrowest parts, but we were able to time the meeting at a place where we could safely pull out of the channel.

Here's Matt checking off another buoy. One of us would be at the helm while the other helped keep track of the markers and kept up a narration of what was coming up next. All the navigation aids are distinctly numbered, and with the chart we always knew exactly where we were at. We each had our own pair of binoculars.

Here's the almost finished buoy bingo sheet. That's our idea of fun.

All summer in a day

After living through three Seattle Novembers (as Matt likes to say) during our weather bound stay in Ketchikan, we were rewarded by a blue sky and warm temperatures in Wrangell. It felt like the summer days you remember as a kid, sort of carefree with endless hours of daylight. Our stay in Wrangell was made even better when the crew of S/V Celtic Song, who we had met many weeks ago in Shearwater, arrived. We decided to stay an extra day just to enjoy their company.

The above photo of Wrangell was taken from Mt Dewey.

The weather clouded in a bit on the day we left, but it was still pretty in it's own way.

Totem poles and rain

We've decided to spend one more day in Ketchikan before we move on. Today we are going to try to do some relaxing and get a bit of boat work done. We've spent the last few days walking a lot, and getting drenched in the process. It's been raining pretty much the whole time we've been here. The location and topography of Ketchikan makes it a great funnel for weather. In the evenings we have been running both shore power heat and our Dickinson diesel heater to dry out, and it's been very cozy.
Yesterday we did a hike up to Deer Mountain. The buses weren't running (no service on July 4th) so it ended up being about a 9 mile jaunt since we had to walk to the trail head. Nine miles isn't much, but it's been a few months since our last real hike so it felt like a good work out. It was a good change to go into the woods - the forests are incredibly lush here. A couple of days ago when the buses were running we went south to Saxman and then north to Totem Bight to check out the totem pole collections. The above photo is from Totem Bight.

Another winged visitor

While we were crossing Dixon entrance under sail I happened to be below when Matt called me to come look. Perched in our companionway was a slightly bedraggled looking red crossbill. Apparently he either was getting tuckered out and sorely needed a break, or he wanted to try a bit of sailing. He stayed for little while, then eventually flew off. We really hope he made it back to land. We think he just needed a few moments to dry off - right before he landed on our boat the rain had started to pelt us pretty good. The backlighting in the photo makes it hard to see much detail, but if you look close you can see where his bill crosses at the tip.

Hi from Ketchikan

This is the view out our companionway at the marina we are at. Lots of fishing boats. The weather here is quite wet - strong southerly winds and lots of rain. It's making Seattle seem like southern California in comparison! Right now I am at the library using my 30 minutes of wi-fi. I hope to post more later but for now this is it.
We had a great sail (although the seas were a bit lumpy) yesterday from Dundas Island across Dixon Entrance. Wecantu just galumphed across in her heavy keel kind of way. She enjoyed it immensely.