Bay of Pillars: Part one

 

As Ruthie Jeanne moved out of the Southern Chatham Strait into the Bay of Pillars, we saw a big lodge just inside the entrance. According to our navigational info, the owner of the lodge will occasionally contacts boaters passing by via VHF and ask if they’d like to chat and take a tour of his property. I slowed as we passed the lodge hoping we’d get a call on the VHF, but none came. A little disappointed, we moved on.

The Bay of Pillars was so named because of its steepled rocks pillars, like someone stuck them upright into the bottom of the bay. Often times there is a clue on the depth sounder of the bottom beginning to rise so there is ample time to slow, stop or avoid a shoal or unexpected rocky area. On a marine chart, with due diligence, it’s easy to set the boat’s course to navigate around such areas. But in the Bay of Pillars there was a caution on the charts to look out for “uncharted obstructions”, like the pillars. Slowing as we entered this area, Terry was on the bow, watching for any obstacles in our path.  

We navigated through the ½ mile long narrow pass, some area only 40 or 50 feet wide. It was a little hair raising at times. Then it opened up into a big land locked body of water 3 miles long and 2 miles wide. This was our first trip through this area so everything was new. We didn’t have the luxury of prior experience to help us through the narrows. Piloting back out to the entrance a couple days later was a piece of cake.

Big Bay after navigating the skinny entrance.  Beautiful place.

When we first entered the big bay, we spotted 50 or more sea otters, some with pups perched on the stomachs. A group of sea otters is called a colony or raft. When we saw all of them together is looked like one big raft. These creatures are so cute and so endearingly playful I could watch them all day. However, as I mentioned before the otters have wreaked havoc on the marine environment of many bays, coves, and inlets in SE Alaska.

Our personal experience was this: in the areas we anchored where there were otters, we didn’t catch any fish, clams or crab. Our walks on the beach where there were literally hundreds of thousands of clam shells, we found no live clams. The evidence of the otters destructive digging was plain to see, as there were divots in the beach about the size of a medium to large bowls as far as the eye could see. When an otter digs a clam, they store a rock in a pouch underneath their arm. It lays the clam on its stomach and uses the rock to crack open mollusks and clams. Pretty clever for a sea otter.

Not a great photo, but hey, it's only an iPhone. 

At the other end of the big bay, we entered a small cove where there was more protection from the wind and waves that existed in the larger bay. Over the next couple of days, we observed a young male moose with a tiny rack and spindly legs, and later 3 females walking together down the beach. They were munching on bushes and small trees. We never observed them grazing on shrubs or grass along the ground. Each of them stared at us for a long while, probably wondering if we were a menace or just harmless gawkers.

Another not so great picture. No those aren't horses.  

When anchored and settled in, we noticed white jellyfish all over the cove. Their sizes were as small as a baseball and as big as a bowling ball, slowing moving along with whatever current there was in the cove. They were relaxing to watch as they did their slow dance through the water. 

(According to ScubaNews the Alaskan jellies are Moon Jellyfish. They use long harpoon-like tenacles to sting prey and feed on planktonic fish and invertebrates. A group of jellies is identified as a smack and the group can number in the thousands. Fun fact: Jellyfish are edible. (Yuck) They can be prepared many ways, including drying and then shredded or sliced thinly and tossed with sugar, soy sauce, or oil and vinegar for a salad.)

Hope all is well with you.

Ed Out. 

Leaving Petersburg Behind

 

We left Petersburg and got a glimpse of the upper end of Le Conte Glacier, 

where we visited the day before. 

We left the Petersburg Marina and motored out into Frederick Sound, headed for a big anchorage named Thomas Bay, we could see the upper end of Le Conte Glacier as we headed west. Thomas Bay looked like a great place to get some crab.  However, we were warned by fellow boaters in Petersburg that the commercial crabbing season opened a day before so there might be slim pickings.  I chatted with a guy that used to crab commercially. His observation was that each year there were fewer and fewer crab to go around for the commercial guys. They had to “fish on top of each other”,’ meaning the pots were close together and no one could really get a prized catch. His take was that the sea otter reintroduction is killing the Dungeness crab fishery.

(After googling the topic, I found that sea otters were reintroduced to Alaska, British Columbia, and Washington in 1965 after being hunted to extinction in the 1800 and 1900s. The British, Canadians, Americans and First Nation traders were all involved in wiping out the sea otter colonies. After the reintroduction the population has come roaring back. But there are consequences to their return in the form of a marine environment becoming out of balance.  

Unfortunately, at the top of the meal menu for sea otters is Dungeness crab and their appetite is a voracious one for that particular fare. They also dine on sea urchins, gooey ducks, clams, sea cucumbers, sea stars, chitons, octopus, squid, rock scallops and mussels. They weigh 35 to 90 pounds and eat 20-30% of their body weight per day. It doesn’t take long to understand how the otter can adversely affect the environment along the shores of the bays and inlets and how it affects those in the fishing industry trying to make a living catching crab On one hand the otter was brought back from extinction, which is probably a good thing and they're now a protected species. On the other hand, they have completely depleted the marine stocks in many of the inland bays and coves. There are now studies to devise plans for mitigating their adverse effects. And that only means one thing, fewer sea otters.)

We entered Thomas Bay and noticed hundreds of crab pots. A little disappointing, but there will be one or two for us at some point because we knew there were crab in the area. It was tough finding an unobstructed spot to anchor and not tangle with the crab buoys. Our original plan was to spend two days here, but we moved on the next day in search of a more comfortable anchorage and fewer crab pots. We didn’t see otters in this bay, a little unusual.

Thomas Bay. Difficult to see but there were hundreds of pot in and 

around us. If you are looking at this on an iphone/ipad, zoom in and you'll see.

A different view when heading out of Thomas Bay. 

And did we ever hit the jackpot with the next anchorage. Off of Donkey Bay, there’s a anchorage identified as Cannery Cove. It’s nestled in a big mountainous bowl with waterfalls, steep structure, a variety of trees, sharp gullies cut by snow and runoff and snowcapped ridges. Just can’t beat the view of a lowland valley that shot straight up. One of the most beautiful place Moon and have ever seen. I took a dozen pictures in an attempt to show off this gorgeous spot but none of them did it justice. I’ll include a couple but just know I couldn’t quite capture the beauty of the place with my iPhone.

The beauty of Cannery Cove

The only down side to Cannery Cove was the dime sized horseflies. They dive bomb the unsuspected in Kevlar Armor and a nasty disposition. Their bite is worse than a mosquito but not as bad as a bee. The good news? They land like they just jumped off a 5-step porch so it’s pretty easy to know they are there, and they’re slow. The problem with whacking these pesky little buggers is they just won’t roll over and die. They have to be nailed, spot on, or the next thing you know they’re up jumping around swearing a blue streak. I had to go after them again with the fly swatter to finish the job. Unfortunately, those  pesky flies always called in reinforcements. This was a great anchorage, so taking the good with the bad is the order of the day

We left Cannery Cove and headed for Security Inlet. Along the way near a smallish islet, there were the spotted harbor seals with their elegant coats of light gray, accented with black spots, the usual black harbor seals and sea lions aplenty. As we passed this islet a humpback surprised us by rolling over near the boat. Then minutes later, like it was a slow-motion video, the whale came straight up out of the water about 8 feet with its mouth open. Probably, the huge creature got just what they wanted, a herring breakfast. And the herring were everywhere in this area so it wasn’t surprising that it supported so much of the wildlife we were able to observe.  

Mouth closed, sinking back down into the deep blue. 

We left beauty of Cannery Cove for Security Bay on Kuiu Island, (pronounced Kwee ooh). The bay’s name was kind of a misnomer because the wind blew through there like it was going to push us back to Petersburg. But the anchor was set well enough and the boat remained in one spot, swinging one way then the other. After the nauseousness from the wide swings went away, it was relaxing. This area had many small islands and islets and sea otters with their pups were everywhere. Funny, they call a group of sea otters a raft, more about that later. We would have stayed another day if it wasn’t for the wind.

3:45 a.m. in Security Bay after the winds died down and a smooth ride out into Fredric Sound. 

Up early the next day, we left at 3:45 to catch a good tide and rounded the NW side of Kuiu Island where the outgoing tide was headed south down North Chatham Strait and the water in Fredric Sound was headed west, and there the two met. And boy did they. Yikes. The meeting caused some rough and confused seas which threw us around quite a bit. I looked at Moon and said, “this wasn’t in the NOAA weather report!”. The experience made me think of the times I had many beers and got up on a mechanical bull, like the 1980’s Urban Cowboy days, up and down until I fell off. Lucky for us after a hairy ride we found calmer waters. We had a plan B and Plan C anchorage if the water was too much for us but didn’t need them. We were able to make it into the Bay of Pillars, an anchorage we were anticipating without any more circus-ride type seas.  

That’s it for now. Hope all your seas are calm. 

Ed Out

Petersburg and Le Conte Glacier

We left Wrangell on a sunny morning and headed out towards Petersburg, our most northern port on the trip. We decided against Juneau, Sitka, Skagway and other ports north of Petersburg so we wouldn’t have to hurry. Juneau is another 110 miles from here and others are farther. Constantly, moving from place to place is tiring and one anchorage starts to look that all the rest. Two- and three-day stops have been thrown in and a weather day here and there so we have the opportunity to enjoy our travels. We didn’t want to make this trip like work used to be.

Anyway, Ruthie Jeanne headed west through Sumner Strait to an open anchorage identified as Saint John Harbor, on Zarembo Island. The area around the harbor is US Forest Service land. They have a dock, so we tied up and went for a walk on a well-traveled road. A USFS truck with two passengers passed us and then we were met by a Forest Service guy who was walking to the dock. He and the other 2 guys were headed home to Petersburg and another crew would boat in to man the “administrative center” on the island. Seemed a little strange to have an admin center where the only occupants of the entire island were housed in the admin center, a total of 4 was my guess.

On our walk we noticed 5 or 6 cars by the side of the road that looked like they’d been there for a while. We asked him about the vehicles. Apparently, hunters barge them over to the island then go hunting in them. There are 48 miles of service roads around the island. When the hunters were finished  they'd leave, but the cars would stay until the next hunting seasons. They would then boat over to the island and off they would go in their vehicles on another hunt.

We had a couple of nice relaxing days there, caught 1 crab that was a keeper, and fished with no results except cornering 3 flounder in the crab trap.  We were joined by 3 other boats for the night in a calm bay. This is a stopover anchorage for boats waiting to catch the best tide up Wrangell Narrows to Petersburg since the Narrows can be a bit difficult to navigate. We left Wrangell far behind and I haven't quite figured out why they named the waterway up to Petersburg, Wrangell Narrows. It's nowhere near Wrangell. 

Our last evening in St. Johns Harbor.

Sumner Strait at 3:15 a.m. after leaving our anchorage in St. John's Harbor.

The next morning the alarm clock went off at 2:30 a.m. so the boat could be warmed up and everything stowed away. The anchor was pulled and we were on our way by 3:00 a.m. (I can't remember the last time I was up at 3:00 except to head to the bathroom.) Amazingly, it was light out at 3:00 a.m. with sunrise at 4:00 a.m. Meeting a high tide in Wrangell Narrows was important so there was enough water under us to alleviate the worry that we could bottom out. It is a relatively skinny and shallow waterway. There were plenty of buoys and range markers to keep us in the channel, one that is periodically dredged to allow for safe passage. Our map suggested we should not stray from the channel or risk mayhem to our boat’s hull.

A few fishing lodges dotted the shoreline and houses started to pop up on each shore the closer we got to Petersburg. Finally, we could see the town in the distance and were glad to pull into for a few days, close to land and somewhere to get a little exercise and do some hiking.

Petersburg Marina where they "hot birth" slips. 

The marina does something called “hot berthing”, which means the tenants leave their slip for a period of time and the Harbormaster rents out their slip while they’re gone. Unfortunately, the boat normally in our slip had a run in with a rock that poked a hole in her hull. She was taken out of the water for a fix to the fiberglass. Lucky for us because we got a slip, not so lucky for the slips tenants. Within southeast Alaska there are so many waterways and so many rocks and floating logs, that I’m always aware of what the consequences are of not paying attention. 

From the vantage point of a hike we took above the town. 

Petersburg is a great little town on Mikof Island that is surrounded by very tall snowcapped mountains and sits in the central part of the Alaska panhandle. The community prides themselves on family values, community support, and the independent Alaskan spirit. Most of the folks in Petersburg are fisherman or support the fishing industry. The fisheries include salmon, herring, halibut, black cod, and shrimp/prawns. Commercial fishing boats landed $52 million pounds of seafood last year with a value of $50 million. She ranks 20^th in the US in terms of value by catch. Not bad for a town of 3000.

Speaking of the independent spirit, here is a vending machine that usually houses food, 

pop or candy. When the marine store is closed you can get items for your chainsaw. 

Insert your credit card and get engine oil, chain oil, chain, and different types of spark 

plugs. Independence at it's best. 

The town was founded by a Norwegian immigrant named Peter Buschman, (hence, Petersburg) and is known as “Little Norway”. European explorers settled here and based their livelihood on, you guessed it, fishing, canneries, and sawmills. Icebergs from nearby La Conte Glacier provided the ice to cool the fish before canning.

This iceberg was so blue and so clear it almost didn't look real. 

Size was about 10 ft tall and 70 ft long.

Not so blue but bigger. 

They come in all shapes and sizes. 

This was a challenge for the pilot to move us closer to the glacier. 

As you can see there are thousands of little icebergs in the way.

An awesome sight up close.

Moon and I went on a 12-person tour to Le Conte Glacier with Scott and Shelly. The boat was an aluminum boat with two 400 hp jets. Wouldn't want a prop sticking down in the water with all this ice. The glacier is the southern most glacier in the northern hemisphere that calves into the sea. The bay is over 800 feet deep and is flooded with small to large icebergs. Harbor seals birth their young on some of those icebergs and we observed many of the mothers with their pups. We saw small areas calve into the water but not really anything spectacular. Not until we were about to leave did we see a huge sheet of ice the size of a building calve off sideways from the glacier.  It was so big it almost looked like it was falling in slow motion. We could hear it and feel it crash into the water and rode its wave up and down when it rolled our way. It was an awesome sight. We got our money’s worth. Seek Alaska Tours out of Petersburg is the group that leads this trip if you are ever interested.  

                                       

A mother and pup watching us closely. 

Hope you have enjoyed our travels so far. Terry took a video of a portion of the glacier calving that won't work in this blog. If you'd like us to send it to you respond with an email and we'll give it a try. That said, we're leaving tomorrow and won't be have any cell/wifi reception for another 10 or more days. We're headed for Craig, Alaska on Prince of Wales Island. If we come back to Alaska, it would be a pleasure to visit Petersburg again. 

We'll be losing some crew in Petersburg. Shelly left two days ago. She was our liaison to the folks in Petersburg and all boat people on the dock. She had her ear to the hum of the dock and passed that info on to us. She was my nemesis while we played Bananas. Scott left yesterday. He is my boat hero besides being a great crew. When stuff inevitably broke or stopped working, his approach was to solve a puzzle. My approach was to freak out and complain like a spoiled10 year old that swore like a stevedore. I hope I can learned to approach problems like he does at some point in my life. We will miss them both. 

Hope all is well with you and the problems you face are miniscule. 

Ed out.  

Day 50: Wrangell

 

Day 50: The Ketchikan to Wrangell cruise.

Due to the winds and rain, it seemed like Ketchikan would grab us and not let go. The intention was to spend another day in the city due to poor weather conditions, then try to head out after that. Luckily for us, a window opened up and we took off early after listening to the NOAA weather report. We backed out of the yacht club slip and headed out of the marina while I donned my new Ketchikan Yacht Club baseball cap. What a buy.

We made our way past the Carnival Splendor cruise ship whose crew was tying up to the dock and around the stern of the Celebrity Solstice that was just coming into port for the day. Then we dialed in the auto pilot and turned the boat north through Tongass Narrows. 

The Carnival ship with a big red bear and a climbing wall for the kids.

By the way, the autopilot is fixed and working again, as is the radar. There is a story there. A day before the electronics went haywire, We were lounging at anchor in Yes Bay when Moon wanted a project to do. Removing the audio speakers on either side of the refrigerator would give us more room to put stuff. After the pair were removed, I put them under the floor in the front berth on top of a piece of  3/4" plywood. Little did I know that the electronic compass globe had been installed just under the plywood. That's the main component that guides all the electronics. The speakers have hefty magnets built in them. As you can probably guess, magnets and compasses don’t mix. That's when the autopilot, chart plotter and radar went haywire out of Yes Bay. A big faux pas on my part. I didn’t actually know the compass globe was down there until the Garmin support guy told me to trace the wire off the autopilot controller in the bilge. When I did, there they were right above the compass.  I removed the speakers and voila, no more trouble with the electronics. This cruise has been one big problem-solving endeavor, like it or not.

Out of Ketchikan, our first stop was in Vixen Bay, a pretty cove but sort of unremarkable compared with all the beautiful wilderness we’ve experienced so far.  The weather was starting to rear its ugly head so we ducked in here for protection. We had a nice evening with the wind calming down and some great views out of the mouth of the bay.

The next morning, we enjoyed Moon’s breakfast and motored out of the harbor to our next stop, Santa Anna Inlet. In the Navionics app the comment about this inlet was that a path to a lake existed at the head of the cove. We’d been cooped up in the boat for a couple of days so a walk would be great. The path was described as “well marked and often used”. After motoring around for a good 45 minutes there was no path to find. However, the tide was dropping and what appeared was an old riveted and heavily rusted boilers on the shore. We think they were steam driven Donkey Engines that might have provided power for some sort of logging function. They didn’t mark the path either. Again, another calm evening, another beautiful bay.

A donkey engine was used as a winch in the logging, mining and maritime industries. They

replaced horses as a power source. Photo by our friend Shelly. 

Onto Steep To Cove the next morning. We were fortunate to get a close look some of the wildlife. First, we spied a grizzly bear lumbering around on the beach. He or she was looking for some morsels to hold him over until the salmon started running up the rivers and streams to spawn.  Next a couple of deer, one doe and one fawn. The baby was jumping around looking to get her sea legs under her. It was funny to see, like she was on a pogo stick, up and down she’d go.

As we continued to Steep To we passed a raft of seals and sea lions with many young in the water. One male sea lion looked to be 300-400 pounds, just my guess. He dwarfed all the other sea lions and when he came out of the water to climb to the top of the rock all the others gave him plenty of room to do so.

Seals and sea lions lazing on the rocks, off the water 10 feet or more, 

waiting for the tides to rise so they can return to the water. 

Then we got a treat watching humpback whales and porpoises in the same area where there must have been a massive amount of bait fish.  The whales were active and the porpoises were zipping back and forth in every direction.  Then, all of a sudden, they disappeared. A couple minutes later they popped up in front of us darting in and out of the bow wave. It is a thrill to see this wildlife up close. As fast as they appeared, they were gone.

Humpback whale and Dall's porpoises. When you see something 

that big, it's pretty impressive. 

We motored into Steep To Cove, which would give us a  good start the following morning up Zimovia Strait and into Wrangell. We arrived in Wrangell in the afternoon and got a spot on the end of the dock, making it easier for us to leave in the morning.  

Wrangell is sort of an unremarkable town but one steeped in history. Wrangell was founded by the Russians who started trading with the Tlinget in 1811. The traded glass beads and cloth for fur. The British Hudson’s Bay Company leased the stockade the Russians built when they arrived and continued the fur trade. When the sea otter and beaver stocks were depleted, the British abandoned the fort in 1849 but it remained under British control until the US purchased Alaska in 1867 and built their own stockade. Commerce build up around the fort and was a boon to the Wrangell community through the gold rushes in the mid to late 1800s.  Since the 1800s the areas industry is what you’d think it would be…fishing and logging with a little bit of mining thrown in. 

(By the way, the US Secretary of State William H. Seward signed a treaty with Russian for the purchase of Alaska for $7 million, roughly 2 cents an acre. Despite getting a big time bargain the purchase was derided by Congress and President Andrew Johnson as “Seward’s Folly”, “Seward’s Icebox” and “polar bear garden”. They were evidently short sighted because it turned out to be a screamin’ deal.

All for now.  Hope all is well with you all.

Ed Out.

Misty Fjords

 Misty Fjords

Wikipedia reports that Misty Fjords National Monument is a wilderness area administered by the US Forest Service as part of the Tongass National Forest. The national monument was originally proclaimed by President Jimmy Carter in December 1978. By the way, Jimmy is 97 and Rosalynn the ripe old age of 94. Jimmy’s hoping people will finally forget that he gave the Panama Canal back to the Panamanians and, hence, no longer under US control. The two of them are expected to live into their 120s and continue doing volunteer work until….until they fall over, I guess.

Anyway, on to Misty Fjords. We left Klu Bay and traveled north around the top of the Loop of Revillegegido Island. It was beautiful country with mountains all around, a light breeze rippling the water here and there and our second bear sighting. But increasingly, pollen was everywhere, on the boat, in the water, all over everything. It was like rivers of yellow gunk flowing across the water. It would pool in little silver dollar sized sticky globs by the thousands, millions actually. I steered out of the way to avoid some of the big pools of the stuff. Finally, the water just turned a yellowish green. It was enough to make you sneeze just looking at it. I’ve never seen anything like it.

With all the massive logging that’s been done in this part of the world there have been consequences to removing the timber on steep slopes. With all the rain, snow, and freezing in the winter the ground gives way on an area that has been recently logged and an avalanche occurs. Everything comes crashing down and leaves a blight on the side of the mountain and a big twisted log mess at the bottom. Sometimes, the slide area is unable to recover.  At other times there is enough soil left to re-establish new growth and its on the way to recovery. 

Tides are a big item up here. For instance, on June 16^th, a day with a full moon, the difference in the tidal exchange is 22 feet in Ketchikan.  Low tide is a -4.1 and the high tide is 18.6. In comparison, the tides in Anacortes on the same day are a low of 3.7 (one of the lowest for the year) and 9.0 for a high, an exchange of water totaling 12.7 feet. This is important when anchoring in this part of the world because dropping the anchor in 25-30 feet of water could find the boat bouncing off the bottom at low tide. If there are any rocks along the bottom, that’s additional problem.  So, we always take into consideration what the tides are doing and anchor accordingly. Then, we won’t be startled from a dead sleep in the middle of the night wondering what the crunching noise is coming from the hull.  

Now we enter Walker Cove. 

After wandering into Walker Cove, we decided that this was probably our favorite place as far as raw unusual beauty. It has 3 separate bays, each with a stream running into it, gigantic glacially carved vertical granite walls, plenty of waterfalls with their low rumble as they cascaded down the cliffs. What could be better than this? Ruthie Jeanne rounded the corner to the bay to find the buoy vacant and ready for our lines. This would be our luck lately, to nab the only buoy in a bay. And then there was the bear! We watched the bear rummage through the beach looking for something to eat each afternoon and early eve. 

  

   

Some of the waterfalls in Walker Cove would drop 1000 feet into the water, some with a splash, others just trickled down the rock wall. 

Leaving Walker Cove. If we ever return here to this magical place, it would be a delight.

We headed back to Ketchikan and called the Ketchikan Yacht Club Marina for a slip because the other marinas were full. In what has been our good fortune lately, we were able to pull into the only slip that was available on the yacht club dock.  I was beginning to feel like the purchase of a lotto ticket would be my next move.  

We returned here to pick up Scott and friend Shelly. They’ll be with us for the next 10 days. That trip will culminate in a tour to the Le Conte Glacier and hopefully we’ll see the glacier calving into the bay. This is the time of year we'll probably see many sea pups born not too long ago. 

It’s been raining and windy, which has delayed our trip. We won’t head out when there is a forecast of Small Craft Warnings and gale force winds, but we'll leave soon. 

More pictures, less words today. Hope all is well with you.

Ed out.

 

The Loop.

The Loop.

We left Ketchikan to journey up Behm Channel, on the west side of Revillagigedo island, and entered Yes Bay.  We passed Yes Bay Fishing Lodge, and called them on VHF Channel 73 to deliver a “hello” from a guy who used to work there for many years. He’s now employed by our mechanic in La Conner at Steve Ibbetson Marine Services.  Small world.

We slowed down to navigate a few tiny islets and a couple of skinny passages in order to reach the best anchorage at the head of the bay. We came in on a high tide and the passage was thick with trees just touching the water line and draped with moss. The head of the bay had a mud bottom and wasn’t very deep, (good for crabbing). There was long slow shoaling at the end of the bay that included a grassy marsh area and a stream, (perfect for bear watching). The universe often gives what’s needed, not necessarily what is wanted. After two days crabbing, we pulled up the trap to find one crab. We were thrilled it was of legal size at 6 ½“.  We didn’t see another crab, male or female, after several more attempts. Very unusual for that to happen. 

And bears? No bears until the morning we left. Right before pulling up the dinghy and anchor, I got an excited call on the walkie talkie from Moon. “There’s a bear, there’s a bear! Sure enough there was our first bear sighting. We watched the bear graze on the marsh grasses for a while until he disappeared into the woods in our own wilderness zoo. 

Next stop, Bailey Bay, in hopes of snagging the US Forest Service public buoy. If we could moor to the buoy that would be helpful because the bay is deep and anchoring is problematic. Our guide book suggests not staying unless tied up to the buoy or the boat is of yacht size, which we are not. As luck would have it, the buoy was free and we slowed our speed and nabbed it for a two-night stay. 

The quiet of Bailey Bay and the early morning warmth of the sun.

There was a hiking trail nearby on the shore, which was why the US Forest Service buoy was there. The trail leads to a 1-mile hike to Lake Shelokum where a supposed canoe can be used to cross the lake where a hot spring exists. After taking “spit baths” to conserve water, the thought of a dip in a hot spring was a glorious thing.

The next day we set off for the hike, rounded the first corner and saw the trail stretching upward at an alarming angle as far as the eye could see until it faded from view. It had to be an uphill 45-degree climb, at least to me it did. Ten minutes later passing out or sitting down screaming “No mas, no mas!” to my wife seemed like my only options. I’d been sitting on my “stern” for quite a number of days while we boated through BC and into Alaska. My body was used to sitting not hiking. But as Moon and I continued my body acclimated to the climb and it seemed to get a little easier. Our trail led us through the rain forest with all the ferns and moss and natural decay found in a place that gets 160 days of rain per year.

Unfortunately, we reached a stream that was washed out, probably from all the rain and ice melt from the warm weather the last few days. We could go no further which was disappointing because there was also a raging waterfall within 50 -60 yards of the washout that sounded like a jet engine. We could see it and feel its thunder but just couldn’t get a good look at it through all the trees. No Alaska hot tub today. Walking back down the hill was a piece of cake, or maybe I didn’t notice the burning in my legs and lungs because I was giddy, thinking how good my nap was going to be on a return to the boat. Moon and I were bushed. 

The following day was a day of rest. We puttered around and cleaned up the boat. In the afternoon an old red fishing boat with a couple came alongside and the captain asked if rafting to Ruthie Jeanne was okay. Normally, two boats on a buoy aren’t a great idea because the weight of both boats strains the tackle holding the buoy to the bottom. But the forecast for the night was for calm weather so I agreed to have the boat come along side and raft up.

                                                   The Tyyne, a commercial trolling boat. 

Not sure how old the fishing boat was but it didn’t come out of the fishing boat showroom in recent history. The couple anticipated taking the same hike we’d taken. I warned them about the washout area where Moon and I were turned back. She looked around the old trolling boat with its aged wood, rust and peeling paint and said to me with a slight grin, “as you can see, we’re not afraid of adventure.”

They were in their 40s and looked to be in good shape.  She was a “burned out veterinarian”, by her own admission, from Fort Collins, CO.  He was a retired family law/criminal defense attorney turned salmon trolling boat captain from Kasaan near Ketchikan.  They met on the Alaska Marine Highway ferry from Bellingham to Ketchikan. As soon at their backpacks were loaded, they were ready for a 3-day hike. After crawling into a plastic dinghy that looked like it might have come right off the shelf at Walmart and didn’t appear to be anywhere near “barnacle-proof”, they paddled away to the shore, gave us a wave and trotted off up the hill.

The following day we pulled the line from the buoy and backed away from the little red fishing boat. After a great stay in Bailey Cove the next trip was through Gedney Passage where, out of the blue, we lost our autopilot and the chart plotter radar was askew. We also got a radio call from a Seaborne Odyssey helm crew that told us our AIS (automatic identification system) icon that we broadcast to show our location to other watercraft was reporting Ruthie Jeanne moving through the water backwards. Luckily, we had enough cell reception to call the Garmin Marine support line. They were helpful, but we weren’t able to fix the problem right then. With enough electronics left to navigate safely, the glitches could wait until we returned to Ketchikan. We were going to be out of cell range for 11 days anyway.

I would have to pilot Ruthie Jeanne manually which is a tiring task on a long trip. The boat never seems to track easily in one direction, which is why an autopilot comes in handy with its continuous course corrections to the heading that’s selected. Without it there is always a little wind here or a little current there to push her off a straight-line course. In the grand scheme of things, there are worse problems to have.

We cruised through Shrimp Bay to see and hear two thundering waterfalls before rounding the point into Klu Bay, our stay for the night. Our hope was to tie up to the one buoy in the bay. Our luck ran out, the buoy was taken by a 50 foot yacht named Peregrine. We headed to the far end of the bay to scope out the anchoring possibilities, and then the radio came alive with “Ruthie Jeanne, Ruthie Jeanne, this is the Peregrine”. I replied to the captain and was informed that Peregrine was leaving and the buoy was ours if we wanted it. I thanked him and we tied up when Peregrine left, safe and sound at the buoy.  A blessing to be sure. 

Klu Bay had it all. A stream coming in to the little cove we were in, a hike to a lake, an old logging road to walk and supposedly, crab and prawns. This could be heaven. It turned out to be which heaven you would be talking about. 

It was tough getting crab that were the legal size of 6 ½”. After pulling up about 30 crab we finally landed a keeper. In WA, 6 ¼“ is the limit and we could have filled the boat if that was the limit here. But we don’t want to be greedy or think of ourselves as poachers, so one keeper was better than none.

Prawns, you say? We put the prawn trap out overnight and were anticipating a big haul in Shrimp Bay. Our electric pot puller heaved up 400 feet of line to a mildly disappointing total of seven prawns. However, that was fine for a prawn cocktail before Terry’s rockfish and salmon cake dinner. 

To be truthful our hike to the lake above the waterfalls wasn’t really a hike, it was more of a climb. The trail became a washed-out creek bed in places with all the rainfall they get here. In other places it was more like a muddy bog. The man-made log bridges over the wet spots and tiny streams had disintegrated in places and it looks like whoever kept up the trail had gone on vacation and decided not to come back. We hiked to the lake, took a picture to prove we were actually there and climbed back down to the shore swearing to somehow look for more moderate hikes. Moon and I looked at each other when we reached the boat and said, “maybe this hiking thing, isn’t for us”. We were bushed, again.

The following day we took a 2 mile walk along an old logging road next to a big stream that ran into the bay. The rainforest was thick with trees. This is bear country so we made noise to make sure a bear knew we were around. We also had a whistle, an air horn and bear spray if our noisiness didn’t do the trick. The climb elevation on the logging road was approximately 27 feet which suited us just fine compared with our previous “hikes”. The rainforest was filled with second growth trees, but old first growth stumps were still there. Some of the big ones looked as if the diameter was in the 6-to-7-foot range. The new growth trees looked to have a diameter of around 2-3 feet at most. It was a pleasant hike with no bears.

While we were out exploring in the dinghy, we stopped and talked to a couple from Bainbridge Island. They were in a new 28 foot aluminum fishing boat with dual outboards. All I could think about was the amount of gasoline those engines would burn at $5 a gallon. Ouch. Their ultimate goal was Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, roughly 300 miles away. 

It was so quiet and calm at times the water acted as a mirror image of the sky.  I took this picture over the railing, right at the water the morning before leaving the cove. You can see the beach in the top of the photo. We left our lucky buoy behind and headed to Misty Fjords and Walker Cove.

Ed out.