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.