Keku Strait

July 22
We left Kake and after much deliberation decide to try a very tricky pass, Keku Strait. Many of our books said it was "dooable" and others said we should get some local knowledge. Kake's harbor didn't seem too full of local knowledge, so we decided to try it and we did it! Mike was busy at the wheel going in and out of shallow areas and kelp beds. We heard a new sound come from the boat - the sound of kelp being pulverized by the propeller. We were happy to come out the other side! I was able to work on my radio skills and call in a Securite call. Before transiting through a narrow channel boats call and let other boaters know of your whereabouts. As always, give a microphone, telephone or a radio and I become a wanta be karaoke character! **Just today, I read a story about a sailboat that tried Rocky Pass and got stuck high and dry on a rock for 12 hours - thank you, Mike for getting us through safely!!



Another big decision...do we go outside and down the west side of Prince of Wales Island or go down the east side which would lead us back to the "traditional" Inside Passage? We both wanted to go outside and see something different, but what about the weather? We could get stuck somewhere and not make progress south...oh, well - who wants to go home anyway? We took a left (outside) and found calm, beautiful water and some whales - all signs that we chose the right route. We then entered a narrow strait - Shakan strait, to Dry Strait to El Capitan, We are now tucked in to Devilfish Cove and the rain is trickling down the boat and we are relaxing and enjoying the daily life of traveling and living on a boat. It is peaceful, relaxing and a wonderful place to be spending our summer.


We find moorage at the tip of Prince of Wales Island in Wooden Wheel Cove. A sweet little settlement that has no roads that go to the town. Everything is built on a boardwalk and the best way to get around is in your dingy. We meet the "colorful" Alaskan fishermen on the dock and have a quiet evening.

Red Bluff

July 19th
Red Bluff - We are ready to check our shrimp pot, but before we can a couple of men dingy over and ask if we hit their pot yesterday on our way in to anchor. Of course we didn't, but they had thought we had hit theirs, and put ours there to repay them. Mmmm, interesting idea - but NO! They gave us our shrimp pot and informed us it had no shrimp in it - but theirs had 135!. I was practically salivating thinking about the shrimp, I even asked if we could buy some from them. No, they weren't for sale. Now we have no shrimp and our pot isn't even reset. Well, you can imagine the story I concocted about those ....guys. Well, a few hours later we heard the putt-putt of a dingy and there is one of the men with cleaned shrimp and an offer to reset our pot. Mmmm, what will we have for dinner tonight - Humble pie and Shrimp. From now on we will call this cove - Humble Shrimp Cove.

July 20th
Eagles, eagles and more eagles. At the end of our cove, where the stream meets the water of the cove the eagles are meeting. We aren't sure what they are meeting about, but something is going on. We count at least 40, huge adults and some younger eaglets. They are all just standing around or perched on stumps - we keep waiting for something exciting to happen, but there doesn't seem to be much excitement - except us on the boat, going crazy over seeing them everywhere. Later in the day we pulled up our shrimp pot and...no shrimp. Maybe we can "borrow" some from another pot and reset it with new bait. We pulled up the boat that had obviously been there for a long time. We found a stone fish in the pot with his mouth full of shrimp - Stone fish are very poisoness, so we carefully sent him back to the sea and "borrowed" a few shrimp for us....Ssshhh don't tell. We think the trap may have been lost or abandoned, so really we helped that poor fish and those shrimp, they were either going to be eaten by the fish or by us...might as well have been us! I even cleaned the little buggers later. Pulling their heads off was the worst part. There bulgy eyes kept looking at me, until we put them in the freezer for awhile to "cool off".

July 21
We moored in Kake last night. We had to carefully choose what dock to tie up to, because most of the docks were leaning to one side or the other. Kake's dock needs some repair - like most of the boats on the dock. We walked to the SOS store and arrived 10 minutes before closing. We grabbed supplies quickly and walked back to the boat.

Warm Springs

July 15th
Anchored again near Piper Island and got a quick peek of the grizzly cubs that we had seen about a week ago. We tied to a moorage buoy - that is the easy way to go. The next morning we got up and dingyed around the island and saw the cubs again - no mama bear! It was a beautiful morning on the water.

July 16
Headed towards Peril Strait, past Sergius Narrows, Poison Cove and Deadman's Reach. Sounded ominous to us...but come to find out the reason it is named such frightening names was back in 1799 during the Russian occupation some Aleut hunters were on their way from Sitka to Kodiak, when they found and ate quantities of mussels and later over 100 of them died from paralytic shellfish poisoning. No seafood for us for dinner tonight! Actually, we did try a new halibut recipe given to us by a lady in Sitka. She told us to boil the halibut in Sprite and it would taste like lobster - and it kinda did!!

July 17

We came to the aid of a sailing vessel today. A couple from San Francisco radioed that they were having difficulties with their engine. We were following them to a secure anchorage - just in case their engine quit. We had to retrace our direction, but they were so thankful not to be left alone out here. The search and rescue boat finally met us and escorted them to a safe harbor. We turned around and headed for Baranoff Warm Springs. We arrived about 7:00 pm to a beautiful little village set right next to a thunderous waterfall. We anchored near the entrance to the salt lagoon and near the falls. A very popular place with lots of fishing boats at the dock. Lovely evening and lots of activity to watch. I am beginning to get quite good at using my binoculars and concocting stories about our fellow boaters. My idea of a "boaters soap opera", Mike is thrilled.

July 18
Got up and decided to hike up to the Warm Springs. We pulled on our rubber boots and walked up the board walk through the beautiful, lush forests to a small, rooty path that led out to some rock pools. There was a fisherman from Lopez already enjoying a soak, but we quickly joined him and it was ...hot. There were a few different pools that led closer and closer to the waterfall. The last pool was about as big as a tire and deep and if you laid with your rear end in the pool you could reach your arms out over the cliff and feel the power of the waterfall cascading past you, with the spray misting the air and cooling off your face - what a feeling. There are some things you just put in your "happy" memory bank and they will always be there - I will always remember what joy I felt experiencing the waterfall at Baranoff. Before we left we dingyed through a shallow passage into the salt lagoon. Through the narrow passage we saw the most beautiful sea anemonies on the bottom. We left later in the day and motored down the coastline to Red Bluff Bay. We arrived late and set our shrimp pot. We anchored in a cove full of waterfalls. The waterfalls came off every mountain in our sight - I do love waterfalls.

Sitka

July 10-15 Sitka

We arrived in Sitka and could not get into the harbor, so we anchored outside the harbor waiting for a slip to open up. We stayed at the Westmark Hotel - to have a night off the boat and stretch out a little in a "real" bed. Mike's back has been bothering him since Glacier Bay, we hope a few days on solid ground will help him feel better. Sitka is a beautiful city. It is very historical and has museums and cultural centers throughout the town. Also, it has a beautiful Totem Pole Park that we visited. Evan got a chance to go out on a chart boat to catch "the big one". We are all staying in a sweet little bed and breakfast called Alaska's Ocean View. We had dinner last night on our deck with a beautiful view. We have enjoyed Sitka! Evan flies home tomorrow and we will head home...it will just take us a little longer to get there!! As we go back to the wilderness - it might be a bit before you hear from us on the blog again - at some point I will catch up our adventures. (Finally, getting a chance to update - it is now July 25th). Hope everyone is enjoying summer - we are!

July 5th
Sandy Cove Anchorage - biting flies- ouch! Looked for Brown Bears, but no bears.

July 6th
Early kayak ride in Sandy Cove with Evan.

Moored on the dock at Glacier Bay. Mike and I stayed at the lodge for the evening. We all had a nice dinner at the lodge. Evan and I each had a whole crab - delicious.

July 7th Whales, whales and more whales! We were on Adolpho Point and we saw humpbac k whales in the distance and I got lots of good pictures of black specks and water. We were just leaving when they started to come right towards our boat. Evan had the camera and started to shoot. Wow! They came right at our boat and then started to play. Flapping tails and fins back and forth at each other. Vocalizing and spouting it was so amazing and then the breaching - and Evan caught the breaching! It was spectacular. Evan also caught a few more halibut - they are tough fish. Even after being hooked, gafted and beat over the head they keep squirming around in the cooler. We moored at the quaintest little cove. Elfin Cove, the town is completely made up of boardwalks. We walked to the little store and got a few supplies. Amazing sunset and a nice hot shower in the morning.

July 9th
We spent the night in a beautiful little cove with a waterfall at the end. Things sure look different in the morning when we woke up to a very low tide. There was a huge mound of kelp on top of a rock - just 10 feet from us. The tides can change up to 30 feet up here. Watched the eagles soar over the cove looking or fish.

July 2nd
We arrive in Glacier Bay at 11:00. Mike has to go to an orientation and Evan and I check out the lodge and take a short hike through the forest. I am chatting with the manager in the restaurant to see if I can buy some milk from them and we start talking about halibut and they tell me their chef will cook our halibut for us, anyway we would like it. About 30 minutes later we were sitting down to..."The best halibut I have ever eaten," says Evan. It was delicious blackend halibut and he also made us some halibut saviche. What a treat for us. it is about 8:00 pm and we are all in short sleeved shirts the weather is unbelievably beautiful. We can see the tops of the mountains, glaciers and an occasional whale. Evan has already caught one halibut and lost a 50 pounder right at the boat.


July 4th
Happy Independence Day! We don't have any fireworks, but we did hear thunder today. The glaciers were magnificent and we sat and "glacier gazed" for hours and listened to the the massive chunks of ice falling into the sea. Evan and I took a ride in the dingy to get as close as possible to the glacier. It looks like a sea of ice and it was! A wonderful 4th of July and another hammockable day ...in front of glaciers

We anchored last night in front of Reid's Glacier. It is 130 feet tall and 9.5 miles long. We all dingyed over to take a hike in front of the glacier. Mike "futzed" with the dingy, as Evan and I walked up to the face of the glacier. It is amazing to get so close and see the colors and watch the water forming into waterfalls and cascading down the crevices and caves. We also saw big bear tracks in the stream bed - we were prepared with our bear spray and flare gun!

Evan joins the crew

July 2nd
Evan is here! We are excited to have him aboard and he is ready to fish and he wants to see glaciers. He is hoping to catch a halibut like the one in the picture. A couple caught a 380 pounder, it took 4 hours to bring it in. We are off to Glacier Bay tomorrow.

We have been in Glacier Bay for 4 glorious days. (Today it is July 7th). The pictures are amazing...but you will have to check our blog out later in the week to see the splendor. The boys are on the boat and if I don't get to the dock I might be spending more time here in Glacier Bay without them! We are headed in the direction of Sitka and plan to go the outside way - because the weather is supposed to be beautiful!

Halibut Fishing

July 1st
We leave Juneau on our way to meet Evan in Gustavus. On the way we take a few of Richard's fishing tips on where to fish and...we catch two 20 pound halibuts! It was so much fun - my first halibut. Mike filleted them and we have been eating well, nothing like fresh halibut.

Auke Bay

June 30th

We spent two days in Auke Harbor near Juneau. We got off the boat and stayed at a B&B, it was nice to be on solid ground for a couple of days. We toured the Alaska State Museum in Juneau - really interesting and a nice way to spend a rainy day. We also ran into a friend of Mike's from Bellingham. Richard and his wife Nancy ( she was back in Bellingham) run tours between Juneau and Sitka every summer. Richard cooked us a delicious halibut dinner and we enjoyed an evening on their boat the Alaska Song. If you ever want to see Alaska in comfort with a knowledgeable captain, beautiful accommodations and yummy food - their boat would be an adventure of a lifetime.

Pictures of Whale

Here is the proof. A large humpback and a smaller calve came very close to our boat. What a wonderful experience to see and hear and experience.

Last pictures for now. Here is the view from our last anchorage before we got into Auke Harbor near Juneau. Rainbows and Sunsets both pictures show what a treat the sky is putting on for our eyes.