Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Day 28 - Appleton Cove to Sitka


Black tail deer on the point


Appleton Cove in the sunshine


Our neighbor in Appleton Cove


Wild Iris on the riverbank


Lots of rapids and narrow passes today. We go with slack water and it is a non-event. Lots of wildlife enroute to Sitka, whales, deer but no bears. Just as we get to go though Whitestone pass (Lots of markers, buoys and range markers and very narrow) – Oceanaire and Ladner Lass manage to get caught in the pass with the Highspeed Catamaran “Fairweather”. A pull out to let the Catamaran Ferry pass and all is well. The mountains on the islands surrounding Sitka are amazing. Lots of 4000 to 8000 year old extinct volcanos. Off to see the puffins and do some sightseeing for the next three days. I hope to get some time over the next few days to update all of the photographs while we are here. Another week to 10 days and we start our return trip home.

Day 27 – Baranof Warm Springs to Appleton Cove


Our boats on the state dock in Baranof Warm Springs

Waterfall coming down from Baranof Lake


Penny enjoying a dip in the hotsprings


Oceanaire in Baranof Warm Springs


Jamie taking a breather from the hot water


Resident mask carver on the dock


Mike and Kobi taking a dip


Baranof Lake



Japanese bath in the warm springs bathhouse

Lots of dolphins this morning, a few fish boats out and two whale sightings. Its actually quite hot today, we are cruising with all of our doors and windows open. Destination is a bit sketchy – the travelling is good and Peril Straits are fairly calm. Our two day destination is Sitka. We pulled into Appleton Cove for the evening and spent an uneventful night rafted to the Big Red Boat (“Ladner Lass”) -- Its quite windy in the bay and the whole bay is only about 25’ deep. We hold very well for night. We went gunkholing through the end of the bay and up into the small river at the head, could only get about a mile up the river. There are more iris’ growing up here, did some green thumb gardener come up here and plant them randomly or are they indigenous to the area? Lots of deer in the bay, but no bear sightings. Mike and Bob go out fishing before dinner but forget to take the cannonballs for the down rigger…..we laugh when someone cuts in on the radio and tells Bob he should never leave home without his balls!

We heard from Tony and Gayle yesterday and it appears they are already down on Grenville channel with a hold full of nice salmon!!!! They should be lapping up the sun in Desolation Sound in about a week!

Day 25 & 26 – Cashman Bay to Baranof Warm Springs


Wild Iris' growing on the beach


A View through a mountain


Lots of Color on the beach - "Paintbrush"


Snowcrab shell?


Ever so watchful


Stern Tied in Cashman Bay

Lots of lazing Sea Otters enroute – but they do not stay to pose for our cameras. Another calm day and we head west to Baranof Warm Springs. All appears to be the same here with some cabins still hanging precariously over the edge. There is room on the state dock for us (rafted) and we decide to spend 2 days here so we all have a chance to take a soak! The next morning, three sailboats leave and Over the Edge and Shaman get their own spot on the dock. There are three bathhouses here and the natural hot springs (called the “Grotto”) and we get a chance to do both! No fisherman on the docks this trip – again for the most part, we are early for the fishing season as well. We have a lazy day and take a nice soak in the Grotto and a quick walk to Baranof Lake. The docks are in poor shape, but they are well used. Two fish boats anchored in the bay in the morning and a charter boats come and go all day long, ferrying their guests to shore for a soak. There are two sailboats on the dock that came in at 3:00 am after completing the first part of their sailing race. They race from Juneau have a mandatory rest stop in Baranof and head out in a few days back up to Juneau from the the south east channel. If they were to do it direct, its about a 70 hour trip (lots of becalming). We look for a carving left by Dave on the last trip but find only the screws left in the tree. That makes all the carvings left by Dave – gone to new homes!
Most of the big fish boats we have seen up here have what they call a “skiff” – a hulk of a steel squarish boat that they carry on the back of their boats and they use these boats to purse their fish nets when they are fishing. These skiffs have huge motors in them to give them the power to drag their nets around. When not fishing, the fish boats like to hang out in Baranof allowing crew to go back and forth to shore for trips to the hot springs etc. So why am I telling this story? Well….when coming back from the Grotto for our soak, Mike gets to the top of the ramp and sees Bob gesturing wildly with his hands (we know he not Italian so he is not having a civil conversation) with a member off of one of these “skiffs”……naturally the open space where these skiffs land is right on the bow of our boat! Mike knows immediately that or boat has been hit…..a big dint is seen on our bow with the crewman apologizing profusely about his accident. He goes to tget the captain off of the fishboat and we trade information just like in a car accident. When we get to Sitka, we will phone coast guard and get the “Claim Number” as the fishboat immediately phoned in to report the accident. No point in getting all huffy about it, it was an accident on their behalf.

We spent some time speaking to a local lady who lives in Baranof full time, we believe she is the owner of the “massage therapy” place as well as the expresso coffee cafĂ© and store. She tells us that there are 12 cabins in “Baranof Proper” with residents numbering from 12-24 throughout the year. She is the only full time resident with three dogs to keep her company. Takes all kinds to live in this remote area!

Day 23 & 24 – Tracy Arm to Cashman Bay


Dave & Penny checking to make sure we aren't lost


Disney Wonder appearing like the Titanic



The immenseness of this Fjord is apparent with the Disney Wonder


Tony, Gayle, Bob & Pat, enjoying Sawyer Glacier


Marko and Jamie enjoying the sites


Feeling small?


There is some wildlife around the glaciers


This Berg makes a nice seagull bridge


You could park a couple of semi trucks under this berg


Sawyer Glacier with a tight ice pack around it


Another natural work of ice art

It’s a sad morning, Tony and Gayle (“Gulf Island”)have made this their turnaround point and will be leaving at 5:00 am to head south to start making their way to Vancouver. Work awaits them July 4th. A lot of pear cider was consumed the night before and we send them packing with hangovers at 5:10 am. They want to leave themselves lots of time to get home in case they have to wait out bad weather. They should be in Prince Rupert in a few days and they will make their way home safely and slowly!
The rest of the herd makes its way south and then west with a stop on Admiralty Island and into Cashman Bay. We pass only one other boat enroute and arrive in Cashman to see two other boats anchored in there. We meet the “Mary Lou” who is the equivalent of Coast Guard Auxillary and see them again in Baranof Warm Springs. While we are eating dinner, we see a crab boat come in the bay to drop her pots and two other large charter boats drop anchor at the head of the bay. Having not seen many boats up here, it now starting to feel quite busy. We see a grizzly on shore in the morning and a deer and her fawn on the other shore. The most wildlife we have seen in any Alaskan Bay this trip. We do some gunkholing into the next bay and Mike goes out fishing. A nice spring salmon for dinner and we all keep wondering how Gulf Island is making out. Its been difficult getting both Cell and Internet – my apologies for the delay in reporting back to you all on a more timely basis!

Day 22 – Tracy Arm – Sawyer Glacier


You Try heaving 20 tons out of the water!


Humpback in Full Breach

A leisurely 2 hour cruise from one end of Tracy to the other to “Tracy Harbour” for an anchoring to go and sightsee the north part of Tracy Arm. Enroute, we stop to watch whales at the entrance. Gulf Island opts to go fishing while On the Edge and ourselves hang out watching the whales. Stroke another item off of Betty’s Bucket list! 3 Full breaches by an adult whale with the camera clicking away furiously. Oceanaire and Ladner Lass are already through the entrance and playing in the ice bergs while we await the Disney Ship “Wonder” to go into Tracy Arm to view the Sawyer Glacier.
Its truly a wonder to see these 30 to 40 ton animals jump clear out of the water and then there is a brief pirouette and a flop back into the water. I use the word pirouette loosely as they do a 180 degree spin mid air and do an actual side flop back into the water. We watched them previously rubbing their bellies on the rocks on shore, probably to get some of their barnacles off! I only have a humpback whale bubble feed, puffins and a moose on shore to capture in my camera viewfinder on this trip and I will have a hat trick of trip goals (life goals) to get
We all anchor separately in the bay as there is a worry of the cruise ship swells coming into the exposed anchorage and bashing us around, so a 5 boat raft is not ideal here. We see the boat “Seawolf” is anchored in this bay (we saw them in Wrangell and then in Sandborn Canal) -- Dinghies are prepped and gloves and touques are the order of the day (having learned that glove and hat trick from Dawes Glacier run) – and we head off for what we think is an 11 mile trip to the Sawyer Glacer. It is in fact, double that in mileage one way --- the wind and tide are making the seas lumpy all the way into the glacier, but we make it as close as we can get before it is too choked with ice to go any further. We encounter a cruise ship coming out (Carnival Cruise Lines) and when we get right into the glacier, we see the Disney Wonder in close. The optical illusion when we first saw the cruise ship in the bay looked like her bow was on the rocks and that they had hit an iceberg…..as we got up closer, she is quite aways off of the cliff face and is about 50 yards off of a rather large iceberg. You can see from the photographs above how it looked when we first arrived. We decide we will turn around and go out in behind the cruise ship as she is clearing up an ice-free path on her way out. Judging from the people out on the decks, we will be in many souvenir cruise ship photographs. Sawyer Glacier appears to be calving quite a lot more than the Dawes glacier as we cannot even get close and judging from the amount of ice bergs in the bay, its been calving a fair amount. We find it a lot warmer in the sun here as the cliffs appear to be higher and the bay smaller. This is truly one of the most scenic arms we have been in with fjord like mountains, lots of greenery, lots of snow fields and a lot of happy smiley faces around us! By the time we get back to Tracy Harbour, there are another 7 boats anchored in the bay – where did they all come from and where are they all going?

Definition of Calving: this is not the official thesauraus definition, but it will explain the meaning --- Calving is the falling off of big chunks of the Glacier into the water. This falling down of the ice creates a tremendous thunder noise and is accompanied by a small wave - or bigger wave if a larger piece of ice falls off.

Day 20/21 – Sandborn Canal to Tracy Arm – Dawes Glacier


Green Glacial water around our boats


Ladner Lass in the bergs


Oceanaire Peaking out of the Bergs


Playing in the Bergs


Berg in the shape of a bird?


A balancing Act


Orion Mini Cruise Ship - Next stop Japan


Abundant waterfalls in Fords Terror
This is one of our all time favorite stops. We anchor and stern tie in a small bay just off of the river that takes you into “Ford’s Terror” -- we share our day with a small charter boat and watch the ice bergs swirling around just outside of our bay. There is a big sandbar that prevents the larger bergs from entering our bay but some of the smaller pieces do make their way into the bay. In the morning we will take the dinghies and go into Dawes Glacier.
Dawes Glacier – Happy Birthday Gayle! Marko has the rack of lamb on the menu for your birthday dinner! A bright sunny day and off like a whirling dervish we go in our dinghies up to Dawes Glacier. The sun might be out, buts its very cold out. Note to self – wear gloves next time. While in the glacier, a small cruise ship “Orion II” enters and drops off quite a few tenders and passengers to go up to the front of the glacier. Again – compared to 2008, there is very little ice in the bay and very little calving going on. Its still a beautiful sight, but not nearly as exciting when there is no calving going on. The Orion makes it way into the bay and is in view of the glacier. There must be a 1000 seals in here with their pups. It’s a safe place to bear and raise their pups away from Sea lions and Orca. A few small bits of the glacier fall off but nothing of note. Back to the boats to watch the final Game of the Stanley Cup. The Orion II anchor in the outer bay of where we are and again they send their passengers in by tender to Fords Terror. Ford’s Terror is so named for a crewman of Captain Vancouver who stayed too long in the bay and due to the tidal bore action could not come out for 6 hours, Mr. Ford was truly terrified that he would not make it out to the main ship because they could not row against the tide and were stuck inside for a full tide swing!
What a disappointing end to a fine hockey season and 4 series of playoff games. Then to hear on the news that the riots etc. have broken out in Vancouver with looting, overturned cars etc. Its almost like seeing shots of Tripoli or the Gaza strip on the TV. I hope all the perpetrators get found and prosecuted!

Day 20 - Petersburg to Sandborn

Off we go exploring places we have not been to before. After a 5 hour travel day, we arrive in Hobart Bay – Sandborn Canal. Another beautiful bay with killer scenery. Still no wildlife on shore, lots of whales and such, but no deer, bear or moose. We watch a disappointing Game 6 that night and do some crabbing and gunkholing. We are amazed that there is no sign of bears or anything on the shore. Dave and Penny opt to go exploring while the rest of us are watching the hockey game - it will be good when this hockey business is done so we dont have to find an anchorage or dock where we can get Satellite TV to cheer on the Canucks!

Day 19 - Petersburg


Safe haven from orcas and sealions to raise her pup



"Iceberg dead ahead Captain!"



Ice Sculptures



Ever changing works of art



I wonder how old those rocks are that are lodged in this ice?


Moose tracks on the beach



Room for one more?


LeConte Glacier from afar

A bit of rain and sunshine today! We make arrangements with Breakaway Adventures for a pick up in Petersburg to go into LeConte Glacier. It a 6 hour day on the jet boat into the Glacier from the other side. We stop at one of the channel markers where we see 7 or 8 stellar sea lions jockeying for position on the buoy. They are not happy with the intrusion. The bull and his harem make all sorts of snarling noises at us to let us know that we are in their space. We stop briefly at an island where we see a dead porcupine, moose tracks and Marko tries eating some “Puff” kelp. There is lots of greenery on land and a few flowers, mainly ‘paintbrush’ and “lupin”. There is quite a bit of ice in the outer bay of LeConte so we only get in part way to see the glacier. We all get chunk of souvenir ice to take back with us for Martini’s! For the group who have been in here before we are disappointed for the rest of the group that did not get to see and hear the glacier “Calving” and to hear the accompanying thunder sound when the ice chunks hit the water. We feel it is probably too early and still too cold for a lot of calving to be seen as the previous two times that Mike and I have been in there, its been mid July.

Day 18 - Petersburg


The tug we passed in Wrangell Narrows with the Squirrely Barge!


Every size of fishboat can be found here!


In memorium Statue to those who lost their lives to the sea


Ladner Lass looks pretty small next to some of these bruisers


Ravens as large as some dogs


Note the sign on the door


Who names their boat this anyways?



Huh?


Another fine cruising day to Petersburg! How lucky are we! In order to get to Petersburg, we have to use a pass called “Wrangell Narrows” --- which is just that – “Narrow”. There are range markers and buoys all the way through this 20 mile channel with the tide running part way in your favour and the other part against you. Today we are realizing a 4 knot push and a 3 knot against us current, but the trusty . Travelling just ahead of us a US Coast Guard cutter (about 75 feet). We monitor the radio and hear that about ½ way through, the Coast Guard Cutter is pulling over to let by a tug and barge that the skipper of the tug says is a bit squirrely…..not knowing what that means, we also pull over in when we hear that the tug and barge are close to us (all the markers in the channel are numbered so we know he is getting close) --- now we know what the meaning of a “squirrely barge “ is --- the barge was on a short tether to the tug but swinging widely side to side behind the tug. Good thing we pulled over and waited. The tug and barge was an exciting event in our day! Oh - except for maybe Tony who managed to pick up a crab trap in his prop, lucky he was able to cut the rope off and continue on in without having to dive in and cut the rope. It was tax free day in Wrangell today including fuel. Oceanaire decides to fill up to take advantage of the lower pricing. However --- even with the discount, it cost more to fuel up in Wrangell than it cost all of us in Ketchikan! Guess Dave’s not buying dinner tonight! Speaking of dinner --- we ordered Chinese food in for dinner and that was quite the experience. The owner must have been stiffed a lot on his deliveries --- after ordering, he phoned us back and picked up our fella’s to go and pay before he even starts cooking our order – lots of Dine and Dash going on up here?

Petersburg is a town of about 5000. The majority of people in this town are involved in one or another with fishing. The town was settled by Norwegian fisherman well over a hundred years ago. Reading the names on the memorium statues to those who have lost their lives to the sea, there are generations of the same family listed. There is a large seafood processing plant in the heart of town and the docks are filled with all sizes of fish boats. As with most towns involved with fishing, there is considerable slow down here. They get a few small pocket cruise ships in but thus far, this quaint town is untouched by the mammoth cruise lines.