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July 28, 2024

How to Fly between The Broughton’s and the Seattle area

Why so long between blog posts?

We flew home from Port McNeill to Bainbridge Island the first week of July to spend time with family, friends and working. For the curious folks, there are two options to fly from the North end of Vancouver Island to Seattle (besides chartering or using your own aircraft).

Your first option is to fly Pacific Coastal from Port Hardy to Vancouver, and then jump on your connecting flight to your final destination – in our case Seattle. Be aware that it is about a 30 minute shuttle ride from the terminal where Pacific Coastal lands to the main terminal. You will be collecting your bags, bringing them on the shuttle with you, and re-checking your bags with your next airline. Or in our case, just carrying on. As we were flying Alaska Airlines from Vancouver to Seattle, we were able to use the Airside iphone app to verify our passports 72 hours in advance of our flight. This allowed us to not have to check in with an agent, either at bag drop or at the gate for passport verification. Pretty slick!

Your second options is to fly Northwest Seaplanes from Port McNeill to Renton/Lake Washington. As we were going to have to spend a night at The Fairmont YVR (oh darn!) on the return as the Pacific Coastal was a morning flight and Alaska Airlines flights to Vancouver landed after the Pacific Coastal flight took off, we decided to take the more direct and fun flight with Northwest Seaplanes.

And boy the weather did no disappoint. It was scheduled to be 88F in Seattle, and was already a toasty one as we were waiting for our plane to be ready for a 10:30am departure. There is no air conditioning or pressurized cabin on the de Havilland Beavers. Due to the heat they gave us cold bottles of water to try to help us stay cool on our flights (you land in Nanaimo or Campbell River for customs and fuel). The staff commented, at least we weren’t the customers returning on the late afternoon flight! That’ll be a toasty one for sure!

If you are trying to fly above the North end of Vancouver Island and below Prince Rupert, your options are now more limited. Northwest Seaplanes sold their fishing lodge at Hakai Pass in October 2023, and no longer operates flights to the Central Coast. The new owners have relocated the lodge to the Southern portion of Rivers Inlet, Finn Bay Lodge.

Your options are either to fly Pacific Coastal from Bella Bella to Port Hardy, then again from Port Hardy to Vancouver, and jump on your connecting flight. Or if you are not near Bella Bella, Wilderness Seaplanes will pick you up from a larger smattering of locations on the Central Coast and fly you to Port Hardy, where you then connect with the Pacific Coastal flight to Vancouver and on to your final destination.

Whew. Also to note, none of these options of cheap. You’ll be out $500-$750 one way. But then, that’s the cost of being in the remote wilderness.

One of the perks of cruising SE AK is that Alaska Airlines flies Seattle to many locations in the region, and for $150-$250 one way. And you can even use your Alaska miles to pay for the flight! So if we have friends that want to come join us, we try to get them to plan their time aboard when we are going to be cruising SE AK.

Now for some stunning photos of our Northwest Seaplanes flight from Renton WA to Port McNeill BC.

June 20, 2023June 20, 2023

Boating Season Is Upon Us … where are we?

The Opening Day of boating season is in May in the Pacific Northwest, here we are sitting middle of June and where is Docktails?

Let’s back up. Last September we were thrown through a loop when we called North Harbor Diesel to be hauled out for the end of season and learned they no longer had the warehouse we store Docktails for the winter. Finding moorage for a boat over 60′ in the Seattle area is hard, finding moorage for a boat over 60′ last minute is almost impossible. We put feelers out to all of our boating contacts to try to find moorage, and as luck would have it we found a unicorn! An 80′ boathouse in Maple Bay BC. We were happy to find covered moorage and a caretaker for the winter season with such extremely short notice.

All tucked away in Maple Bay BC September 2022

Fast forward to December when the Pacific Northwest had a once-in-two-decades winter storm: over a foot of snow with a couple inches of freezing rain on top. We received the unfortunate phone call that the boathouse had collapsed from the weight of the snow and freezing rain, on our boat.

Shifting of snow and ice caused the boathouse to collapse.

Once Docktails was extracted from the boathouse and at Philbrooks boatyard, the assessed damage was less than anticipated. The hardtop that Philbrooks had built in 2020 was built to last, and apparently hold the weight of a boathouse. It came out unscathed. Our forward teak rails came out almost completely unscathed with only one blemish. The three items that took the brunt of the boathouse collapse: Intellian Satellite Dish, Stainless Steel radar arch, and our Dishy tripod mount. Thanks to Tollycrafts great build and Philbrooks great craftsmanship of the hardtop, we were lucky to have minimal damage. It could have been much worse.

We already had a winter Honey-Do List for Philbrooks, so fixing the stainless steel radar arch, re-wiring everything that sits on the radar arch, along with a few cosmetic touch ups were added to the list.

Beginning in 2020 every winter we have done significant upgrades to Docktails; including fun things like retrofitting the galley and main salon, addition of the hardtop and vinturi facing forward instead of aft, enclosing the hardtop, Intellian satellite TV, Sonos surround system, Starlink, upgraded our Naiads for following seas, and necessary things like repairing and replacing the foredeck, new windows in the main salon and galley, repairing all portholes, replacing all stanchion screws, many fiberglass repairs on the top deck … do you see a theme for the necessary repairs? Unbeknownst to us we were Swiss cheese when we bought the boat, and hopefully this season we will finally be watertight.

The fun items for our 2023 Honey-Do List are: rewiring the boat for Victron lithium battery system and building a new display console on the flybridge to house two 16″ Simrad evo3 screens, new electrical panel and dashboard. The fun items are all electrical intense, and guess which department may be struggling to have enough employees? You got it: electrical. Staffing and supply chain are still real issues, even though the pandemic is now in the rear view mirror. We also still feel this pain in the restaurant business. Philbrooks told us it would be a push to get the boat re-wired for lithium batteries. However our AGMs struggled last season to last 24 hrs, with our batteries being critical each morning even with us turning off all superfluous systems at anchor. If we didn’t change over to lithium now, it’d be another four years before we’d have the chance to do so and that was not an option in our book.

Out of the weighs and back in the water we go!

So, here we are mid-June with three Philbrooks electricians working Saturdays, and a fourth working ten hour days, working meticulously to finish and test our new Victron lithium battery system with wake speed main engine sensors (second season all digital in the gauge department!), to finish the radar arch re-wiring from the boathouse collapse and the new flybridge display console configuration. A little behind schedule, but worth it to be happy clams at high tide in the big picture.

October 4, 2022October 4, 2022

The Rugged Central Coast BC

Once you transit Cape Caution, it’s all about being on the hook. There are very few dock opportunities – Dawson’s Landing for 2022 they still only allowed one person in the store at a time, wearing a mask, we heard rumor that Duncaby’s was not accepting pleasure boaters this year, and Shearwater is under new ownership. Shearwater is the place to provision and find a much needed part if you had a system fail and of course didn’t have a spare.

However The Central Coast is not about the docks for us, just the opposite. The pristine anchorages with only a handful of boats, or if you are lucky all by yourself. The anchorages tend to be deep, rocky bottoms (not so good for our Bruce), and sometimes exposed, but if you get a good hook and the right wind, it is a recipe for what we love about boating.

A break in the rain allowed us to fly the drone

With record high fuel prices this year, and a vaccine mandate still in place to enter Canada, we found less boats cruising the Central Coast with a higher concentration of Canadian registered boats than pre-covid years. We started mid-June with fuel prices at Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes at 7.38/gal for diesel. We definitely noticed boats slowing their cruising speed down to lower their fuel consumption; we slowed down last year on our way to SE Alaska when we realized how much fuel we were burning – and diesel then was at 2.05/g!

We had almost three weeks of solid 24/7 rain, with highs in the 50s, our desert cat onboard was not a happy camper. The bimini went up on the fish boat, and the rain gear came out, and only one major leak was found on the boat. It was so wet, we ran our off-season dehumidifiers to help mitigate the dampness. When we finally saw a spot of blue sky one evening late July, we blinked. It was glorious, lifted our spirits, and gave us the resolve to not run South to Desolation for warm weather, warm water and crowded anchorages.

After just shy of four weeks of rain, the sky cleared!

Beautiful sunset anchored near Illahie Inlet BC

September 18, 2022September 18, 2022

Three glorious days of transiting North

Summer came late to Seattle this year, or on time – as they saying goes, summer does not start until July 5th. We have been spoiled with beautiful weather in the months of May and June these past couple years, however “Juneuary” was in full force this year.

A soggy socked in flight to Sidney BC to be reunited with Docktails

From Sidney BC we transited to Nanaimo BC, where we spent Canada Day in some glorious sunshine and had a delicious Italian dinner at La Stella Trattoria.

Nanaimo BC to Cortes Island BC, crossing the Strait of Georgia with Whiskey Gulf not active, was on our scale of Strait of Georgia transits, tolerable even without our upgraded Naiad stabilizers working properly. Sunshine and warmth never hurts, either.

Cortes Island BC to Blind Channel BC on 4th of July was a wet and soggy transit and day. This transit is stunning on a clear day. We didn’t let the liquid sunshine stop us from hiking to the cedar tree (first time in ten years of visiting Blind Channel), or enjoying fabulous meals at the restaurant. It’s always a treat to stop at Blind Channel on our way North and South.

Transiting North to Yuculta and Dent Rapids

Johnstone Strait can be intimidating, with the wind funneling between the mountain ranges on either side and the current patterns, it is to be treated with respect. A comfortable morning departure of 8:30am, we’ve done 4:30am in past years, the fog lifted giving way to beautiful sunshine and what we call FAC, glass, or martini water. You could have waterskied from Campbell River to Port McNeill.

Cape Caution and Slingsby Channel are to be treated with respect. Observations at West Sea Otter buoy should be taken into consideration, 1m preferable for a comfortable transit. An early morning crossing is typical, to get around Cape Caution before the seas and wind have time to build. But with this atypical summer, or let’s just say soggy El Nino pattern, the wind and seas have been calm and we departed late morning – which was probably our candiest Cape Caution crossing to date. FAC/glass/martini water with barely an ocean swell under beautiful blue skies. So far we’ve dodged the bullet of needing our faulty upgraded stabilizers!

August 1, 2022August 8, 2022

No matter how much you plan, you’ll never be fully prepared

This was the first year the r2ak was able to race since 2019, and in the witty commentary they said with three years to prepare, you’d think there wouldn’t be any last minute projects on the dock in Point Hudson Port Townsend WA the eve of the race. But there was. We had a good laugh and agreed with the writer. But then after our boat being at Philbrooks since November for maintenance, we found ourselves in the same predicament.

We picked up m/v Docktails beginning of June to be able to be in Victoria BC for the r2ak festivities before the real start of the race, not just the proving grounds from Port Townsend WA to Victoria BC. Our good friend was racing in the r2ak for a second time, and we were here for him and his team and in any support they needed; whether it be a warm bunk for him, a happy hour aboard m/v Docktails for the team, or a trickle charger for their boat’s batteries.

Team Fashionably Late aboard MV Docktails for HH

It was a good thing we did a shakedown cruise, as two of our major upgrades were not working properly. We upgraded our Naiad 254s for following seas, and in calm water when we crossed paths with a boat wake, we rocked. As we have had stabilizers for four years, we have become spoiled, and didn’t want to go without them around Cape Caution BC (we’ve seen what it can do), or even Strait of Georgia for that matter (also some not so comfortable experiences).

The second major upgrade we did was convert all our engine gauges to digital, and now have a nifty window on our Simrad screens with the digital gauges. Well, they pulled the data from the analog gauges that did not work (and we told them they were inoperable and to use the other gauges) and thus our digital gauges did not work. Since we have a second set of operational analog gauges in the pilothouse, this wasn’t too big of an issue, however our analog rudder indicator was a casualty of this project. And we like to know our rudder positions when we dock, as it makes it a heck of a lot easier if they are straight (also speaking from experience, when trying to dock in a 25kt wind blowing us off the dock in the Berry Islands Bahamas).

The last time we were in Victoria BC was four years ago to take delivery of m/v Docktails off a freighter from Ft Lauderdale. We’ve always had great times here, and it was fun to be back. We typically (or always) miss Victoria BC as we moor our boat in Anacortes WA and then make a beeline North. For 2022 Nexus is still understaffed and not accepting boater phone calls, so crossing the border was just like a non-Nexus member: complete the ArriveCAN app and once you are tied to the customs dock, phone in.

2018 reunited with m/v Docktails in Victoria BC

With having no set-in-stone agenda, we were able to stop in at Philbrooks for them to take a look at our stabilizers and correct our analog-digital gauges, and do multiple sea trials at $6.38/g for diesel. When we cruised in the Bahamas in 2018, we thought $4.50/g was expensive, we never thought we’d see, or blow out of the water, $4.50/g in the PNW.

Our upgraded Naiads didn’t throw any flags to the installers, and with calm seas it was hard to create the rocking motion of the ocean. We tried to use our wake, however the Naiad representative said this wouldn’t suffice with the way the fins sense movement. With diesel prices through the roof, we are continuing to cruise at 1200rpm/10kts – we slowed down last year just South of Prince Rupert and watched our diesel consumption drop significantly. When the Naiad representative asked what speed we cruised at, he told us to speed up and that would solve our issue.

Speed up, eh? When our original Naiad 254s worked just fine at 1200rpm/10kts. Well, coming South around Cape Caution we got into 8-10ft seas on the beam, which became following seas as we rounded Cape Caution. Our upgraded Naiads didn’t do a darn thing. And no, when we sped up to 1500rpm, they still didn’t do a damn thing.

To be continued, as a Naiad representative has agreed to fly out and look at our stabilizers. It just took being in the exact scenario we upgraded for, and not have the stabilizers work properly, to make it happen.

July 6, 2021July 21, 2021

Petersburg Alaska: commercial fishing hub, halibut capital with Norwegian Heritage

The passage from Wrangell to Petersburg is through Wrangell Narrows, a well marked channel that is the main thoroughfare between Wrangell and Petersburg. Just like the books say to do, we timed the ending flood on the South End, to catch the beginning of the flood on the North End. Because this is a main thoroughfare, it can be have high commercial traffic volume where you (the smaller boat) gets to hug the edge of the channel. We overtook two boats and only passed a tug undertow at the North Entrance, so to say we had it easy is an understatement.

As there was no larger commercial traffic, we chose the larger path to the left of that buoy that looks like a boat (what looks like a boat on the right, is a commercial fishing vessel).

We were also surprised at the amount of humanity, resorts and homes, on Wrangell Narrows. And the number of commercial crab pots, sometime in the channel. We learned from a local that they used to pull a million pounds of crab in a season out of the narrows, back in the good ol’ days.

Petersburg is again a harbor where you “hot berth” while the commercial fishing boat is out fishing. These are again 70’ slips, something that you don’t see very often in WA State. They are also wide enough for us to dock with our 16’ fishboat alongside.

All tucked in with a view of the commercial fish processing plants

Petersburg is the commercial fish processing hub of SE Alaska. With three fish processing plants, there are commercial boats coming and going at all hours. When we were talking with the harbormaster at checkin (btw no bicycling on the dock), she said they can be reached any time as they are open 24/7. We were impressed!

As we bicycled through town our Rad Power Bikes again garnered attention. We ran into the guy looking at 61’ Tolly’s next week on his way back from the hardware store. He suggested going to Salty Pantry for lunch, and it did not disappoint. It was the best “on-shore” meal we had since leaving Anacortes WA. It was so good, that we were already planning lunch again tomorrow.

Petersburg was also the first town we saw “small” US-flagged cruise ships in port. As the Jones Act does not allow foreign registered vessels to travel from US port to US port (they need a foreign stop in the middle, say, Canada) the large cruise ships are not running until end of July as cruise ships are considered non-essential travel which the US-Canadian border remains closed to. And even then, each company is only doing one ship that is a ten day cruise. This was part of our decision to visit SE Alaska this year – the lack of cruise ships due to the border being closed to non-essential travel.

Petersburg is known for their Norwegian heritage, and the influence can be felt in downtown. This is a memorial to all the fishermen who have been lost at sea.

Petersburg is also know to be the halibut capital of SE Alaska. We tried our hand one morning, and lucked out at the local seafood market in town that afternoon. They also had black cod and yellow eye in addition to salmon and halibut. The hardware store is well stocked, as well as (to our surprise) the liquor store/pub.

Our final and last random tidbit is that there were not two, but three boats from Bainbridge Island WA (where we hail from) in port at Petersburg. All of us moor at Eagle Harbor Marina, and none of us had physically met each other until now. Sometimes the world is very very small!

July 4, 2021July 21, 2021

Good Ol’ 4th (2 day) Celebration in Wrangell Alaska

Tessa had a friend from Smith College that was from Wrangell, and would be arriving on the 5th. Unfortunately we’d just miss her by a day, but she was a great host from afar giving us the scheduled of events for July 3rd and 4th, and what not to miss in Wrangell during our stay.

The town was definitely “abuzz” for the holiday, and we realized we’d need to do any provisioning on the 3rd as businesses would be closed the 4th, and some the 5th in observance. You would never know that covid was still affecting other parts of the country/world, no restrictions here – it felt like the good ol’ days.

On July 3rd we watched one of the canoe races, but missed the log rolling competition as we were visiting local stores and exploring town. The weather was perfect and the cruise ship dock (lack of ship), was great to soak in the town and festivities. You couldn’t have asked for better weather for the holiday.

We bicycled out to Petroglyph Beach, with a low tide we tried hard to spot one of the forty petroglyphs. Unsuccessful from the platform, Tessa went down to the beach to see if she could spot one. She finally did, however two locals then started writing arrows in the sand marking all of them for her. She thanked them – they were all right under her nose!

As Ketchikan was completely out of eggs when we provisioned a couple days ago, Tessa had asked Alyse if her family could grab a dozen if there was a run on eggs in Wrangell (and you’d think there would be with an Egg Toss on the festivity list!). Her Dad Kirk was so nice to deliver the eggs to Heritage Harbour where we were docked – they live half a mile down the road and have two boats (one commercial, one pleasure) docked at Heritage. Tessa had a wonderful conversation talking with him about Wrangell and the surrounding area. July 4th there can be ten salmon headed up the river at Anan, July 5th ten thousand salmon. What a difference a day makes! Ever heard about a halibut fly lure? One of his students was making them, and he had bought a couple to try – apparently they work! He also looked exactly like Doc in Back to the Future, and may have given Tessa tips on fishing in the local area.

There’s always a project to do on a boat, and July 3rd’s project was to replace the starboard windshield wiper on the pilothouse window. It took two trips to the store to get the size right (always seems that way), and a lot of muscle to get the salty bolt to come loose. But we made friends with Coda and Sudden Inspiration docked in front of us, as they were sitting on the dock enjoying beverages watching us work, and traded stories of our “transit through” BC Waters.

Wrangell does fireworks on July 3rd at Dusk at the baseball fields. We bicycled up there, and couldn’t believe the number of people. Tessa looked up the population of Wrangell: 2400. As we waited for the main event, every one came in and parked their pickup truck and started shooting off fireworks. 11:30pm, they still had not started the show we had been there for almost ninety minutes. 11:31pm we left to ride back to the boat as we were getting cold and bitten by big mosquitoes. Of course at 11:38pm the fireworks started. Tom had joked while we were waiting that they probably wanted them to end at 12:01am July 4th. And that’s exactly when they ended!

July 4th began with the parade (well there was a fun run before that, but not after staying up so late waiting for the fireworks!), followed by the logging competition, egg toss, and fast boat parade. The parade felt like we had turned the page on Covid, with every float throwing candy and goodies to the kids. It seemed like Halloween in July!

Our Rad Power Bicycles get a lot of attention wherever we go, and Wrangell was no exception. We got to talking to a guy from Petersburg, and he actually was flying down to Seattle to look at two 61’ Tolly’s. Small world!

The logging competition drew large crowds. We watched one event, and they were definitely very serious about it.

And the egg toss was just too darn fun. Starting with the little kiddos, working their way up to the oldest. There’s definitely a technique that’s mastered with age.

Egg Toss, fun with a touch of seriousness

We went out and set some shrimp pots with local knowledge, and watched the fast boat races from the water. It was such a glorious day, and was fun to listen to the small town chatter on the vhf.

We thought this would be the finale of the two days, but there ended up being fireworks over the harbor at 10:30pm – a much more respectable hour than last night!

Day 2 of fireworks, enjoyed from the comfort of our boat

July 2, 2021

Where are da bears? Exploring Fools Inlet and Anan Bay

We don’t have an itinerary as we cruise SE AK, but Tessa has been studying the charts on Navionics and two books on the area: Exploring SE Alaska by Don Douglass and Reanne Hemingway-Douglass, and North to Alaska by Charles and Margo Wood. From Ketchikan most cruising boats make their way to Wrangell, and she read about Anan Bear Conservatory – a not to miss located South of Wrangell. With poor holding at Anan Bay, she located Fool’s Inlet for our anchorage for the next two nights. It’d be a five hour run from Browns Bay for us, and we opted to time going with the current in Clarence Strait (sailor hats do pay off!).We were joined by white sided dolphins playing in our bow on our way to Fools Inlet

However the con of donning your “sailors hat” is that the power boats beat you to the anchorage and get to cherry pick the prime spot. So we anchored in deeper water near two islands on the East side of the inlet. It ended up being a fabulous location, as we got to enjoy the evening sun the latest – always a consideration when we are anchoring.

Anan Bay has one of the largest pink salmon runs in SE AK, which supports the high number of black and brown bears in the area. Anan (pronounced Anne-Anne), in Tlingit means “sit down” or “village that rests”. A permit is required July 5 through August 25th, and only so many are given out per day. If you are planning on visiting during this time period, do make an online reservation in advance as the permits are limited and go quickly. And they allocate even less to recreational boaters, reserving the majority for tour operators.

We arrived on July 2nd, so no permit required. It was just us, the skiffs from the two other boats in Fools Inlet, and a family from Wrangell. As we had another two feet of tide to lose, and saw our “neighboring” skiffs high and dry, we decided to use our “anchor buddy” for the first time. We have been very skeptical of this product as it’s pushed like an “as seen on tv” product, but bought it with the hopes of it working. And work it did. The family from Wrangell said, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone use an anchor buddy! And we replied, it’s our first time using one! We all had a good chuckle that none of us thought it’d actually work.

“Anchor Buddy” allowed us to stay afloat as the tide continued to go out.

The trails looked like it had just been finished recently, as there was fresh gravel packed and bridges re-enforced. We had seen evidence of where the landing craft had landed up the estuary.

The falls are up on the left, the bears we saw were up on the right

They say it’s a half mile hike to the viewing platform at the falls, but we’d call it a “tourist half mile” – neither of us had our activity monitor on, but it definitely seemed like a long half mile.

There were multiple instances of fresh bear scat right on the trail, and a place right next to the trail that had been used by a sleeping bear. But we had no bear encounters along the trail.

In fact, the only bears we saw from afar across the estuary- a male and mom and two cubs. The viewing platform is in great shape, however the pink salmon had not returned up river and so there were no bears. We could see that during the salmon run, this would be a spectacular viewing of the bears grabbing salmon out of the falls.

We had set our shrimp pots before heading over to Anan, and like any area – whether it’s a great shrimping area or not – we were able to catch six spot prawns per pot. But these were the biggest prawns had ever caught, and it made for a great green curry dinner to end our stay in Fools Inlet.

Not too many, just enough to sustain us a couple meals!

June 30, 2021

First SE Alaska anchorage we give an A+!

As this is our first time cruising in Alaska, and compounded by the border with Canada still being closed for non-essential travel due to covid, we weren’t sure what to expect. Would there be more recreational boaters up here this year that typically spend the summer in Canada, and went stir crazy spending last summer in the packed San Juan Islands?

Where we typically boat in BC Canada, there is limited to no cell service and limited wifi at best. Would we also find this to be the case in SE AK?

Some say the Central and North Coast of BC is every bit as spectacular as SE AK. Would we also find this to be true?

SE Alaska is known for their wet summers. How much liquid sunshine would we be able to handle before we needed natural Vitamin D and not run, but race back to warmth and sunshine further South?

Would the US – Canadian border be open to non-essential travel for our transit South? Some speculate end of July, others end of September.

But right now it was time to enjoy the exceptionally warm weather and enjoy SE Alaska. We were surprised to have cell service all tucked up and in at Browns Bay, it had to do with the proximity to Kasaan – one of two Haida First Nation Villages in Alaska with a small population and day trips of tourists from Ketchikan. The docks looked brand new, as well as some of the buildings. They’ve kept the village in great shape.

North of Browns Bay there is a shallow lake that you can enter at high tide. This is right up our alley, and we did enjoy gunkholing in here. The Navionics charts are not very accurate. Use your eyes and depthsounder, you’ll find you can go much closer to shore and the island in the middle is not quite accurate. But that’s the fun of gunkholing!

Just how we like it – all by ourselves at our anchorage

We did an afternoon soak and kept two dungy for dinner and lunch. Our first Dungeness crab in Alaska! We put the pots back down, and the next morning when Tessa pulled out chicken from the freezer, Tom asked, what’s that for?? Tessa said for refreshing the bait in the crab pots. He laughed and responded, you are welcome to bring that along, but it won’t be needed. And he was correct: we pulled up 24+ Dungy, all keepers, in two pots. We threw all but two back. Thank you SE AK, for the warm welcoming!!

One of two pots, all boys and all legal.

June 27, 2021July 4, 2021

Day 7 Transiting BC Waters: Pillsbury Cove transiting Dixon Entrance to Ketchikan AK!

Sunday June 27th: The wind forecast looked candy for our Dixon Entrance crossing: calm. As Chatham Sound is “shallow” (200ft ish) we assume the seas build here with afternoon wind – these are unchartered waters for us. And sure enough, it was only mid-morning when the wind built down Portland Inlet and squashed Tessa’s dreams of having one cruise without a boat wash.

Once we were NW of Portland Inlet, Dixon Entrance was a dream and it was smooth sailing until Ketchikan.

Tom fixed a fuse that blew on the macerator pump, and then Tessa washed the boat down in (yet again!) a warm breeze. We definitely had found our rhythm transiting eight to ten hours a day, with one person at the helm and the other doing projects and daily chores. Then when we did anchor for the night, there was just a little bit left to do and ample time to relax.

The commercial fishing season must just be starting, as we traveled with many of them North and they seemed to all be positioning themselves for the opener. We saw very few pleasure boaters, the most we saw was at Tribune Bay Hornby Island- which is a popular anchorage for its pristine sandy beach, one of the only in the area. The chatter on the vhf radio was almost nil, and the radar not really needed as there were so few boats out on the water. And ninety percent of the boats that were out, has AIS.

To check back in to the US we instinctively opened the ROAM App, however a window popped up saying it was not operable for non-essential travel during covid, so we waited until Tongass Narrows to call the local CBP Office. When we got in touch with a local officer he said, have you used the ROAM App? Doh. So if you are “transiting through” Canada between WA and AK, use the ROAM App even though there is a warning that pops up not to.

Tongass Narrows was funneling wind over current, making it the roughest water we had seen all day. By the time we got the fishboat alongside, we had to back track South to Casey Moran to check for moorage, only to find that there wasn’t room for us. So we again went North to Bar Harbor South Basin where they had 70’ slips near the store (a bonus).

Before arriving Ketchikan for your first time, download the PDF document with detailed information (and slip numbers!) on the marinas. Tessa hadn’t seen this document, so sent Tom down the incorrect side of Dock 9 the first time, only for him to have to do a tight turn between fingers with our fishboat alongside, and wind and current pushing us. He made the 180 turn expertly, and got us around to the South side of Dock 9 – only to find that the Seiner skiff had been left behind, and we wouldn’t fit with it there. This is a commercial marina, and transient moorage is “hot berthing” while a fishboat is out fishing. So, further in to shore we went with the berth next to us occupied with a Viking -like Sportfisher. The berths looked pretty wide, so we took the risk of docking with the fishboat along our port side between the two of us. Tom expertly backed the boat into the slip, Tessa hopped off to catch a midship and then stern and bow lines. We had easily a couple feet between our fishboat and the Sportfisher. Phew. And with a strong current pushing us aft, it was our midship line that was utterly taught and holding us in place.

Bar Harbor is in the process of updating their docks – with isoboost transformers for each slip. We thankfully had Philbrooks install one on our boat last year, so it was a non-issue for us if these weren’t installed on the dock.

As it was 80 plus degrees in Ketchikan, we went for a warm afternoon bicycle ride (we have Rad Bikes on board). With the lack of cruise ships, Ketchikan was a ghost town. We were happy to be here without them, but felt bad for the local economy which depends on the ships.

Cruise Ship berths sit empty due to covid

Mondays are days we need connectivity to “close the week” and be available for our restaurants. This week it was compounded with sweltering 106 degrees weather in the Seattle area. We were able to run some errands midday on the Rad Bikes, but it worked out that after we finished our work it was high tide and a great opportunity to do a grocery run (15 foot tides, you want to take advantage of the high tides with less angle on the ramp to the dock!).

Apparently a heat wave means a run on fresh produce and eggs. Who knew? We got back to the boat and Tessa thought she’d missed the eggs, so she went back. Only to find the shelves completely empty. Yes. She had missed them!

We biked further South to a smaller marina and caught up with fellow yacht club friends who arrived this afternoon. We hadn’t seen them in a couple years, and we had much to catch up on – we both had new boats!

The warm evening allowed us to enjoy the cockpit, while Portia explored her berth amongst the commercial fish boats. It was a productive two days in Ketchikan, it was time to commence our cruising in SE Alaska!