Tag Archives | Diesel Duck

We’re currently in Sitka after having stopped in Wrangell, made a feint towards Craig then shifting our destination to Sitka.

In Wrangell, we had a great visit with our friends, Dorothy & Dave Nagle, owners of the Seahorse Marine Diesel Duck DavidEllis. They’ve been in a boatyard in Wrangell since last fall recoating their boat.  I use the term “coat” because “paint” does not do justice to the multiple layers of protectants than go into keeping the corrosive effects of sea water, oxygen and sun from turning a boat (especially a steel boat) into a piece of scrap.  Journalist Jonathan Waldman released a book this year, Rust, describing the ongoing struggle of humankind to protect its constructs against corrosion.

Dorothy and Dave hope to be back in the water and ready to cruise shortly after the July 4th holiday.  We got a sneak preview of the glossy finish they’ll have when everything is complete.  We’ll be jealous.

While in Wrangell, the blocking high that brought the sunny weather to SE Alaska in May decided to leave and we ended up staying an extra day while a bit of wind and rain passed through.

From Wrangell, we decide to head over to Craig on the west side of Prince of Wales (PoW) Island. Sea conditions were generally favorable so we made it a long day, heading across the top of PoW, down to Shakan Bay and hit Dry Pass in El Capitan Passage just about high tide.  We anchored the night in Devilfish Bay about 6 miles south of the El Capitan caves.

The next day we headed to Salt Lake Bay, about 30 miles away.  We had enjoyed our visit there in 2014 and wanted to visit again.  By the time we reached Salt Lake Bay, the rain began to fall.  We set our anchor in the rain and retrieved it in the rain next morning.  In the mean time, we concluded that fishing would probably be better near Sitka so we retraced our path from the previous day to Devilfish Bay.

The next morning we went back through Dry Pass in El Capitan Passage.  It gets narrow in certain spots and we had to wait for the small cruise ship Wilderness Discoverer to pass through one section before proceeding.

Once back in Sumner Passage, we headed towards Keku Strait and the south entrance to Rocky Pass.  We dropped the anchor and took an early dinner break waiting for high tide in the pass.  At 5:30 pm we restarted the engine, pulled the anchor and covered the remaining 14 miles to our anchorage for night in Stedman Cove.

From Stedman Cove we went to the always scenic Red Bluff Bay on Baranof Island for the night.  The day was quite stunning with calm winds and lots of sun.  Along the way we passed the Holland America cruise ship Amsterdam.  Chatham Channel being a bit wider than Dry Pass, we didn’t have to wait our turn, although I did alter our route to keep the passing more than 3/4 mile.

The weather turned decidedly cooler and wetter than next two days as we first went to Douglass Bay in Hoonah Sound than on to Sitka the next.  High temperatures struggling to get above 50 degrees and frequent rain showers.

The current plan is to do some fishing in the Sitka area before returning to Sitka to start our way to Juneau.

A big old blocking high has been sitting off the coast for a couple of weeks keeping the BC coast and SE Alaska generally warmer and drier than normal. It was nice to not have to worry about big storms but the prevailing NW 15-25 winds can build up wav…

I used the term “our lot in life” in a radio conversation this morning at 5:15 am with a vessel following me out of Bottleneck Inlet where both of us had anchored for the night. In was in reference to the necessity for slow boats to start early in order to put in long miles in a day.

That phrase also describes all of the routing we’ve done since we made the second start to our 2015 cruise after having to return to our winter homeport to deal with our misbehaving electronic compass (it is working fine so far, by the way). The delayed start meant we missed our optimum timing at Seymour Narrows, an early morning slack before the ebb. We like to ride the building ebb down Johnstone Straits. That ebb will add a couple of knots to our normal sedate cruising speed of 6-7 knots.

The week delay meant the slack before the ebb was closer to mid-day. Unfortunately, the relatively stable high pressure ridge off the coast was generating afternoon NW winds of 15-25 knots. When those winds hits the ebb current in Johnstone, the waves build up and you have short steep waves combined with current eddies, an uncomfortable combination.

We chose the more protected channels through, Yuculta, Gilliard, Dent, Green and Whirlpool rapids, as the winds are generally less there. Unfortunately, all of those rapids require timing. We split them over two days, the first 3 on one day and the other 2 on the second day. The travels on the second day, lasting 14 hours, got split into 3 sections with brief interludes between the sections. That was so we could time Whirlpool and then later, Chatham Channel which got us into the Broughtons. It was just our lot in life to have to travel the slower route this year.

Since getting past those hurdles, our pace has quickened. The starts are still early but at least we’re racking up the miles and hope to be in Ketchikan (weather permitting) in a few days.

One of the challenges I’ve taken on in retirement is organizing the thousands of photographs I’ve taken since the early 1970’s when I bought my first SLR camera.  Pretty much everything since I bought my first dSLR in 2004 has been digital.  Before that time, most everything were slides (“don’t take my Kodachrome away”) which require the extra step of digitizing.  But just having a digital images isn’t enough, the hard work comes from adding metadata about the where, what and when of the image (I won’t even worry about the “why”)

I’ve made a pretty good dent in the numerous boxes and trays of slides but I keep getting distracted and slowed by looking at the slides and remembering the wonderful trips and beautiful places they capture (or at least try to capture).  I’ve now concluded that the main function my photos now serve is simply to help me remember.

So in keeping with that purpose, I’ve created another blog, http://oldtripsremembered.blogspot.com/, in which I’ve written a brief description and pulled a couple dozen images of some of the trips I’ve experienced.  Unlike most blogs which are a contemporaneous chronicle of events and thoughts, this new blog looks back and records my current memory of the trip (which is likely a bit ragged) and what I now feel about the trip (which is probably shaded to the “rose” end of the spectrum).

I as I write this, I am certainly not done, but I’ve made progress.  I just hope this isn’t my personal “Nine Billion Names of God” and that once complete, I can continue with new trips and beautiful places.