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The theme on this leg of our cruise was bears. In all three stops along Behm Canal, Yes Bay, Fitzgibbon Cove and Walker Cove, we saw brown bears on the beach grazing on grass or plowing the tide flats for morsels.

In Walker Cove we were able to snag the USFS provided mooring buoy and get great views of a mother and her cub on the beach.  We really got our money’s worth when a male bear came onto the other end of the beach and proceeded to chase the other two off.

While in Walker Cove, we were joined on the buoy by Seaducktress, a trawler from the same boatyard in China as ours.  The weather was stunning so we had happy hour on our flybridge and watched the nature show taking place around us.

While paddling in Yes Bay, as we were returning to the boat from a kayak paddle, we saw a bear on the beach a little over a quarter mile away.  As I was watching, we saw it approach the shore then enter the water.  Soon it was just a head bobbing along in the bay.  We reboarded our boat and watched the bear swim across the bay, passing about 150 yards off of our stern.

We did some crabbing and prawning along the way and were successful enough to put a number of meals on the table.  Our crabbing was hampered by the refusal of the outboard on our dinghy to start after having worked fine a number of times already this cruise.  The problem was resolved while we visited our friends Pete and Brenda who have a cabin on a bay 10 miles NE of Ketchikan.  Pete successfully diagnosed the problem as old gas and fixed it by replacing all of the old gas from the system with fresh.

Our prawning has been mediocre compared to last year.  We haven’t had any stellar hauls of prawns and have been plagued by small Dungeness crabs climbing into the pots and scaring the prawns off.  We even had a small octopus in one of our pots take a ride to the surface when we hauled it up.

From here we’ll work our way to Sitka stopping at some of our favorite spots. Besides the crab and prawn traps, Marcia will probably be dropping a hook in the water to try her luck fishing.

We arrived at Bar Harbor at 10 AM yesterday after getting an early start from Foggy Bay.  Since we were arriving from Canada, we obtained permission while still in BC from the CBP (Customs & Border Patrol) to anchor in Foggy Bay before clearing customs in Ketchikan. 

For the first time, we experienced the seas created by significant outflow winds.  The winds are the result of a high pressure in the interior and a lower pressure offshore.  The winds funnel down the channels, the Skeena and Portland Inlet, towards the sea.  We had 3 foot moderate chop for the 30 plus miles from the outlet of the Skeena south of Prince Rupert, the length of Chatham Sound, until we cleared the NE corner of Dundas Island where Portland Inlet meets Dixon Entrance.  The winds were steady in the 15 to 25 range with occasional gusts to 30 knots.  The salt spray added to the crust of salt we had accumulated along the way.

Once past Dundas, the seas were quite good and we enjoyed a smooth ride into Foggy Bay where we were the only boat anchored for the night.  The sun was so bright we had to draw the blinds on many windows to keep the interior of the boat from getting any warmer than it did (upper 70’s).

Once in Ketchikan, we started tackling our chore list in order to get out of town quickly.  The weather forecast had a strong front moving in Monday night through at least Tuesday so we wanted to leave ahead of it on Monday morning.

Later Saturday night our cousin boat Shearwater (David Cohn) arrived having left Prince Rupert that morning.  On Sunday another Diesel Duck, Seaducktress, owned by Peter Geerlofs joined us making a flock of Seahorse Marine Diesel Ducks at Bar Harbor.

From here we’ll do a partial loop around Revillagigedo Island via Behm Canal visiting some of our favorite anchorages and dropping the crab and prawn traps when we can.  We hope start enjoying some fresh Alaskan seafood as we do.  After that we’ll start heading towards Sitka via Petersburg.

Most of the significant navigational challenges along the Inside Passage (i.e., Strait of Georgia, Cape Caution, Dixon Entrance) are solved the same way. You wait for the weather to settle down, either the wind or wave height (often both since wind is the main driver of wave height), and go for it.

Halfway up Vancouver Island, however, is a challenge that requires putting together multiple factors. Coming down from the northend of Vancouver Island is Johnstone Straight. Coming up from the southend is the Strait of Georgia. Where they meet are a multitude of islands between the Vancouver Island and the mainland joined by several fiord like inlets that penetrate the mainland. There is a lot of water sloshing through here creating a dozen or so named rapids with tidal currents that will change from as high as 13 knots (about 15 miles per hour) in one direction to 13 knots in the opposite direction over a period of six hours.

The winds play a factor as Vancouver Island is a major impediment to weather systems. The channels between the islands and inlets jutting into the mainland become the routes of choice for the winds associated with the high or low pressure areas moving between the Pacific Ocean and the North American continent.

When the direction of the often strong winds oppose that of the often strong currents, the waves created by the wind will become short in period and steep. Travel in those conditions will become difficult, unpleasant or, at times, unsafe. If the winds and current move in the same direction, however, you can speed along relatively comfortably several knots higher than your normal cruising pace.

Figuring out a route, there are three main routes with several variations, becomes a puzzle of monitoring the weather forecast and timing the currents through the various rapids. We’ve traveled through here thirteen times (either north or south) and the exact route we take is seldom known until a day or two before we actually do it.

This year’s trip involved taking the middle route through the Octopus Islands then using Mayne Passage to switch to the eastern route closest to the mainland. The final leg, a fourteen mile section in Johnstone Strait before cutting up into the more protected waters of the Broughton Archipelago was a bit of a bash in 20-25 knot winds opposing current.

We hope to round Cape Caution in the next day or so and complete the second half of the route to Ketchikan and little more expeditiously than the first half.

We cast loose our lines in Eagle Harbor before 6 AM on Wednesday, April 27, for our sixth trip to SE Alaska in the last seven years.  There is a familiarity to the preparation but also an edge of paranoia.  You just know in your heart that complacency in preparation or operation can easily lead to calamity.

Our first night was in Garrison Bay on the northwest corner of San Juan Island just south of the Roche Harbor.  It provided us quick access the next morning to the Port of Sidney on Vancouver Island where we cleared Canadian Customs.  We have Nexus cards which speed our passage through customs.  After a phone call and waiting 15 minutes to allow a customs officer to show up to inspect us should they want to, we were on our way.

It had been three years since our last visit to Butchart Gardens so for our second night we anchored in Tod Inlet near the Butchart Gardens.  We dropped our dinghy and motored over to the dock down the hill from the Japanese Gardens.  Reportedly the tulips were past prime but if they were, we didn’t notice.

As I write this, we are tied to the dock at Salt Springs Marina in Ganges Harbour.  Our yacht club has leases dock space as an outstation here so it is inexpensive moorage as we do some light provisioning for those items that are prohibited from being brought in.

Our plans for this season are pretty similar to prior years.  We’ll move north pretty directly to SE Alaska arriving around the middle of May.  We’ll stay in Alaska for about 2-1/2 months until the end of July/first part of August when we’ll begin the slower journey south.  Arrival in Puget Sound will be the middle of September.

The map below shows where we stayed overnight on our 2015 cruise.  If you click on a place mark additional information (i.e., place name, distance, engine hours, anchor chain)will pop up. Map of 2015 Cruise in separate window

It turns out that 2015 was our shortest cruise yet of the five total cruises we’ve done to Alaska since we off loaded Alpenglow in January 2010.  Ignoring our “shakedown” cruise, we left on May 6 and returned on August 17, a trip length of 104 days.  The table below summarizes the easily tabulated values from the ship’s log.

With regards to average speed, I usually subtract the number of hours spent idling while fishing or sightseeing (i.e., time not underway), 42.4 hours in 2015, from the total engine hours and divide that value into the total distance traveled.  Using that method, we averaged 6.1 nm/hour.

We arrived today at our yacht club’s Bainbridge Island, Eagle Harbor outstation concluding our summer cruise for 2015.  We shortened our season on account of my (Kurt) developing a hernia during the cruise and our having the desire to get it resolved expediently before we head south to Tucson for the winter.

While we traveled through British Columbia pretty fast after finally leaving Ketchikan, Marcia did make the best of it by catching 8 silver salmon over five days of fishing.  Three of the salmon were caught in two areas Marcia hadn’t fished before which was nice addition to her knowledge base.  We also were successful prawning in two areas we hadn’t tried before.

We dawdled an extra day north of Cape Caution waiting for the nice conditions during the open section exposed to ocean swell. Our patience rewarded us with calm conditions and a surprisingly quick transit (for us, anyway) from Fury Cove to Port McNeill.  We covered the 66 miles in 10 hours from engine on at anchor to engine off at the dock.

Each year, as we head south we experience the “culture shock” of the crowds in the popular cruising areas.  When we entered Squirrel Cove on Cortes Island, we knew we’d have company but we weren’t expecting the 70+ boats we found there.  We squeezed in for the evening, then joined the line of boats heading south from there the next morning.

We’re not sure of our immediate plans but it is unlikely we’ll do any more extended cruising this year.  Perhaps some short trips in Puget Sound should the nice weather be too compelling to stay on the dock.  We are already looking forward to 2016, though, and returning to Alaska.

So we’ve postpone our departure from Ketchikan another day on account of the “snotty” weather.  We were all prepared to leave despite the rain and wind because the forecast was for improving conditions as the day progressed. 

All of the electronics, including the VHF radio were operating, when we heard two recreational boaters conversing on the radio.  One was just leaving Ketchikan (they were transmitting their position via AIS) and the other was about 6 or 7 miles from Ketchikan on the way to Prince Rupert as we were intending.  The vessel further out said they were turning around on account of sea conditions (“The dog was howling”).  The closer vessel said they were pushing on based on the forecast.  The further out vessel shortly thereafter called back to say they were pulling into a temporary anchorage in order to wait for conditions to improve.  Both boats had Foggy Bay as their destination for the night (same as us).

We already knew that a “Mother Goose” flotilla of six boats from NW Explorations had left yesterday for Foggy Bay with the goal of Prince Rupert today.  If conditions were poor just a few miles from Ketchikan, we thought that there was a high likelihood that they’d take a weather day rather than pound their way across Dixon Entrance.

We knew that on account of our speed, we’d likely be one of the last boats to arrive to a very crowded Foggy Bay.  We’d also be one of the last to arrive the next day to a very crowded Prince Rupert Rowing and Yacht Club marine (just about the only marina for transients in Prince Rupert).  Since the weather for Saturday, August 1 is forecast to be better yet, we’re being flexible and spending another day in Ketchikan to let this wave of boaters heading south to get ahead of us.  Of course there is another “wave” all ready building around us by that is just the way things are.

In the mean time, I am taking this opportunity and Internet connectivity to post a video of Dall’s Porpoises surfing our bow wake.

And another video of us crossing the entrance of Behm Canal as it meets Clarence Strait just north of Ketchikan. The wind was blowing SE 15-20 knots and the seas were 3 to 4 feet with a short period. We were meeting the waves on the starboard forward quarter so we weren’t rolling much, just the bow crashing a bit.

Now I don’t want to sound like a broken record or a “weather brat” but this rain is starting to get to me.  For additional “amusement”, we’re now getting a touch of wind added to the precipitation. 

It hasn’t been all bad, though.  We did harvest prawns in Hoonah Sound and Pybus Bay, and we broke our fishing dry spell by catching 3 halibut in Fredrick Sound.

We also had some of the best whale activity of the season in and around Pybus Bay.  The whales were feeding in the same area where we placed our pawn traps which caused us concern that the traps might be inadvertently dragged away by a humpback whale chowing down on a herring ball near our float and line.  Fortunately, the whales avoided our lines while they did their fishing.

While we had wind and rain, we avoided the major thrubbing we had in Clarence Strait that we experienced last year.  Rather than 30 knot winds and 6 foot seas which we mostly avoided by holing up in Meyers Chuck last year, we only had 15 knot winds and 3 foot seas.  Of course these were Clarence “3-footers” which means they were closely spaced and steep, making for a bouncy, wet ride.

We plan on leaving Ketchikan tomorrow, July 31, having spent an extra day here waiting for forecasted calmer conditions crossing Dixon Entrance into Canada.  We’re hoping the overall weather begins to improve as well. 

While I whine about the weather, the cats only whine/meow about food or its absence.  The rest of the time they sleep.

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P.S. – Our sistership, Laysan, that crossed the Pacific to its homeport in Honolulu in 2011-12, is now relocating to the Pacific NW.  Its journey can be followed at https://roundtopdr.wordpress.com/