Location: Juneau, Alaska
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| Orca in Lynn Canal |
April 25 - 26, Thursday -
Friday, Hoonah: It was overcast and
rainy while we were in Hoonah so we decided to tackle a big maintenance chore,
cleaning our forward fuel tanks. Dave
transferred the last of the fuel from both tanks into the day tanks and we got
busy. The first step was to move everything
out of the mid-ship hold so that we would have good access to the tank hatches
there. Thursday morning we cleaned the
port tank – took off the hatch cover in the engine room and the three covers in
the mid-ship hold. Dave trimmed the
gaskets on each of the covers. When we
had replaced them last time, we left in the center section. With no material between these center
sections and the fuel, they had swollen and deformed. The gasket material on the flange faces was
still in good condition, so we cut out the center sections and left the
gasket material between the hatch covers and the flange faces.
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| Starboard forward fuel tank hatches in the mid-ship hold, open and ready for tank cleaning. |
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| Starboard forward fuel tank hatch in the engine room. |
Once that was complete, we cleaned the sides and bottom of the tank using clean diesel fuel, then vacuumed out the sediment from the bottom of the tank. The last step was re-installing the hatch covers and torquing the bolts that hold them in place.
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| Sunset Hoonah Harbor |
Friday morning we cleaned the starboard forward fuel tank. After we finished re-installing the hatch covers, we cleaned the mid-ship hold bilge and re-stowed everything. We did some laundry, took a short walk around town, filled water and prepared for tomorrow’s departure.
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| Difficult to see but there is a large bald eagle nest in this tree near the Hoonah Harbor Master's office |
April 27, Saturday, Hoonah
to Auke Bay (41 nm, 5.9 hours): We left
the Hoonah transient dock at 8:00 for our cruise to Auke Bay, just north of
Juneau. It was a sunny, calm day and we
had an uneventful voyage. The docks at
Auke Bay are first-come, first-served with no assigned slips. When you enter the harbor, you find an empty
spot and tie up. It isn’t crowded this
time of year and we didn’t have any trouble finding a space alongside the
dock. We tied up about 14:00 and settled
in for the afternoon. We took a walk
around the harbor area, then had supper at the Devil’s Hideaway.
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| Humpback whale as we were leaving Hoonah Harbor |
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| Light house buildings on Point Retreat at the north end of the Mansfield Peninsula |
April 28, Sunday, Auke
Bay: Another beautiful, sunny day. We caught the bus to Home Depot, then went to
Costco to stock up for the season. We took
a cab back to the harbor and got everything loaded onto the boat and
stored. For supper, we picked up some
burgers and onion rings at Hot Bites.
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| Looking east from the stern, Statter Harbor, Auke Bay. |
April 29, Monday, Auke
Bay: We spent the morning doing boat
chores. After lunch, we took the bus to
Fred Meyer to get some fresh produce and top up items that we didn’t buy at
Costco. We had supper on the boat, did
some voyage planning and prepared for departure in the morning.
April 30, Tuesday, Auke Bay
to Haines (62 nm, 8.9 hours):
Another
beautiful, sunny day.
We checked into
the morning HAM net and then left the Auke Bay docks at 8:00.
We cruised north up
Lynn Canal, the largest
Fjord in the U.S.
The winds were light
and the seas were calm and it was a nice day to be out on the water.
We saw four orca swimming south, two mothers
and two calves.
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| Four orca, two mothers and two calves, in the Lynn Canal |
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| Mountains along the west side of the Lynn Canal |
We tied up at the dock in
the Haines Small Boat Harbor about 16:00.
For happy hour, we went to the
Haines Brewing Company and we ate supper
at the Fireweed Restaurant.
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| View from the Haines Brewing Company tasting room, Haines, Alaska. |
May 1, Wednesday, Round Trip - Haines, Alaska to
Haines Junction, Yukon Territory (350
miles by car):
We decided to rent a car
today to drive to the nature areas around Haines and to explore the Haines Highway.
We started with Lutak Inlet, north and east
of town.
We had been told that the
“hooligan” (aka
eulachon or smelt) were in the bay and that there was a feeding
frenzy with the birds and sea lions getting their fill.
It was close to low tide and we didn’t see
any sea lions, but we saw lots of birds, mostly
surf scoters and gulls.
As we were watching a raft of surf scoters
near shore, all of a sudden, just like synchronized swimmers, hundreds of them dove under the water and resurfaced simultaneously.
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| Surf Scoters in Lutak Bay |
Next, we headed north and
west out of town on the Haines Highway.
We passed the
Alaskan Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve on the Chilkat River,
which is famous for the thousands of bald eagles that arrive each fall to feed
on the salmon after they spawn. There
were no bald eagles this time of year, just miles of gravel / sand river
delta.
We continued north across the U. S. /
Canadian border into British Columbia and then up above the tree line into the
alpine section of the highway and into Yukon Territory.
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| B at the Yukon Territory Sign |
The snow covered mountains were amazing, some
of them were all white with no rocks or
trees visible. We stopped along the way
for a better view of the snowmobile, ski and animal tracks in the snow along
the roadside.
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| Ground squirrel near a snowmobile area. |
We arrived in Haines
Junction, had lunch at a local restaurant, topped off our gas tank and headed back south. We stopped for a hike at the
Million Dollar Falls Campground - "The name comes from a U.S. army maintenance camp constructed during the building of the Haines Road and Haines-to-Fairbanks pipeline in the 1940s. The camp has a barracks, officers' quarters and a 21-toilet bathing room. It was rumoured to cost a “million dollars” to build, but was never used." We saw lots of
moose and bear tracks along the road to the campground, but didn’t see any
animals.
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| Moose track on the road into Million Dollar Falls Campground |
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| Million Dollar Falls. |
Two swans, either trumpeter or tundra, feeding in a small pond along the Haines Highway.
We drove back into Haines, then went south of town to the Chilkat State Park, a beautiful area overlooking the waters
of the Chilkat Inlet.
May 2, Thursday,
Haines: Chores this morning. Dave put on his diving gear to inspect
the boat bottom and our aluminum hull anodes.
The water temperature was 45F / 7C.
All looked well and he didn’t stay in long.
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| Dave diving in the Haines harbor. |
For our afternoon
adventure, we strolled the historic
Fort Seward area, an old military
installation, then strolled along the rock covered beach.
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| Looking across the Fort Seward parade grounds at the officer's housing. |
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The town is in the process of creating a sculpture garden amongst the ruins of one of the old barracks in Fort Seward.
This is an example of the art that is in place. |
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| The Tlingit welcome sign at Fort Seward. |
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| Rocks on the beach below Fort Seward. |
For happy hour, we went to the
Port Chilkoot Distillery, a small, local business that distills gin, vodka, whiskey and
absinthe. Their business start-up story
is interesting as they had to overcome prohibition era laws that were still on
the books before they could open their tasting room. We had supper at a local restaurant, then
went back to the boat for reading and unlaxing.
May 3, Friday, Haines: More maintenance chores this morning.
We went to the
Sheldon Museum in the
afternoon.
May 4, Saturday, Haines to Skagway (14 miles, 1.9 hours): We left
the Haines Small Boat Harbor ~9:00 for the short run to Skagway. The wind was blowing 25 – 30 knots from the
south and the tide was flooding towards the north, so we got a push. We watched a large group of surf scoters
feeding along the shoreline.
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| Surf Scoters feeding along the shore of Taiya Inlet. |
There was
one large cruise ship at the dock in Skagway.
We made our way into the small boat harbor and tied up alongside “C”
dock. The wind was blowing something
fierce, but at least it was pushing us onto the dock and not away from it. We tied up and settled in then walked uptown
for lunch. Back to the boat for
afternoon chores and internet. For happy
hour and supper, we went to the
Skagway Brewing Company.
May 6, Monday, Skagway,
Alaska to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory (110 miles by car): The wind was still howling this morning so we
put out some extra lines and fenders then rented a car and drove up to
Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon Territory.
Up and over the
White Pass summit, through Canadian Customs into B.C.
and then into the Yukon. We stopped at
all the scenic overlooks and historical stops along the way.
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| A spruce grouse alongside the road near White Pass Summit. |
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| B at the scenic overlook, Fraser Lake, BC. |
We had lunch in Carcross,
stopped at the
“World’s Smallest Desert”, stopped to watch the mountain goats
along the hillsides and cruised into White Horse mid-afternoon. We stayed at a small B&B near downtown. For supper, we ate at Antoinette’s a
Caribbean Restaurant – very tasty.
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| The Carcross Desert. |
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| Train tracks no longer in use, Robinson Roadhouse Historic Site. |
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| Caribou crossing the Klondike Highway. |
May 7, Tuesday,
Whitehorse: We started our day at the
Whitehorse Visitor Center to get a recommendation for a day hike. They suggested the trail that leads to the
summit above
Fish Lake. We picked up
some sandwiches at the local deli / meat shop and headed out of town to the trail
head. Fish Lake was still iced over,
just starting to melt along the shoreline, and we could see someone skating off
in the distance. We hiked up the trail
into the woods above the lake. The trail
was wet and muddy for the first half of the hike and icy and snow-covered as we
neared the top of the tree line. Once we got above the tree line, the views of the lakes and the
surrounding mountains were amazing.
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| Dave hiking up the Fish Lake trail. |
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| Fish Lake. |
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| B scoping out the views of the surrounding mountains, Fish Lake. |
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| Sign at the Fish Lake trailhead. |
We walked back down to the car and spent some time watching the ducks feed on a small pond nearby – redheads, northern pintails,
Barrow’s goldeneyes, northern shovelers and some others we couldn’t identify. Our next stop was the suspension bridge over
the Yukon River at
Miles Canyon.
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| View of Miles Canyon from the suspension bridge. |
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| Looking down at the suspension bridge that crosses Miles Canyon. |
Back to the B&B for a
break, then we walked into town for happy hour at The Woodcutter and supper at the Dirty Northern.
May 8, Wednesday,
Whitehorse to Skagway (110 miles via car):
We left Whitehorse about 8:00 for the drive back to Skagway. We stopped in Carcross for a cup of coffee, then
drove back over the White Pass summit through the fog and rain. The fog lifted as we came down into
Skagway. We stopped at a scenic overlook
on the way back into town and then returned the rental car.
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| View of the Skagway airport, downtown and the cruise ship docks. |
Back at the boat all was
well. The wind was still howling, 30+
knots from the south. I spent the
afternoon touring the
Skagway Museum and some of the NPS historic buildings. We had happy hour at the
Red Onion Saloon and
supper at a restaurant near the harbor.
May 9, Thursday, Skagway to
William Henry Bay (46 nm, 6.2 hours):
The wind finally quit blowing about 3:30 this morning. We left the dock at 6:30 and headed south
down Taiya Inlet and the Lynn Canal. It
was foggy most of the way and we ran the radar.
Very little traffic and an uneventful cruise to William Henry Bay. We dropped off the crab trap and anchored off
the eastern shore. It was a sunny, calm
afternoon. We cleaned the starboard day
tank then enjoyed the nice weather and the time away from the dock.
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| Looking out the William Henry Bay entrance at the mountains on the east side of the Lynn Canal. |
May 10, Friday, William
Henry Bay to Auke Bay (30 nm, 4.4 hours):
We picked up the crab trap on our way out of the bay this morning: one
tanner crab, one Dungeness crab and one halibut. We let them all go. It was foggy on the way south so we ran the
radar for about 2/3 of the voyage. A few
small fishing boats out and about but other than that it was quiet. We pulled into Auke Bay Harbor around lunch
time and docked at “D” dock. Lunch and
laundry, then cleaning of the port day tank and other maintenance tasks.
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| B pulling in the crab trap, William Henry Bay. |
May 11, Saturday, Auke
Bay: We rented a car today. Our first destination was the marine fuel
dock on the south side of Juneau.
Yesterday we called around to check diesel prices and found that fuel on
the south side of town was $0.15 less per gallon as compared to Auke Bay. We wanted to confirm the pricing and to look
at the fuel dock so that we would know what to expect when we pulled
alongside. Next was Home Depot, then
Costco, then Fred Meyer and finally back to the boat to unload. After we got everything stowed, we went up to
Mendenhall Glacier. They had some spotting scopes set-up in the visitor center and we got to see a mountain goat with a kid near a stream on the side of the mountain. We walked a portion of the
Trail of Time and the East Glacier Trail.
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| The Mendenhall Glacier. |
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| A porcupine climbing a tree on the East Glacier Trail. |
May 12, Sunday, Auke Bay to
Juneau – Harris Harbor (31 nm, 4.3 hours):
We left the dock at 7:30 this morning and headed to the south end of
Juneau. Although it is only 9 miles by
car to the south side of Juneau, it is 31 miles by boat. The channel between Douglas Island and Juneau
is too shallow to transit so you have to go around to the west coast of Douglas Island. We tied up in Harris Harbor around lunch
time. Dave got busy transferring fuel
from the aft tanks to the forward tanks while I walked up to the used book store,
Rainy Retreat Books, to see if I
could find “Land of the Ocean Mists”, a book about "The Wild Ocean Coast West of Glacier Bay" – they had
it. We will be traveling this coast later this summer and, although it was written in 1986, it was recommended as one of the best history books about the Gulf of Alaska coast line between Cape Spencer and Dry Bay. When I got back to the boat, we cleaned the
starboard aft fuel tank. For happy hour
we went to the Red Dog Saloon and we had supper at V’s Cellar Door.
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| The Windfall Fisherman, a bronze sculpture of an Alaskan brown bear, Juneau. |
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| Totem pole near downtown Juneau. |
May 13, Monday, Juneau –
Harris Harbor: This morning we cleaned
the port aft fuel tank – the last one.
All looks good and we are ready to take fuel tomorrow morning. Our next stop will be Taku Bay.
Until next time...
