Location: Ketchikan, Alaska
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| A brown bear catching a salmon in Pack Creek |
Monday, August 24, 2020 – Auke Bay: We did a few town chores today including
riding the bus to Fred Meyer for groceries and lunch. The bus had the front section roped off,
masks were required and they were limiting each bus to no more than 14
people. We
took an afternoon walk out to the boat ramp and back. It started to rain about 17:00 so we had
happy hour and supper on the boat.
Tuesday, August 25, 2020 – Auke Bay to Taku Harbor (33
nm, 4.3 hours): We left the dock at
8:00 this morning and headed south to Taku Harbor. It was overcast and raining. We saw some 20 knot winds and had the current
against us as we made our way down the west side of Douglas Island. The visibility improved as we turned south
into Stephens Passage. A gill net
fishery was open and we saw a few small fishing boats along the shore. We pulled into Taku Harbor ~13:00 and tied up
to the floating dock in the southwest corner.
We spent the afternoon doing maintenance and chores, reading and voyage
planning.
Wednesday, August 26, 2020 – Taku Harbor to Windfall
Harbor (58 nm, 8 hours): We left the dock at 7:30 this morning. There was some current pushing us away from
the dock and we struggled to release our stern line. There was a boat tied up on the other side of
the dock and he came out to give us a hand.
Our crab trap had one small female inside and we let it go. We cruised south down Stephens Passage,
around Point Hugh and then north up Seymour Canal. We could see whales spouting along both
shores. We watched one slap his tail
over and over, another slap his flipper and two others breach, so it was very
entertaining. On the northwest shore of
Tiedeman Island, we saw ~100 seals hauled out on a sand spit. We turned into Windfall Harbor and dropped
off our crab trap then went and anchored in front of a creek flat on the west
shore. We spent the afternoon watching
the brown bears, we counted 7, feeding on salmon.
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The creek flats on the west shore of Windfall Harbor.
The black spots are the bears and the small white spots are the seagulls. |
Thursday, August 27, 2020 – Pack Creek Windfall Harbor (7
nm, 1.2 hours): We spent the morning
watching the bears in the creek flats next to us and at the head of the
bay. It was overcast, calm and not
raining which was a nice change. We ate
our lunch then heaved anchor at 12:30 and headed up the bay towards Pack
Creek.
Pack Creek is a brown bear
viewing area managed by the US Forest Service.
Permits are required to go ashore and most years you need to book far in
advance in order to get a permit but with fewer travelers than usual and no
cruise ships, we didn’t have any issues getting a permit. We anchored up near the creek flats and
launched the dinghy to go ashore. A
clothes line system is set-up for dinghies and small boats. You go in to a sand bar near the beach, tie
the dinghy to the clothes line, wade ashore and use the line to send the dinghy
out into deeper water. A ranger met us
and gave us an overview of the area, then we headed towards the viewing
area. There was one other group of three
people at the viewing area and they decided to come back to the beach as we
were walking in. No sooner had they
passed us, then a mother bear and two cubs came out of the woods headed for the
creek flat. We waited until they were well
away from the path before proceeding.
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| A mother bear and her two cubs walking out of the woods to the creek flats. |
A ranger met us at the viewing area and pointed out the
bears. There were 20 in the area; he
said that was the most he has seen at one time after working there for 10
seasons.
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| Mother bear and her cub in the Pack Creek flats |
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| Five bears upstream from the Pack Creek flats |
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| Dave watching the bears from the Pack Creek viewing area |
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| Mother bear laying on her side so that her cub could feed. She was purring while he was feeding. |
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| Seabiscuit at anchor near Pack Creek |
We stayed at the viewing area for a couple of hours,
watching the bears, then decided to hike to the viewing tower further
upstream. We passed a deer on the way in
and watched one bear catching salmon in the creek before he went around a bend and out of sight.
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| Dave on the hiking trail to the viewing tower. |
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| A deer on the hiking trail |
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| B in front of the viewing tower |
We hiked back out to the beach and dinghied back to the
boat. The wind was forecast to pick up
overnight, so we cruised back towards the head of the bay to anchor up on the east side where we
would be protected from the wind.
A mother bear and cub walking along the beach in Windfall Harbor
Friday, August 28, 2020 –
Windfall Harbor: Rain, rain and more
rain today. We watched the bears across
the bay in the creek flat and did boat chores and maintenance.
Saturday, August 29, 2020 – Windfall Harbor to Portage
Bay (65 nm, 9.1 hours): This morning
we heaved anchor at 7:15. We picked up
the crab trap and had two keepers inside, our first crabs of the season. We cruised south down Seymour Canal. It was foggy for most of the voyage but once
we got close to the entrance, the fog lifted and it was a glorious sunny
day.
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| Three crabs in our trap. We kept two and let the smallest one go. |
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| Cruising along through the fog in Seymour Canal. |
Summer came on a Saturday so we
went fishing. We tried our luck near
Sail Island then moved out to some pinnacles just east of the island. Dave caught a big halibut, ~60 pounds. We took a few photos then released it. There were a lot of whales feeding in the area
and sea lions along the coast of Sail Island.
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| Dave reeling in a big halibut east of Sail Island. |
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| The halibut Dave caught. We estimated it was ~50" long and 60 pounds |
It looked like rain was moving in, so we reeled up our lines
and finished our trip to Portage Bay. We
anchored up just south of the green day marker, settled in and had crab for
supper.
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| B ready to enjoy fresh crab for supper. |
Sunday, August, 30, 2020 – Portage Bay to Petersburg (22
nm, 3.5 hours): Anchor up at 9:45
this morning for our short run in to
Petersburg. It was foggy, windy (20 – 25 knots) and
raining. We timed our voyage to catch
the slack tide at the Petersburg North Harbor and were tied up in our slip by
13:30. The rain let up late afternoon so we took a walk around town and stopped
at the Mexican restaurant and got supper to go.
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| The Petersburg Fishermen's Memorial. |
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| A log tug boat tied up in Hammer Slough at low tide. |
Monday, August 31, 2020 – Petersburg: Town chores and boat chores and maintenance
today in between the rain drops. We heard on the radio this morning that it was one of the rainest summers on the record books. Both Ketchikan and Petersburg broke their records for the amount of rainfall during June, July and August.
According to the Petersburg Pilot "This summer's wet weather set a record for the most summer rainfall ever in Petersburg with 31.6 inches of rain, just barely surpassing the previous record of 31.06 inches of rain in the summer of 2015, according to data from the National Weather Service in Juneau."
Ketchikan had 47 inches of rain. From Ketchikan's KTOO "Of the 90 or so days from June through August, Ketchikan saw 68 days with measurable rainfall. The city’s previous record, 67 days, was set in 1933 and last tied in 1966." Read the full Ketchikan article here.
A guy from Juneau told us "It only rained twice this summer, once for 65 days and once for 25 days".
Tuesday, September 1, 2020 – Petersburg to Exchange Cove
(40 nm, 5.3 hours): Town chores and
grocery shopping this morning. We left
the harbor at 12:45 to catch the currents in the Wrangell Narrows. The Narrows is 21 nautical miles long with more than 60 channel markers. It floods from both ends and the
currents meet near the middle. If you time
it right, you will get a push south from the flood current in the north part of
the narrows and the ebb current in the south part of the narrows. We met a tug and barge coming north near
Blind Point. He needed the whole channel
to maneuver around the turns so we pulled off into a wide spot and let him
pass.
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Screen shot from our navigation app of the section in the Wrangell Narrows where
Seabiscuit, going south, meets the tug Western Titan with barge in tow going north. |
We exited the channel and crossed
Sumner Strait. There was a gill net
fishery open west of Zarembo Island and one of the fishermen called us on the
VHF and gave us some advice on where most of the boats were located and how
best to avoid their nets which was very helpful. We passed a huge raft of sea otters just
before our turn into Exchange Cove. We
anchored up close to the mud flats at the head of the cove. And yes, you will be surprised to hear that
it rained.
Wednesday, September 2, 2020 – Exchange Cove to Snug Cove
(41 nm, 5.9 hours): We started off our day with scones we bought from T
he Salty Pantry in Petersburg which were a nice treat. Anchor up at 12:00 in order to catch the ebb current going south. It was overcast and raining. The gill net fishery that was open yesterday ended at 12:00 today so there were no fishing boats or nets to dodge. The voyage was uneventful and we wove our way into Snug Cove and anchored up behind the island ~18:00.
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| Early morning departure from Snug Cove. The days are getting shorter. |
Thursday, September 3, 2020 – Snug Cove to Klu Bay (63
nm, 8.9 hours): We left Snug Cove at 6:00 to catch the ebb tide in Clarence Strait and then the flood tide into the west side of the Behm Canal. We dropped off our shrimp trap near Cache Island then turned into the arm near Loring leading towards the Roosevelt Lagoon. We had read that there is an "L" shaped public float there. We looked at the float and decided it was too close to the rocks near shore and wasn't big enough for Seabiscuit. It was still early in the day so we cruised back out, picked up our shrimp trap and went further north up into the Behm Canal. We turned into Shrimp Bay and dropped off our shrimp trap between two waterfalls then cruised into Klu Bay, dropped off the crab trap and picked up the mooring ball for the night. We spotted a black bear in the creek flats on the east side of the bay.
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| Two waterfalls in Shrimp Bay. If you look close you can see our shrimp trap float to the right of the waterfall on the right. |
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| The crab trap float off our stern in Klu Bay. |
Friday, September 4, 2020 – Klu Bay to Walker Cove (47
nm, 6.4 hours): No crabs in the crab trap this morning and instead of shrimp in the shrimp trap, we caught four crawfish like critters. You would have thought a place called Shrimp Bay would have some shrimp in it but if it does we didn't find them.
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| Crawfish like critters that we caught in the shrimp trap. We haven't been able to figure out what they are. |
We cruised through the Behm Narrows at the north side of the canal then turned south into the east arm. We dropped off the crab and shrimp trap outside the entrance to Walker Cove then cruised into the arm. The east side of the Behm Canal is part of the Misty Fiords National Monument Wilderness and the US Forest Service has several mooring buoys that are available for use, first come, first serve. We used one in Klu Bay yesterday and the one in Walker Cove was empty so we tied up to it for the night.
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| The steep rock walls and waterfalls of Walker Cove. |
Saturday, September 5, 2020 – Walker Cove to Princess Bay (32 nm, 4.4 hours): It was close to low tide this morning when we got up and we could see a lot of bald eagles and seagulls in the creek flats at the head of the cove where we were moored.
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| The head of the cove near the Walker Bay mooring buoy. |
We released ourselves from the mooring buoy at 9:00 and went out to check our traps. One small sea star in the crab trap and five huge shrimp in the shrimp trap.
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| B on the bow with one sea star in the crab trap. |
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| Dave with five large shrimp in the bucket. |
We cruised down to Rudyerd Bay and into Punchbowl Cove which is the jewel of Misty Fiords. We were hoping to get the mooring buoy there but three boats were already in the cove so we turned around and headed back out into the main channel.
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| The rock walls surrounding Punchbowl Cove. |
We stopped to fish near the New Eddystone Islands and New Eddystone Rock. We caught one rockfish but let it go. We decided we would go into Princess Bay and see if the mooring buoy there was available. It was so we dropped off the traps, tied up and settled in for the afternoon.
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| New Eddystone Rock |
Sunday, September 6, 2020 - Princess Bay to Thomas Basin, Ketchikan (44 nm, 5.5 hours): We released ourselves from the mooring buoy at 9:00 this morning and picked up the traps. There was one sea star in the crab trap and more of the crawfish like critters in the shrimp trap. It was raining when we left Princess Bay but by the time we got close to Ketchikan we had sunshine and a blue sky. We called the harbormaster on the VHF and asked for a slip in Thomas Basin which is where we stayed when we were here in 2018. We settled in then went for a walk around town. It has a much different feel with no cruise ships at the docks. We walked along the waterfront then up the hill to Married Man's Trail and the fish ladder, then down to
Creek Street, the old red light district, and back to the harbor.
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Ketchikan Creek and the fish ladder.
We saw a few salmon in the main part of the creek trying to leap up the falls. They were having a difficult time. |
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| We had planned to do our grocery shopping at Tatsuda's IGA near Thomas Basin but we learned that their building had been destroyed by a landslide back in February. You can read the article here Landslide at Tatsuda's IGA. |
Monday, September 7, 2020 - Ketchikan: We took a walk along the waterfront this morning and then did some town chores.
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| Totem pole near the University of Southeast Alaska |
Tuesday, September 8, 2020 - Ketchikan: We're planning to head south this morning.
Until Next Time…
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