June 23, 2017

It was an absolutely gorgeous morning in the Bay. Blue Sky and warm right from the start. Ken went out to check his crab traps first thing, and had 2 keepers. Greg checked ours but no keepers. He is not surprised, it's a gift.

So we are invited over to Reiki Master for crab for lunch. Before that, it's showers and I made some strawberry and rhubarb crumble. (Had to make room in the freezer for halibut). Ken brought the cooler full of guts over to our boat so Greg could take what he wanted to save for crab bait. Man, there were a lot of guts. Yucky guts. So he made up some baggies of stuff and then the rest went overboard. Then he cleaned the cooler out - yuck! And then we had to find more room in the freezer for the bait too!

Greg put the fishing rod in the water for a while, but nothing interesting. We could see Kim and Emily on Reiki Master do the same, but there was nothing happening for anyone today. We had fresh cooked crab and garlic toast for lunch on Reiki Master and then we all packed up to leave around 1:15. There was a slack at "The Narrows" at 13:50 so we wanted to be there around then. We ended up arriving in Wrangell around 4:00 and it was an uneventful ride over. A bit of wind and current but not much. Once around Wrangell it was no wind and glassy and really warm.

Ken brought over some halibut that they had left out for tonights dinner. We offered to cook dinner since they had been hosting everything for the past couple of days. So we got caught on on email, the weather, and events in the world for about an hour and then started preparing dinner. Ken, Kim, and Emily came over around 6:00 for dinner and we even sat on the flybridge for some beers an appetizers first! It was that warm. Then we all squeezed into the salon for dinner and dessert.

June 22, 2017

An eventful day today! We pulled up anchor around 9:30 to head over to Anna Bay and the "famous" Bear Observatory. It took us just under 2 hours to get there. It is also "famous" for not being a great place to anchor and the recommendation is to leave someone on the boat when you go ashore. But the conditions were near perfect and Kim was going to stay on Reiki Master anyway since "she doesn't do bears" and so Ken, Emily, Greg, and I all went ashore, leaving Bella to guard Spellbound.

It's not actually open yet as it's a bit early in the season, so we didn't need a permit yet. Ken spends a lot of time in the "back country" and has a "bear gun" and he had that with him. Greg and I had our weapon of choice - whistles. It's about a 1/2 mile trail along boardwalk to get back to the area of the river and the viewing platforms and Ken recommended that we keep talking and making noise along the way. Wouldn't want to surprise a bear. We got to the end and unfortunately, but not surprisingly, there were no bears there yet. But the sun came out and it was a beautiful blue sky and warm and an incredibly scenic location.




Back to the boats and Kim had prepared chicken soup for everyone for lunch! (She keeps feeding us!). We pulled up anchor and headed down Ernest Sound towards Blake Channel. This is also the "back way" that will eventually take you to Wrangell. We had decided to anchor in Berg Bay for the night. We went into the head of the bay and there is another USFS float and cabin here. There is apparently a trail and a hike up to a lake (that's nice).

After watching Kim fishing of the back of the boat while at anchor yesterday, Greg decided it was time to pull out the fishing poles that we had brought and see how they work. We just had some squid for crab pot bait so pulled one of those out and cut it into a few pieces to put on the hook of our "jig". Neither one of us are remotely knowledgeable about fishing and didn't really know what we were doing, but hey, ya gotta start somewhere. There were certainly things down there as they were able to pull on the bait and take it, but not get caught on the hook. We fed the whole squid, plus another herring that Greg dug out, to whatever was taking down there. And we caught a piece of bark too. That's it.

In the mean time, Kim and Emily are fishing off the back of Reiki Master again while Ken is ashore with Chibby. We hear a lot of excitement at one point, and we see Kim struggling to bring in something heavy. We both pull out binoculars to watch the action. The fish comes to the surface and Emily takes the pole from Kim. All of a sudden the net goes away and Kim goes to get the "gaff". Then she starts back to the back of the boat and then goes back in again. We hear a call on the radio to Spellbound - "It's too big! I need help!". So Greg jumps in the dingy and heads over. She has a very large halibut on the line and she gave Greg the gaff while she reels it in again. No, Greg has never been that close to a halibut in his life and has no idea how to "gaff" it. She told him to get it through the gills. Greg places the gaff in that general area but it slides into it's mouth/jaw, which promptly rips open and the hook and the gaff slide right through and the fish sinks nicely back down into the water. Gone. Greg felt just awful. Kim was just fine with it. She was so excited that a halibut that big was in this bay! Keep fishing.

Ken came back with Chibby and he started fishing too. About half and hour later, we hear some hooping and hollering and we watch through the binoculars again. Ken brings the line to the back of the boat and reels it in. There are some more whoops. Kim takes the rod and Ken grabs the gaff. They have caught another large halibut and we watch to see how it's done. When it gets up close to the back of the boat, Ken uses a full swing "I'm chopping firewood" kind of motion to try and gaff it. He has to try several times to get it as he misses in the heavy swing. There was no chance that Greg was ever going to get the first fish after watching Ken with this one. Finally, after more reeling in and swinging, he get's it and slides / drags it up the couple of stairs onto the back deck of the boat. It's huge and it starts thrashing around wildly. Kim stands behind it so that it can't slide back off the boat. At this point we can't see anything and just listen to a lot of whooping and laughter. Once things have calmed down, we hop in the dingy and head over to see the action up close.



They had measured the length of the halibut which then gives you the weight - 77 lbs. I think it was 54" long. The same table says that a fish that big will give you 58 lbs of meat! Oh my! No one more than Greg was so happy that they caught another large halibut. No, this is not a place where you would expect to catch halibut. This is the largest one that Kim and Ken have ever caught too!



After "bonking it" and "bleeding it", they just left it in that big cooler while we had dinner. Kim had already pulled some halibut and yellow eye out of the freezer to make fish and chips for dinner (we brought the chips). So we did that and then everyone pulled up their socks to start "processing" the fish. Ken and Greg did the filleting, then Kim skinned the fillets, then Emily cut the giant fillets into 2 person serving sizes. Then I ran their vacuum sealing machine and made a little bag for each serving, put the fish in, then vacuum sealed it up again. The whole process probably took 1.5 hours with the 5 of us. I'd estimate that we made over 70 packages of fish. Greg and Ken kept the leftovers in the cooler as we were going to package up some of it to use for crab bait. Kim started labelling the fish and putting it in their freezer. Then they gave us a shopping bag full of little packages for us to put in our freezer.

Still light out, we headed back to Spellbound around 9:30 - the plans for movie night foiled.

June 21, 2017

We were able to sleep in, relatively speaking. It rained last night and was sprinkling this morning. Through the magic of the internet, Greg received a text from his cousin who lives in Red Deer. She was on a cruise ship in Juneau and found out that we were in Alaska. After a couple of text's back and forth, we found out that she was on one of the cruise ships that was in town on the day we left Ketchikan! If only we had known!

We left around 9:00 and headed around the corner down Ernest Sound. It was a bit lumpy right outside Meyers Chuck and going around the corner, but not too bad. Down the sound about an hour, it flattened right out into smooth sailing. We had arrange to meet Ken&Kim in Zomovia Cove for the evening, so we took the scenic route around Deer Island and checked out Santa Anna Inlet. It was like glass through the Seward Passage area, and we even saw some canoeists paddling around. When we came back on the topside of Deer Island though, Ernest Sound had already got a little choppy. The "Sounds" and "Straights" up here are so big and long that they are easily affected by wind over tide. Once on the other side, it was calm again.

Ken and Kim on their 42' Africat Power Catamaran, Reiki Master, were already in the cove when we arrived, and they invited us over for lunch. So we anchored Spellbound around the corner and dropped the dingy to head over. We brought cookies and Kim served a great lentil soup. They have a childhood friend of Kim's visiting with them, Emily. So we chatted and caught up and then Kim and Emily did some fishing of the back of the boat while Greg and Ken messed with the generator which wasn't starting. The two of them got it working and we enjoyed some warm sunshine on the back of the boat. Kim caught a small flounder and Emily caught a couple of crabs! (not legal).

We came back to Spellbound to make sure everything was in order and Greg put out a crab trap. We cooked up the rest of our prawns to bring back over to Reiki Master for an appetizer. Kim served up some "yellow eye" fish tacos for dinner which was lovely. Back to Spellbound for a quiet night.

June 20, 2017

Yup, it's really called Meyers Chuck.

We left the dock around 6:30 to be at the Fuel dock (south) when it opened at 7:00. Had to traverse back down the harbor to get there. Picked up around 228 gallons of diesel and then left there around 7:45 to head North. It was a little windy but we made sure we were going in the same direction as both the wind and the current so hoped it wouldn't be too bad. It started getting lumpy just as we reached Guard Island, and crossing Behm Canal was pretty rockin' and rollin'. I'd say the Bella meter was about a 4. Fortunately, it didn't last too long and the current and wind got back directly behind us and the seas flattened considerably. We reached the entrance to Meyers Chuck just "in time" as the current had started going in the other direction and the seas were picking up again.

A bit of a tricky entrance here but fine. There was room on the dock behind a big Krogen that acted as a bit of a wind break which was nice. Cost for overnight here was $9.42. We went for a short walk and went up to the "Gallery" but it is only open if you call "Cassie" - she'll come over and open it up for you.




We saw a cool "art display" on the way over with a spider web and a metal spider in it. There is a mix of full size houses and small cabins, but the place was empty and we didn't see anyone else.

Back to the boat for lunch and then Greg had a nap while I read my book. It was a bit gusty out but it wasn't raining hard. The Krogen in front of us was called "Adventurous Ohana" which of course meant they lived in Hawaii at some time. We ended up meeting "Dan" on the dock and had a nice chat. They left Anacortes about 60 days ago and are going to stay around this general area for awhile until they pick up their grand kids in Ketchikan. He said they've not had good weather at all and have had rainy days for 56 out of the 60 they've been away. His wife is tired of rain so they're not going any further north. Hmmmmmm …..

One of the other great things about Meyers Chuck is that they have a "tower" here on the point to deliver cell phone coverage to the straight. So we have good phone service and … internet!! (Happy Jan). Another boat arrived in the rain, a Nordic Tug. Cassie also delivers cinnamon buns to the boats in the morning if you order them the night before. But she has a minimum of 8, so Dan and "Fred" arranged to get 8 buns between the 3 boats.

June 19, 2017

Pouring rain last night. Still pouring for most of the morning. We stayed in the boat and did some trip planning and trying to figure out where and when to go next. Probably Meyers Chuck. We also exchanged some email with our friends Kim & Ken who live in Wrangell, and made arrangements to meet them Wednesday in a small cove near Wrangell.

Today was a dedicated chore day. Around 11:00 it had stopped raining, so we headed on up to Safeway to provision with more fruits and veggies now that we are across the border. Also picked up a few other supplies at Tongas Marine Hardware. Back to the boat to unload them and put them all away. It takes awhile on the boat as you have to find room for things and organize at the same time.

Then we packed up all the laundry and went up to the laundry mat. Excitement galore. During the dry cycle, Greg headed back to Safeway to get beer and ice. It started to pour again. Fortunately, we managed to make it back with all our stuff during a small lull / sprinkle. Put away the laundry. Some downtime and more chores. I got stuff ready for dinner and Greg did engine checks, filled the water tanks, and checked the water maker filters. Dinner. TV Show. Early to bed.

June 18, 2017

The first order of business was to go back to sleep. We had a late and lazy morning catching up with showers and email etc. It was beautiful and sunny and warm again today, so we decided we had better take the most advantage of it we could and go walk around outside! We headed out around 11:30 or so and walked up to the bus stop at the mall. The city provides a free "hop on hop off" bus throughout the downtown area and this marina is at the far western end. We showed up with Bella in Greg's arms and they had no problems with us bringing her on the bus.

It was a "3 cruise ship day" in town and so it was quite crowded. We looked for a "local" coffee shop and were directed to "Frickin Chicken" (yes, really) and we had coffee and bagels for lunch in a lovely patio. Then in was time for a walk. So we walked over to the Creek Street area and walked the boardwalk and looked in the windows of all the shops. Then walked up to the Totem Heritage Center and down to the Fish Hatchery (not open yet) and did the basic walking tour of Ketchikan.

It was 3:30 by the time we made it back into town. It was now a ghost town! One cruise ship had already left and the other 2 ships were "preparing" to leave so all the passengers needed to be on board already. A lot of shops were closed, sidewalks rolled up. We watched while one of the cruise ships was waiting to go, but were still missing two people. The local agent and port security were scouring the area looking for anyone who looked like they were to be on board. Eventually found, we watched the cruise ship leave the dock. Big thrusters moved it sideways into the channel, and then it was able to motor northward. The other cruise ship needed to turn around before it could go northward and we thought it would be fun to watch that, but it apparently waited much longer than we wanted to.

Took the bus back to the boat for 5:00, fed the dog and grabbed a bite, and then headed back out again. There is a race called "Race 2 Alaska" (www.r2ak.com) which is a "no motor" race from Port Townsend, WA to Ketchikan. Human and wind powered vessels only. Winner get's $10,000 and second place get's a set of steak knives. We've seen some of the vessels in previous years of cruising, but this year we are at the finish line. The winner came into Ketchikan on Thursday, the day before we got here. But vessels are still arriving. Although the race is planned out of Port Townsend, Ketchikan has decided to "own" the 2nd place prize. And they had an open "block party" tonight in celebration of all the people who participated. It was free and they had music by Ray Troll and the Batfish Wranglers. Ray Troll is a pretty famous artist and I like his images, so we thought it would be fun to see what his "band" sounds like.

Back on the bus into town to the "logging show" venue. The set totally reminded me of the old PNE logging show we would go to as kids with a pool with logs in it that people would stand on, big stumps that they would climb up etc etc. They had some talks and some rah rah stuff, and then the band. Just after we got there, they had a "special guest" who started the set which a spectacular version of "Major Tom", and then they did a bunch of rock cover stuff including Prince, and then some original stuff which was more folk. It was fun, and as I said to Greg, regardless of the music, the whole event got a 9.5 out of 10 on the people watching scale.

Bus had stopped running by the time we left, so we had to walk back. It's about 1.5 miles apparently, but it didn't take long. The evening was still nice and warm. We got back to the boat around 8:00 and watched the rest of the movie that we didn't finish the night before. (It was just OK).

June 17, 2017

Anyone who actually reads this Blog knows that I'm not a morning person. So it was with great difficulty that I woke up for the 2nd day in a row at 5:30am after a not very good sleep. Fortunately, Greg learned a long time ago to not ever expect sunshine and smiles so we just did our routine and got out the door. Turns out, the entire Prince Rupert fishing fleet decided to leave at 6:00am as well. Maybe because it was a Saturday too? And flat calm? I don't know but there were at least 100 boats of every size zooming around the harbour at that hour.

It takes a while to go through Venn Passage to get out into Chatham Sound, then forever to cross Chatham Sound and then around the corner into Dixon Entrance. That photo above was taken around 9:30am. We could not have wished for better conditions than we got, so it was all worthwhile. God what a long day though! It was Greg's day at the helm so he did the majority of the driving, leaving dog duty to me. During the "worst" part of the crossing (and I say that sarcastically) she was a bit squirrelly as the boat was still doing a little bit of corkscrewing in the swell, but it was very short lived and then we went back to Bella meter of zero.



We saw a couple of pleasure boats cruising south into Rupert, but we were the only pleasure boat around that was making the crossing. It's been the same story most of the way up. I get excited when I see another boat that appears to be doing the same thing as us. And of course any that we meet are all bigger boats than us.

A long way up and then another long way up and another long way up and then we arrived at the south entrance to Ketchikan around 3pm BC time, or 2:00pm Alaska time. (Aside - funny thing, my Mac changed to Alaska time while we were in Rupert! Crappy Mac products). Couldn't resist taking a photo of someone's personal yacht waiting here for them. (Note the side garage with the speedboat waiting to go in)



It's 300 ft long. Maybe we should just put Spellbound in their garage and go with them? Also, 2 cruise ships in the docks as we went by as well - The Disney Wonder and the Norwegian Sun. Weird to be cruising by them so closely. Good thing we knew they weren't going anywhere!

There are several marinas here where boats can moor, and you just call the Ketchikan Harbormaster and they assign you a marina and a slip based on what is available right when you call them. We were assigned Bar Harbor South and finger 8 slip 28. We found it easily enough and are in amongst the fish boats on a low "small boat" dock. The sun was shining and it was warm and there was no wind so it was lovely. We decided to take advantage of the great weather and immediately locked up the boat and took the dog for walk (such as her walking is). Good to stretch the legs after such a long day.

After going to the harbor office to pay (3 nights) we started in the other direction towards "the mall" to see what was there. As we walk along the street we aboat to step around 2 couples who are standing on the sidewalk talking. One woman looks up and exclaims "Oh it's you !!". Errrrr, maybe? It turns out that we had cruised by them and their boat while we were docking, and she *loves* our boat and thinks it's gorgeous and wanted to know more about it. Nice! It turns out their names are John and Susan, and they are from Cleveland Ohio. They *trailered* there (clearly smallish) boat from there to Bellingham, put it in the water there, and have been traveling up the inside passage since! They are doing essentially the same thing as us, only on a much smaller boat!

We walked around and went past the mall, but didn't see too much interesting. The tourist part of town is about 1.5 miles down the road, but it also appears there is not much between here and there. So back to the mall where the local's shop with includes a Safeway and some fast food. I peeked into the indoor portion and saw a lot of empty units but also the regular mall inhabitants. We went to Safeway and got a snack at the Starbucks and some light groceries to have for dinner. They also have a $1.50 DVD movie rental with pretty recent titles. So we rented "Logan" to watch later. (I mean for $1.50 ….)

Back for dinner and then we decided to walk the dock a bit as it was still great weather. The couple right next door to us was out on the dock so we chatted. They are a BC Ranger Tug that is probably around 26' long. They are from Kitimat and they also just arrived in Ketchikan today crossing Dixon Entrance much earlier than us! Also looking for the good weather to cross. So a 2nd boat in the same day that is smaller than us doing the same thing as us. I have to eat my words.

We started the movie too late and couldn't get through it. Maybe finish watching it tomorrow.