Part 1, July 2005 Cruise News
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We started July off with a bang. We bid Jason =
and
Von (Chuck's son and daughter in law) farewell on the morning of July
3rd. There were big "do'nz&quo=
t; in
Sitka with the Annual Hot Dog Race. Our friends Deb and Bob entered t=
heir
wiener dog in the race for the 3rd year. We just had to go and watch.=
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The dog
is named Montague, otherwise known as Monty, with his owner, Deb. Behind =
Deb
you can see the starting mark for the 30-foot corridor lined with bowls of
hot dogs chunks. The dogs go through the corridor one at a time and=
are
timed. The dog that gets through the fastest wins. Obviously,
most dogs stop and eat the hot dogs on the way. Needless to say, th=
ere
was a lot of dog "stuff" on the floor after the racing started.=
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Here is
Monty at the start. Notice that Bob holds him above the floor before
the race starts. He was clocked at 7 seconds. No wieners for =
this
wiener. He gets leftover prime rib from the Elks Club and could
care less about hot dogs. |
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We were
busy the rest of the day doing errands and by the time 8:30 pm rolled aro=
und,
we were both exhausted and hit the sack early. At 11:30 pm, all hell
broke loose (we thought) and we bolted up and out of bed when we heard wh=
at
we thought was a barrage of gunshots. We had forgotten that in Alas=
ka,
the fireworks show is on July 3rd so they can bring the 4th in with a
bang. We had a front row seat from the pilothouse of our boat.
The show lasted for =
almost
an hour. |
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On the
4th of July we walked to town to watch the 4th of July parade. As y=
ou
can see, there were quite a few people watching. There were two lar=
ge
and two small cruise ships in town so the streets were jammed with
tourists. This was a clever caterpillar thing that someone made out=
of
plastic 50 gallon drums. |
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People
will do anything to be a star. |
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These
people are graduates of Sitka High School's classes of 59, 60 and 61.&nbs=
p;
Not sure what the purple umbrellas with ears signify. |
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Last
year, we weren't in Sitka in June and July so we missed the deluge
of bald eagles that come here for the summer. They put on quite=
a
show. This eagle swiped a salmon carcass from somewhere and decided=
to
perch on top of the radar antenna of an old boat. |
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Our
friend Jon from Bellingham joined us for a while in July.
Unfortunately, his better half Dorene couldn't
come. We started off his visit with a trip to our new found cod and
halibut hole located about an hour away from Sitka. Jon caught two =
very
large cod and a nice sized halibut. Great start to his vacation. |
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We then
went to Kalinen Bay at the north end of Krustov Island. Unfortunately, here we found =
out
the outboard on the dinghy wasn't working correctly. Chuck and Jon
could not fix it. We had parts on order but they weren't due in for=
a
few weeks so we continued on our trip without the use of a dinghy.
Bummer! While the dinghy was working, however, we took it ashore in=
Kalinen and took a 2.5 mile hike each way acro=
ss the
island to Sealion Cove. |
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It was
a long hike but the sandy beach on the other side was beautiful. |
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The
next day we traveled out Peril Strait and on the way trolled for
salmon. Here is Jon with his 18 pound coho.
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We then
went to Hoonah Sound and put Jon to work pull=
ing up
prawn traps from 400 feet with our new puller. We didn't get a
huge amount of prawns but 2-1/2 gallons was enough for
dinner. We also picked up a few dungeness
crabs for the next night's dinner and then some. |
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We left
Hoonah Sound and went out to Chatham Strait a=
nd
made a right turn south down the east side of Barano=
f
Island. We were greeted by a small pod of Dall=
's
porpoise who swam in and out of our bow wave for a while. This has
happened to us several times since coming to Alaska. It is always a
great thrill to watch them and they seem to have so much fun. |
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We
tried to find new anchorages. One of them was Echo Bay near Kelp
Bay. It was a nice little anchorage with the most beautiful, huge
lion's mane jellyfish. |
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We
anchored in Takatz Bay for the first time.&nb=
sp; We
were not alone as you can see in this photo. These are purse seiners spending the night at anchor before an early
morning opening the next day. Note how blue and opaque the wat=
er
is. This is glacier water from ice packs in the mountains that we
couldn't see because of clouds and fog. |
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This is
one of many waterfalls in Takatz Bay. T=
he
purse seiners were gone by now, a lot of rain=
had
fallen and this large charter vessel came in and anchored near the
waterfall. |
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These
are the waterfalls looking in the other direction while at anchor.=
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And,
speaking of waterfalls, we checked out Cascade Bay on our way to another
anchorage. This bay is not good for anchoring but it has some really
nice waterfalls. |
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Our
next anchorage and a new one to us was Hoggatt Bay.
It was overcast when we arrived but we could see a lot of the waterfalls
falling among lush green trees and foliage. |
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This
was the view out toward Chatham Strait from our anchorage that evening.&n=
bsp;
The weather had cleared up and the view was pretty nice. |
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From Hoggatt Bay, we proceeded south down Chatham Strait=
to
Gut Bay. This peaked mountain loomed over everything. |
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This is
a zoom in on the snow fields once the clouds lifted a little. |
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Gut Bay
is very large and there are few suitable sites for anchoring.
However, there is a wonderful, small cove at the head of Gut Bay that we
anchored in. The entrance to this anchorage is very shallow and only
about 30 feet wide at it's narrowest point. We saw three and a
half feet of water under our keel going in. A note in our cruising
guide talked about a young couple who sailed over from Europe and spent a=
ll
winter (on purpose) in this cove "iced in". Hmmmm... |
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One of
the fascinating things about this anchorage was the huge number of salmon=
and
the way they swam around in circles. These salmon are waiting to go=
up
the river (located at the head of our anchorage) to spawn =
and
instead of traveling in schools stretched out in one direction, they just
kept going around in circles. They will spend time here waiting =
;for
nature to take its course. The fish will develop large, hooked jaws,
change color and their bodies will start deteriorating before they move up
into the river and spawn. Sound familiar? |
***End Part 1