July 2007 Cruise News

We left you at the end of June in Necker Bay on the west side of Baranof Island.  After Necker Bay, we continued south to Whale Bay.

We spent many days in Whale Bay because the weather outside was ugly.  So, what do we do to pass the time?  We fish.  Here we are trolling for salmon near a nice waterfall.  Didn't catch anything unfortunately.

We were in the same anchorage as a few trollers from Sitka, the Tomboy and Denny M.  According to reports, they were having a hard time catching salmon also.

As with anything else in this world, you have to learn to be flexible while cruising.  The weather is the greatest concern to us as is a good running boat.  Our plans to go down the outside of Baranof were thwarted by the weather.  Predictions were such that we either stayed holed up in Whale Bay for a week or go back north and take the inside passage down to Prince of Wales.  We opted for the second choice.  We left Whale Bay and returned north to Necker Bay.  Here we are anchored for a lunch break and waiting to pull our shrimp pots.  We did VERY well in Necker Bay.

Another pretty waterfall in Necker Bay.

Our first "peel and eat" shrimp dinner of the season.

We continued north steaming right by Sitka, up out Peril Strait to Chatham.  At Chatham, we took a right and headed south.  We stopped along the way but it was raining and overcast most of the time so photos aren't worth sharing.  We anchored in one of our favorite places--Ell Cove--for a few nights.  One of the days we were there it poured rain all day.  With the snow melt and the 1-3 inches of rain in a 24 hour period, floods were occurring at the larger rivers in southeast Alaska.  The next day it was 74 degrees, sun and blue sky.  This bald eagle was drying his wings out from the previous day. 

Here the eagle looks like its head is twisted backwards and it has no legs.

Continuing south on Chatham, we passed this wonderful waterfall.  Seems even more dramatic after the huge rainfall.

Our next stop was Baranof Warmsprings.  We don't normally tie to the docks since the guys on the seiners don't really appreciate our bedtime hours and are up all night on the docks.  We anchor in a wonderful small inlet within dinghy distance.  This year things looked totally different however.  Remnants of snow everywhere.  I thought for sure the bears were still in hibernation here.

Lucretia B at anchor.

Our first morning here was pack full.  We took a bath in the new wooden bathtub donated by one of the fishing boats.  Then we set a shrimp pot to see if we would catch anything.  We have never set a shrimp pot in here before.  Then we went out fishing.  It was a very foggy day (as it has been for the last few days) but we had a good time. 

I caught an 18 lb. halibut.  The look on my face is the result of the poor thing still twitching.  We pulled the shrimp pot and found enough for some "peel and eat" during cocktail hour so we used the carcasses from todays' catch to set more pots. 

We were surprised and delighted to see a grizzly bear roaming around in our anchorage.  He was mainly looking for some nice grass to eat.

We, of course, had to take advantage of the natural warm springs at Baranof Warmsprings Bay several times during our stay.  We took a nice hot bath in this newly-donated wooden tub.  The plaque above the tub mentions the captain's name who donated the tub and his fishing vessel name. 

Here is Chuck before I joined him.  Note the view from the bathhouse.

We thought this was a kick.  A 'for sale' sign for waterfront cabins with resort possibilities.

Think again!!  During last winter's snowfall of 35 feet or something outrageous like that, these cabins took a fall down the hill.  No more resort possibilities here. 

After leaving Baranof Warmsprings Bay, we crossed Chatham Strait and entered Frederick Sound on a perfect cruising day (except there was no sun).  Fortunately, there was not a lot of fog which we had experienced during the few days we spent in Baranof Warmsprings.  We anchored for one night near Keku Strait and the next morning left with Brian and Barb on their Eagle 40, "Passage", to the half way point in Rocky Pass.  The last time we went through Rocky Pass was 4 years ago and we stupidly did it at low tide (duh!!) and with paper charts; no computer navigation for us at that time.  This year, we followed Passage to the half way point and anchored for the night.  Here is Passage early the next morning.  A little fog but it lifted early.  Just before leaving the next morning, a young lady and man came by in their kayaks.  They stopped by for a chat and we found out they are from Bellingham.  They took the ferry from Bellingham to Juneau and started their kayak trip in Glacier Bay.  Their plans are to kayak the 1000 miles home to Bellingham by late September.  Unbelievable feat as far as we are concerned.  Turns out that we and the young lady kayaker have friends who work for Northwest Explorations in Bellingham.  She noticed Chuck's cap with the Northwest Exploration logo on it (catch that Brian Pemberton???).

We anchored at the lower end of Rocky Pass since we got there so late in the day after leaving our anchorage at 4pm (so that we would have high water) which is way too late for our cocktail hour.  We had a beautiful sunny day with the most gorgeous cloud formations.

These looked like rain clouds but we never had a drop.

In this photo of Passage at anchor you can see the low lying hills.  This terrain is much different than what we left on Baranof Island.

A curious seal wanted to know what the heck was in his "cruising area".

We crossed Sumner Strait in thick, thick fog.  We couldn't see much land until we hit Prince of Wales Island.  We entered at Shakan Bay late in the afternoon and hunted around for an anchorage for the night.  The fog had lifted and the sun was out but it was windy.  We passed this old abandoned marble quarry on the way to a possible anchorage.  Quite an eyesore.

We ended up anchoring at the start of Dry Pass/El Capitan Passage.  No wind there.  We had a very peaceful night with all kinds of bird songs.

We entered Dry Pass at a little past high tide.  The pass is dredged to a maximum of nine feet in some places and Lucretia B. draws six feet, so we wanted high water.  We found out later tugs take barges through here.  Real glad we didn't meet one!

We stopped at a Forest Service Station and the El Capitan Caves.  We planned to take the tour inside the caves so we went looking for Forest Service rangers or at least a way to contact them for the tour.  We weren't sure what the "hazardous" in this sign meant and had heard there are a lot of black bear on the island, so we took the shotgun. 

We saw no signs of life but we did see a sign that said we needed reservations two days in advance and gave a telephone number.  Well, duh, there is no cell phone coverage.  That is the Government for you.  We decided to walk up the 370 stairs and 1100 feet of boardwalk to the caves and take a look anyway. 

By the time we got there, we were both ready to die. 

The caves looked interesting and DARK.  Supposedly there are 13,000 feet of passageways and it is the largest known cave in Alaska and one of the longest mapped caves in the Americas.

We tromped back down the 370 stairs.  When we got to the bottom, there were two young Forest Service interns there ready and eager to take us back up those 370 stairs for a tour of the caves.  We declined but stayed to chat with the ladies for awhile. 

On the way to Craig, one of 3 towns on the west coast of Prince of Wales, we crossed paths with a large number of humpback whales who were lunging, tail slapping and breaching.  Out of many, many photo opportunities, this is the best one I could get.  You just never know when one will leap out of the water.

This whale was continuously slapping his tail.

We got to Craig just in time.  This is our fruit bowl.  Normally it has fresh fruit in it.

One of our favorite anchorages on Prince of Wales Island is Labouchere.  From the anchorage we could watch boats and whales come and go.  This anchorage reminded us of the Alaska version of Fury Cove in British Columbia.  It could have been horrible outside in Sumner Strait but quiet in this anchorage.

This was a very gloomy morning in our Labouchere anchorage looking out onto Sumner Strait.

We didn't let the weather bother us and went out fishing in the skiff.  Turns out we were fishing with this whale.

As the morning progressed, these clouds got darker and eventually it poured on us as we fished.

This photo is taken from outside looking into the anchorage.  These rocks kept the swell (what little there was) from coming into the anchorage. 

Fishing was great outside Labouchere anchorage.  We fished for several days and on this day Chuck caught this huge red snapper. 

It weighed in at 16.2 pounds.

The cutting board is 32 inches wide.  We got 4 great fillets out of this fish.  We really don't like to catch rockfish this large because they are so old.  This one could have been 60 years old.   They can live up to 115 years.  They can't be released because bringing them up from depths kills them. Fortunately this was a male.

Our next anchorage was in Red Bay.  The cruising guide said that the current runs between 3 and 5 knots at the entrance which is shallow and narrow.  They recommend going through at high water slack.  We went through at the time the nearest tidal station called for slack which wasn't exactly high water but it was nowhere near slack.  We took a sleigh ride in.  A local anchored nearby gave us some advice about which current station we should look at to determine slack next time. We would never have guessed that.  We had a very quiet stay in Red Bay and picked up some crab in spite of the many commercial traps in there.  This was a photo at sunrise.

We left Red Bay at the correct time and made a nice exit.  On the way south on Chatham Strait, this humpback crossed our bow. 

Another month gone by. Seems like the summer is just zipping by. Until next month....