August 2007 Cruise News

We left you in July in Red Bay heading south toward Ketchikan.  Our destination was Meyers Chuck, one of our favorite places to visit in our Southeast Alaska cruising grounds.  As we have experienced in the past, there was lots of sunshine.  When you live in Alaska, sunshine is good medicine but not dispensed in great quantities.

This was the kind of day we had traveling down Clarence Strait toward Meyers Chuck. 

When we arrived in Meyers Chuck, there were 2 other Krogens there.  After a few days in Meyers Chuck, they continued on south to the "Krog in".  We stayed for awhile then headed north.  The dock is great and moorage is free.

We had the dock to ourselves for a very short period of time.  During our stay, we met many of the people who live in Meyers Chuck.  Most of them leave during the winter but we met a man and his wife (Steve and Cassie) who live here year around and have done so for 40 years.  He is a fisherman and she is the local post mistress and NOAA weather reporter.  She calls NOAA every day with the weather report for Meyers Chuck.  Steve once rowed his skiff 30 miles one way to go visit Cassie when he was courting her.

It is pretty cool to have a landing strip right at your back door.  Seaplanes come in about twice a day either delivering people, mail (once a week) or freight (or lost luggage in one case).

This is Kathy, one of the Krogen owners.  She is displaying a piece of string art in Meyers Chuck.  Supposedly a friend of one of the locals comes in once a year and during her stay she creates these pieces of art. 

Bald eagles do swim.  This one caught a fish, took it to shore, saw us and took off, dropped the fish and then picked it up again.

Here he recaught the fish and took off for a far away tree or beach.  Not a very pretty takeoff.

We left Meyers Chuck and went to Wrangell to check out a haulout facility.  The weather was fantastic and the haulout facility will work just fine for early July next summer.  As we have experienced in the past, August brings fog which becomes a hindrance to travel once in awhile.  One morning, we left Wrangell with blue skies but the farther west we traveled (toward the ocean), the foggier it got.  We anchored for several hours until the fog lifted and we trucked across Sumner Strait for the entrance to Wrangell Narrows. 

Every time we go through Wrangell Narrows we see lots of deer on the beach.  These two were waiting for us to pass so they could cross the narrows.

At the top end of Wrangell Narrows as we approached Petersburg, we were treated to a scene we rarely see.  Normally these beautiful mountains are obscured by clouds.  The boat is a ferry coming towards us into town.

Devil's Thumb.  Although we have made many trips through here, this is the first time we have been able to see these peaks so clearly.

This is one of a few glaciers you see in Frederick Sound on clear, sunny days,.

One of the most scenic anchorages we like to spend time in is Cannery Cove in Pybus Bay. 

When we first arrived, there was another boat in here.  As the day wore on, 3 more boats arrived.  At this point we are in mid August and the cruisers are growing thinner in numbers.  However, the charter boats are still around and accounted for 2 of the 4 boats.

We went kayaking and found several schools of salmon getting ready to spawn.  There are at least 2 creeks that lead into this cove and the salmon swim up them.  Great place for watching bears catch salmon also.

These guys came in from a nearby lodge to try their hand at fly fishing.  While we were watching, they caught several fish.

There were at least 8 to 12 different bear fishing the streams in Cannery Cove at any given time including a mom with 3 first year cubs.  Viewing was with binoculars since there was a lot of land between us and the bears even from the dinghy.  If you look real hard, you'll see two bear.

Chuck is an early riser so he gets to see the sun rise. 

The weather continued to be beautiful even when we left Cannery Cove for a short trip to Chapin Bay.  This is looking back toward the mountains along Frederick Sound.

This Lions Mane jelly fish was in Chapin Bay.  Its colors were outstanding and in just the right light for a photo.  I didn't enhance the colors at all with Photoshop.

Chapin Bay was nice but a far cry from Cannery Cove.  We left on yet another beautiful morning to round Point Gardner and cross Chatham Strait.  This can be a horrible stretch of water but as you can see it was flat calm.  Weather predictions were for increasing clouds in the next few days.  These skies were telling us something---it clouded up the next day. 

We stopped in Baranof Warmsprings yet again for a hot bath and some shrimp.  Chuck is waiting to deploy the anchor.

It is a tough life but somebody has to live it.

We wanted to work our way north toward Icy Strait to hopefully run into some whales.  Well, no problem.  We turned the corner at Freshwater Bay and came across a huge group of humpback whales.  They were breaching and bubble feeding for what seemed like hours.  This boat was anchored for fishing and the whales went over there and bubble fed and breached right next to the boat.

There were at least a dozen whales working this area together.  They would blow in unison, dive in unison and bubble feed together.  It was outstanding!!

We anchored in Pavlof Harbor, another of our favorite places.  When the salmon are spawning, the fly fisherman come here in droves.  On this day, a beaver floatplane dropped a half dozen people off and picked them up well after cocktail hour.

The next day we took the dinghy out into Freshwater Bay to fish and ran across the same group of whales.  This is the closest they came thank goodness.  They were bubble feeding this morning also.  The interesting thing we experienced is that we could hear the whales making sounds coordinating everyone  just before they surfaced in a bubble feed.  It was a very eerie experience to hear these whales and not know where they would come up.

Some whale researchers were out there also in their inflatable.  The whales got very close to them at one point.  These young people travel miles and miles in these inflatables to follow the whales, take plankton samples and record their songs.  They also called boats who came by and asked about their engines since engines make different tones and affect the whales in different ways. 

Because salmon spawn up a stream and traverse a fish ladder here, there are always lots of bear around.  On this day, there were two bears playing on the beach.  They eventually traveled around to the waterfall and fish ladder to do some fishing.

At one point, the two bears separated for a few minutes.  This one took the swimming route and the other took the high ground.  This is what a wet bear looks like.

Once they got to the waterfall and fish ladder area, they fished their brains out.

We left Pavlof Harbor and headed north to the Icy Strait area.  We tied to one of the docks in Swanson Harbor for several days and took the dinghy outside to troll for salmon.  Every day we were out fishing the humpbacks were feeding in the same area.  The next few photos were the best I could do since it is a guessing game where they will come up (unless you see bubbles around the dinghy....but that's the time to MOVE)

These sealions could have cared less about us or the whales.

We are back in Sitka.  Hopefully, we will have some more opportunities to go out cruising and foraging before we settle in for the winter.  Until next month.....

Chris and Chuck