January 2008 Cruise News

Hi everybody:

Another year has flown by as did my (Chris) 60th birthday. Ugh! The only good thing is that I can now join the ranks of an Alaskan who can get a FREE fishing license and one year closer to not paying any City of Sitka taxes.

We had a chance to take the boat out during a few rain and snow-free days with beautiful sun and blue skies. We took a ride south of town about 4 miles and enjoyed the scenery.

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We decided to anchor in a beautiful spot that was free of ice except for the head of the bay. As you can see from this photo, we were anchored quite a way from the ice. Unfortunately, part of the ice broke away at 3am and scraped past the boat for what seemed like hours. The ice wasn't thick but it sure made a lot of noise. That was the end of our sleep for the night.

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Here is Chuck getting ready to haul anchor in the early am the next morning. Notice how stiff the deck wash hose is. Another ice flow is fast approaching the boat. We moved to another anchorage a short distance away that was free of ice all together. We had a very restful night that night.

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We came back to the harbor a day later and could not back the boat into our slip. The ice was so thick that it would not break up and literally stalled the boat in place. Chuck manuevered us in to the slip far enough that I could get off the boat to break up the ice with a boat hook. This ice was thick!!

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Before I got to it with the boat hook, we had nothing but one sheet of ice about 3/4" thick in our slip.

January continued to be cold. We had a week of very low temperatures in the low teens and winds which brought the wind chill down to near zero . We were quite comfortable while on our boat but I worked a good part of the month and walking to and from work at times was a challenge. Oh well. It could be worse. I could live in Durango, CO where my brother says it got to minus 10 degrees. We had several dumpings of snow this month which adds to the beauty of Sitka. The local dog catcher put an article in the newspaper warning pet owners of small cats and dogs to watch them closely. There have been episodes of bald eagles picking up little "fluffy" and taking him away for the next meal. The birds are very hungry. We get more and more daylight hours now that January is over. At this point, we are gaining over 4 minutes a day. We have daylight from 8am to 4:30pm. Springtime is on its way!!

Until next month.....

Chris and Chuck