June 2008 Cruise News

This is coming to you from Petersburg.  We are on our way to Wrangell to haul the boat for a scheduled bottom paint job and other "things".  After that, we come back to Petersburg to pick up some friends for the trip to Sitka via the glaciers at Tracy Arm.  We'll see you then.

After Chuck's son and daughter-in-law left us by float plane from Swanson Harbor, we went to Port Frederick and caught some dungeness crab in Neka Bay.  We spent several days there so it seemed like we were cleaning crab forever.  This five gallon bucket contains the cleaned and ready for steaming spoils from one set of two crab pots.  Later, a Coast Guard fast response boat followed a cruiser into our anchorage and boarded him.  We assumed they would do the same to us.  Right!!!  We got away with two small "violations" that we were able to take care of in Hoonah before we proceeded on to the next destination. 

While in Port Frederick, we called Glacier Bay to see if they had any permit vacancies.  Luckily there were, so we headed to Bartlett Cove to check in with the local Park Service personnel.  We anchored in Bartlett Cove and received our annual orientation by the Park Service.  The next morning we were visited by a moose on shore, wearing a beautiful orange collar.  The only thing we could surmise was that it was a tracking device.  We entered the park and anchored in North Sandy Cove where we saw another moose.  This one didn't have the latest in collar decorations.

Horned Puffins are always a treat.

One of our favorite anchorages in lower Glacier Bay is North Sandy Cove.  Besides this beautiful view, we always see some sort of wild critter.  This time, there was a moose and several bear on the beach.

We left Glacier Bay and headed towards Chatham Strait.  While still in Icy Strait, we came across some whales bubble feeding.  What we hadn't seen before this was the one whale coming out of the water so much farther than the rest. Normally, they come up together and no one takes the lead so to speak. 

After entering Frederick Sound, we came across a huge group of Stellar Sealions as we were checking out new anchorages.  This bull looks soooo pleased with himself.

You can definitely determine which are the males in the group by their sheer enormity.

And posturing.

More whale watching near Cape Fanshaw.

For those of you who have never seen the Alaskan Rapic Transit, this is the fast ferry, Fairweather, speeding at 42 knots down Frederick Sound to Petersburg.

After several years, we returned to Thomas Bay and Baird Glacier.  The glacier has receded quite a bit from our last trip 3 years ago.  Compared to the glaciers in Tracy Arm and Glacier Bay, this one pales.

We hunted for a nice place to anchor in Thomas Bay but the commercial crab season started on June 15th and this was on the 17th so there were crab pots EVERYWHERE.  It kinda pisses us off but the crabbers have to make a living too.  We found this little cove that had some crab pots in it but there was room to anchor.  We were lucky enough to have been visited by a moose who was either frollicking around in the flowers or was agitated by our (or something elses) presence. 

We decided to go into Petersburg for a few days to do some laundry and get some fresh produce.  Of course on the days we had to do laundry and go shopping, the weather was gorgeous.  It is rare to see these mountains from the Petersburg Harbor.

A closeup of the rarely seen Devils Thumb.

Since we had about 2 weeks until our appointment for a haulout in Wrangell, we went back into Frederick Sound and Stephens Passage to just fool around.  We revisited Sanborn Canal and while there, spent about an hour watching a black bear on the beach.  We can't be very quiet in the aluminum skiff so we stayed off the beach by quite a way so we wouldn't scare him.

Even when the bear knew we were watching him, he didn't move from his eating position.  Just gave us a look and went on stuffing his face.

Outside the anchorage, we put down a few shrimp pots.  We caught enough to almost fill a 5 gallon bucket and they were some of the largest we have ever seen.  The majority of the bucket was full of the larger sized shrimp.  We ended up with 5 pounds of shelled shrimp meat from that set of pots.

On to Hobart Bay and the largest halibut we have chosen to keep. This one was heavier than our 50 lb. scale and measured 50-1/2 inches long.  We couldn't find the conversion table so we don't know exactly how much it weighed.  Chuck caught this one.

This is also the first time Chuck has had to fillet a fish on the swimstep.

It was just too big for the cuttingboard.  Life is tough sometimes.

With the price of number 2 diesel fuel at $4.87 per gallon, we hear a lot of the commercial fishermen talking on the radio about slowing down their boats and timing their travels to coincide with the tides to save on fuel costs.  We might have to start doing the same soon.  We noticed a number of crabbers bringing in their pots already.  We are surmising that a short time after the crab opening, the numbers of crab caught drop drastically and so they are not meeting their fuel costs.  They bring in their pots to minimize their losses.  It's sad to see. 

Until next month....

Chris and Chuck