July 2009 Cruise News

We left you in June having made the decision to take the boat south, sell her and find a home to buy. Our plans haven't changed even though the weather was wonderful for most of the month. Good thing our decision to leave Alaska wasn't solely based on the weather.

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In July, down in the Petersburg area, we caught our limit of halibut for the day. This catch included a good size rockfish. We wonder why it's so difficult keeping the decks clean!

Just after the 4th, we went to Petersburg to buy some fresh produce. We spent 3 days there in weather that we think was too hot (high 80's). Never happy!!

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Upon leaving Petersburg, we encountered several whales doing the back stroke.

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We left Petersburg and headed out to Kuiu Island. On this morning, Chuck got up at his usual crack of dawn to catch this beautiful sunrise. Lots of red in it due to the interior forest fires.

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We rounded the corner into Chatham Strait and were hit with dense fog with very little visibility. Suddenly 5 whales showed up on our port side heading straight for the boat. We didn't know whether to stop or speed up. We thought for sure there would be a collision. But, no. They swam under, in front of and behind the boat. We were so flustered, we didn't take any photos until they were almost gone. Here's one of a tail in there somewhere.

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We stayed several days in Tebenkoff Bay where a large number of sea otters live.

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I just love these animals. They are so animated and fun to watch. Usually they dive much before we can get a photo but sometimes their curiosity is too much for them.

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Gedney Harbor is home to several black bears. We saw a sow and triplets on the beach one afternoon but we were way too far away for a photo. Thinking triplet cubs were rare, we were surprised to see a sow with quadruplets in Appleton Cove. The Appleton family were grizzly bears.

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This was the view from our anchorage in Gedney Harbor.

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Misty Cove. Aptly named.

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We stopped in Hoggett Bay to check it out. We anchored in here many years ago with our other boat. We didn't find a comforable spot to put down the anchor but we did run into a first.....a white sided humpback whale. We thought it was an orca at first.....

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But it had a humpy's tail.

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We had heard that the salmon were making their way into Peril Strait so when we got to Appleton Cove, some friends said there were king and coho out in the bay. So the next day we trolled for salmon and caught these nice kings and a coho. The big king was 27 lbs. which is not huge in king salmon terms but was the biggest we've caught.

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And as bi-catch, we caught these 3 halibut unintentionally since our lure was at least 30 feet off the bottom. It was a good fishing day!!

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While we were anchored in Takatz with only one other boat in this serene environment listening to the roar of a beautiful waterfall, this huge yacht comes in and plops down its anchor. Not sure how big this was but those are people on the foredeck and aft swim platform. Everyone is always curious as to who could own such an expensive yacht so we snooped with our binoculars. We saw about 8 people but they all looked like crew with their matching shirts with Archimedes insignias. They were having fun though. Fishing off the stern and taking rides in the skiff so we figured maybe most were young friends of the owner.

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Then his float plane lands in the anchorage.

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The skiff and two of the eight crew (who we thought were guests) go meet the owner and his guests who have just deplaned.

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After chatting with members of the boat's crew, the pilot took off. He must have gotten a nice tip from the boat's owner.

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as he circled back and buzzed us. Neat!

Toward the end of July, we started working our way back to Sitka. On the way, we caught our last batch of crab, our last salmon, our last shrimp and our last halibut from Lucretia B. It was kinda sad to think that we won't be cruising these waters anymore (at least on this boat). But....you never know about us. We might end up back in Alaska some day on a different boat or in a completely different situation. Nevertheless, we are looking forward to our cruise down to Bellingham in August. Stay tuned.

Regards,

Chris and Chuck