Always Onward Adventures

We take on the Wrangell Narrows and on to Wrangell just in time for the Anan Bear Bay. 8/21/2023 Today was our read refit day - which has truly become an art of efficiency at this point. Kicking everything off at 8a, we wrapped up laundry, hardware store trip, and groceries with everything procured and stowed by 10a. The Wrangell Narrows (today’s adventure) requires that we leave at a specific time so that we reach the midpoint (South Flats) at high water slack tide. If we do it right, the flood tide will carry us to South Flats and then the begining of the ebb will carry us out the other side.

We head out of Juneau for some long days with good weather towards Petersburg - exploring Stephen’s passage & Frederick Sound on the way 8/18/2023 We left the dock at just after 5a - making our way down Stephen’s Passage. We will spend the next two and a half days in the passage heading south before we turn east into Frederick Sound and Petersburg. The weather is cool, but very calm - a welcome reprieve from the weather of this last week. We were treated with a beautiful view of the Mendenhall Glacier as we departed Auke Bay.

We leave Glacier Bay after taking a day to wait on some weather. We make for Hoonah in case more weather comes in and then head for Juneau. 8/12/2023 Our origional plan was to head out in the afternoon for Gustavos and make for Couverden Island tomorrow, but after looking at the forecast we decide to spend the night in Bartlett Cove instead. Dawn/Angela immediately inquire about a room at the lodge and much to our surprise they have one available. We check with the park rangers about staying an additional night (since our permit expires on 8/12) and they seem ok with us leaving tomorrow or the next day. With that out of the way, we settle in to do some laundry and relax for the rest of the day. With a tremendous amount of rain coming down all the rest of the day, we spent most of our time in the lodge or our room. The lodge resteraunt is really the only game in town (Gustavos is a 15 min cab ride away) so we head down for dinner and find the food quite delicious.

The second half of our Glacier Bay excursion was heading back south towards the entrance of the park - at a slower pace than our way up to allow for more time to explore. 8/10/2023 We woke on the morning of the 10th still not totally sure what our itinerary would be for the day. Johns Hopkins Inlet was on the consideration list but we were worried about adding 20 nm to our day (10 nm to get there and 10 to get back). We all awoke around 8a and hung out for a while - drinking coffee. At the last minute, Angela decided we should do it. I threw on my clothes immediately and headed up to get going…

It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. But every great journey needs a destination and Glacier Bay is our destination. Unfortunately for us, the forecast calls for rain during most of our stay at Glacier Bay. Fortunately, this place is beautiful even in the rain/fog and we are all in great spirits and ready to enjoy! 8/7/2023 While waiting for Dawn to arrive, we toured the longhouse - a traditionally constructed tribal house off the Hoonah Tlingit people. It was beautiful to see, but the best part was the artist that was showing the place off - Sara had so many questions for him about how to make drums, pendants, totem poles, etc. She asked so many good questions - many were things I didn’t think to ask but resulted in very interesting answers. For example, the green color in Tlingit artifacts is made from oxidized copper mixed with Salmon eggs…

This post will cover our time in Juneau - not much boating/sailing in this one, but lots of exploring in a new town with the family. 7/30/2023 We ended up spending most of the day yesterday exploring downtown Juneau - which thankfully is a very lovely town (we were worried having already committed to spending some time here). Sara and I got some magnets for the boat and ate fish & chips on the boardwalk in downtown. We also went out to dinner at a nice resteraunt in downtown - something that hasn’t necessarily been available for many of the towns we have stopped on during this trip. Last night was our last night in the hotel, so today we will move all of our clean laundry (6 bags of it!) back to the boat and get comfortable on the boat again.

7/25/2023 We woke up the following morning to a fairly strong wind coming into the bay - which meant even stronger winds in the strait. We checked the forecast on VHF and decided that today was not our day. Thankfully - we really liked this hot springs, so we did it all over again! Back up to the natural hot springs, hike all the boardwalks and explore some of the trails that lead up from the boardwalks, repeat. We ran into another family with small kids and they were painting rocks - and Sara joined for a while. For being stuck somewhere - this was not a bad place to be.

7/21/2023 We departed Merrifield Bay relatively late - around 9:30a - so we could pass by Point Baker at max ebb (currents flowing the hardest) in the hopes that it would make for good whale watching. We were successful and there were quite a few whales and they were very active. We even saw them doing bubble net fishing - which is where one whale blows bubbles underwater to corral the fish for the other whales to eat. I have seen picures of this - but seeing it in person I didn’t realize quite how fast the whole thing happens. The ocean starts to bubble and foam and then it builds for maybe 15-20 seconds, and then the whales emerge mouths/fins/etc at the very end for a second. We saw probably 4 or 5 bubble nets as we watched. Unfortunatly, and quite maddeningly, the inside of my DSLR lens fogged up when I brough it up from the warm cabin into the cold cockpit and it refused to clear while we watched. After about 30 min, the wind started to build and an uncomfortable chop developed - which caused us to turn north for the pass.