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.
Good night everyone!
7/26/2023
We woke early and, after listening to the forecast, we took off around 5a. We pulled out into a completely calm strait - although cold and cloudy. It started to rain a couple of hours after we took off and rained for the next hour or so. The clouds stuck with us all day…
Mid morning, we started to see whales. I watched one whale just slap it’s tail back and forth for 30 min or so and saw a few breaches. When I thought all the activity was over, I sat back down and got back under the waterproof blanket to get warm when I hear a loud bang. I thought we had hit a log or something, so I jumped up to look and saw a huge splash about 100-200 feet behind the boat - a whale breached right behind us. Another one jumped a few seconds later. It was quite the sight.
It ended up being a long day - we were considering an anchorage on the way to Tenakee Springs, but we were making good time in calm seas and decided to go all the way. We got into Tenakee around 3:30p and found a spot at the dock.
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It was a mile or so walk into town, so we took a walk along the gravel road (ATV road - we didn’t see any cars) and scoped things out. The town was pretty fun. The bathhouse was nice, but not really our scene (big concrete room, very sterile). It also had a no clothes requirement - which I didn’t fully understand the need for - maybe it had some historic significance. They had a small greenhouse & kitchen unit that was part of an old cafe - It was open and unattended, relying on the honor system to pay for the things you got/picked. The greenhouse was mostly picked clean of anything ripe, but we did get a cucumber. We continued and found a free library that was anything but little - a small hut with 6-7 bookshelves full of books. There was also clothes, games, etc for free. We left a few books, hoping to leave more once Sara finishes her next set of reader books. At the other end of town there was a school (about 100 steps up a steep staircase), a fire station, and lots of berries to pick - salmon, blue, thimblee, and a few cherries. Finally, we found the town cemetary. I was only able to identify two real graves, but there were several rock piles/shrines to folks who loved the town.
7/27/2023
We left the town at 7a the next morning - heading for Juneau, which we expect to take around 2 days to complete. Our first leg will be the bigger of the two - aiming for around 35 nm today and 25 nm tomorrow. The first 15 nm or so went pretty much as anticipated - making our way out of Tenakee Springs Bay and into Chatham Strait. The sun was out today and it was a welcome relief from the clouds and rain of the day before. I am reading a book about the inside passage that talks about a cycle where you see 2-3 days of sun and a south wind followed by rain and then 3-4 days of fog/clouds with a north wind. I don’t think we have seen a north wind for the last 2 weeks, so not sure I believe it - but I’ll be paying attention to the cycle from now on.
At around 10:30-11:00a, the wind started to build against us and the current built up to about 1 knt against us. Our progress slowed considerably - around 3.5 knts - and we were looking at places to turn out and stop for the evening. About the time we planned to give up, the current flipped and we started to make real progress again. We had hoped to make it into Funter Bay by 3p, but we finally pulled in at 5p. Thankfully, the extra 2 hours were comfortable - sunny and smallish waves.
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Funtner Bay has two public floats that you can tie up to - one with shore access and one without. The one with shore access is not in great repair so we tied up to the float without. Angela was at the helm and was feeling tenacious so she did her first docking with the boat. It was flawless - we pulled right up to the dock with a 5 knt wind pushing us away from the dock - I was able to step right off and tie us up before the wind pushed us off the dock. Go Angela!
We took the dingy to explore - heading off to a small boardwalk community to walk around and then to a small island to explore. We saw a couple of oyster catchers on their nest and then found a few seal bones. I forgot my camera when we went ashore, but I brought back the seal bones so Sara could inspect them with her magnifying glass and we could get pictures of them. Angela made a delicious dinner of fries from the last of our potatoes and some beans and squash.
7/28/2023
The next day we got going around 6a and made for Auke bay - a 23 nm trip. The tide was basically slack - 0.3 knts against us for the first couple of hours and then 0.3 knts against us for the next couple. We saw whales from the moment we pulled out of Funtner Bay all the way into Juneau - they have become so commmon that we no longer stop everything we are doing to come up and see them, unless they are breaching or bubble net feeding. Boat traffic started to pick up as we pulled into Lynn cannal and there were a huge number of whale watching vessels - coming out with passengers to take a look at the whales for a couple of hours, something we have been doing all day long for the last couple of weeks! We made it into Statter harbor in Auke Bay just after 11a - not a bad morning!
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We pulled into the harbor and found a perfect spot on the breakwater, as suggested by the harbormaster. We grabbed some breakfast, spend a few hours packing up our laundry, and headed off to get a hotel room for the night. We found a dog-friendly Extended Stay America hotel and decided this would be a good place to spend a couple of night on shore. We got to our hotel around 2p and started doing laundry, watching TV, and catching up on things in the world. Unfortunately, Angela got a call around 6p from the marina telling us we needed to move our boat off the breakwater to make space for one of the larger yachts coming in - such a bummer, especially since we went right where they told us to! Angela talked them down a bit and they said we could move it in the morning before 8a. Less of a bummer, but no sleeping in tomorrow unfortunately. After Pho for dinner, off to bed for an early morning tomorrow!
7/29/2023
We decided to rent a car today - picking it up from across the street from the hotel in the early morning so we could head back to the marina to move the boat. Moving the boat was fairly uneventful - we found an open slip on the bend of the breakwater and it took us about 30 min to move it into the new slip. Left the hotel at 7:30a and back to the hotel by 8:30a. Ya!
We are going to be in Juneau for the next week, but it’s already looking like a very full week. We have 2 different hiking areas we want to explore, we decided to take a fishing tour, we have a full day of boat projects to do, and we need explore downtown Juneau - including the highly regarded Alaska heritage museum. But for now, we are planning to nap and watch TV in our hotel - a well deserved break from boat life!