Leg
2, Liz McLoughlin, Tom Hall, Sandy and Eric Wolman Saturday, May 29 (Ketchikan, in port). A very rainy, windy day, and not particularly good for transferring seabags from and to the boat. But, we take the weather as it comes since there is no option in the matter. We did, however, have a generous breakfast ashore at the small Bar Harbor Restaurant at the head of the wharf, with a view of the Narrows. Tom took the 10:45 ferry to the airport to meet Liz’s plane and ease the burden on our small rental car bringing three men and their baggage to the 11:15 ferry. Liz arrived on time, the men arrived shortly thereafter and we had a good half-hour chat after they have checked in, and then off they go through security and back to the “real” world. Liz and Tom head back to the boat to complete preparations for the Wolmans. They arrive in the later afternoon so another round trip via the ferry and after a brief stop at Onward we have an early supper at the wharf-head restaurant. It has been a very long day for the travelers, two from the East Coast and Liz had only three hours of sleep before her SuperShuttle pickup in San Francisco. Liz was especially glad to be in Ketchikan since it marked the end of a long and trying five months starting last January when a routine mammogram first detected ductal cancer in situ. Two surgeries and 33 radiations later she was glad to have her therapy behind her and a vacation, with other challenges and things to think about, ahead. .
Tuesday, June 1 (Exchange Cove to Port Protection, then Wagon Wheel Cove, PWI; 5.3 hours, 31.0 miles). A leisurely rising under cloudy skies and intermittent rain. The forecast was for 20 knot winds. We headed north and then west with a following tidal current, reaching 9.3 knots over the ground as we rounded the eastern entrance to Port Protection. On rounding the point we noted a major discrepancy (30-40 degrees) between the reading of the fluxgate compass, the course over the ground as indicated by the GPS, and the magnetic compass. With Eric at the helm and Liz with the autopilot manual we recalibrated the fluxgate, and were pleased to note that the course and compass readings were now acceptably close (<10 degrees of difference). We docked at the community wharf, chatted with several local fishermen and then, while the Wolmans stayed aboard, Liz and Tom walked up the dock to the small fishing-building and then around the cove to another dock. The community is tiny, with perhaps 10 homes visible from the harbor and some 15 boats of all sizes at several wharves. While we were there a Beaver floatplane arrived and departed. Back on Onward we looped around a small peninsula to enter further into the cove and anchored not far from homes, dock and fishing boats. Eric felt the beginnings of a cold, which alas, in the following days, evolved into full-fledged bronchitis. Dinner menu: chicken breasts sauteed with zucchini and mushrooms; rice; artichoke/lettuce salad; apples. Wednesday, June 2 (Wagon Wheel Cove to “Entrance Cove”, PWI; 3.5 hours, 20.3 miles). A quiet, calm night though some intermittent rain. The morning cold induced the crew to demand that Tom put on the Hurricane heater, so with fear and trembling, he ran it for 40 minutes to good effect. The heater is very sophisticated, has five different thermostatically controlled outlets (only three fans work but fortunately they are the most important ones), and due to its location outboard of the genset, is difficult to service. Tom once tried to check it out and nearly broke his rib hanging over the genset soundbox. Hence his concerns, but the crew prevailed and it worked fine. Up anchor at 10:15, round the point and south along the coast, past “Hole in the Wall” (a challenging indentation that we might have tried if it had been more than just a few miles from our anchorage), down Sumner Strait to Shakan Bay and the north entrance to El Capitan Passage. As we crossed the Bay we were entertained by several groups of sea otters, perhaps 8 animals in all, who greeted us with much curiosity, rising up in the water to see us passing by, floating on their backs with faces and paws in the air. El Capitan Passage extends 18 miles from Shakan Strait to Sea Otter Sound and provides a lovely and very protected route that avoids a much longer and exposed trip in Sumner Strait. Our destination was a slight unnamed indentation on the south side of the passage, called “Entrance Cove” and highly recommended in the Douglass cruising guide. Our first anchor placement had us with only 16' of water under our keel at high tide and put us uncomfortably close to rocks. We confirmed the readings on our installed and handheld depth sounders with a lead line. Mindful of a normal tidal swing of 12', we later relocated a bit closer to the channel in 25' depth. Though we never got a good anchor set on the rocky bottom our heavy 3/8" chain and 60# CQR anchor held us well despite relatively short (3:1 at high tide) scope. Dinner menu: loin of pork _ soy, garlic, bourbon; new potatoes; broccoli; tomato salad; apple sauce with cinnamon and lemon.
Thursday, June 3 (“Entrance Cove” to Devilfish Bay, El Capitan Passage, PWI; 2.3 hours, 13.0 miles). A beautiful cloudless morning, graced with just a bit of fog at the entrance to the passage, which soon melted away. We lowered the dinghy so that Sandy and Liz could take a several mile excursion west and north of the passage, checking out the large quarry and logging site, both inactive. Back on board we hoisted anchor at 11 AM for a two hour trip east and south down the passage, a knock-your-socks-off trip! Mountains, cliffs, evidence of now dry waterfalls, several fishing lodges, and great weather. Tom hand steered much of the way due to the narrow and winding route. About half way down the Passage we entered Devilfish Bay at high tide through a narrow, rocky entrance framed by a 300' bluff on the north side. The Bay is about two miles long and with Eric doing the ‘honors,’ we anchored at its far end, near a stream. According to the Douglass guidebook “....when a group of ‘researchers’ visited the bay in 1975, they were so overcome with ‘supernatural feelings of oppression, depression and alarm’ that they fled, convinced the area was cursed.” We heartily disagreed with this assessment and delighted in our solitude and the high mountains on either side of the bay. Liz and Tom lowered the kayaks and proceeded to check out the stream but saw no signs of animated life. It wa s a long paddle upwind back to Onward, in time for afternoon libations. Dinner menu: eye round roast of beef/onions; macaroni/cheese; cauliflower; tomato/cucumber salad; watermelon.
Friday, June 4 (Devilfish Bay to Sarkar Cove, PWI; 1.7 hours, 11.3 miles). We had quite a bit of rain and wind during the night and until noon but with a good anchor set and unlimited swinging room, no problem. The seascape was completely transformed by the morning low tide; we now had tide flats extending to within a 100' of our stern even though we had at least 20' of water to float in. Eric had positioned our anchor just right, at the farthest limit possible, though the chart had not indicated we were as close to the steep-to shoal as was now revealed. At 1 PM we raised anchor, threaded our way back through the narrows and out into El Capitan Passage, and then south to the far end of 0.8 mile long Sarkar Cove. We were now back “in civilization,” with a few houses on the south side plus the El Capitan Lodge complex. Liz and Tom launched the kayaks and went paddling over to the lodge. They spoke with several staff, visited the main lodge, office, bar, and generator plant and received a promotional brochure. The lodge accommodates 16 persons for either 3- or 4-night stays and with the logo, “Where fishing is catching,” it was clear why people went there. Staff indicated that they were fully booked for the summer and about 85% of their guests were repeaters. Back on the float Tom checked out the Cessna 206 while we waited for the two 27' fishing skiffs that had radioed their imminent return. The first skiff returned and while Liz and Tom hovered nearby in the kayaks the fishing party, young and old, disembarked, followed by a tub full of fish. In turn the fish were weighed, placed on a rack with their shiny or white sides forward, washed with a hose, and then photographed with the fisherpersons all gathered around, wreathed in smiles. The haul: four King salmon, three halibut, and two very red rockfish. Back to Onward, a fine conversation about major life events in our several lives and a special dinner and champagne. The champagne was a gift from previous crew member, Phil Rasori, and was intended to celebrate the end of Liz’s radiation. Coincidentally, today’s date marked 20 years to the day of Liz and Tom living together so the celebration was doubly significant. Dinner menu: shrimp (cumin, turmeric, chili pepper) and spaghetti; creamed spinach; beet/cucumber salad; pears with Grand Marnier.
Saturday, June 5 (Sarkar Cove to Kahli Cove, PWI; 0.9 hours, 3.6 miles). A sunny morning with a few clouds and gentle NE winds. We rose by 8, had a cereal breakfast, and then Liz and Tom kayaked to the end of the cove. Beautiful! Low tide, dark tumbled old growth forest with lots of cedars, cola colored water due to the tannin released by decaying cedar, eagles, many kingfishers, a barnacle covered shoal where crows were taking shells up 20' and then dropping them in the hopes of opening up a meal, and a substantial white water stream tumbling into the cove, producing long trails of foam. As at Joe’s Bay in northern BC it is a delight to paddle a kayak through the foam. It gives one the impression of being on the bridge of an icebreaker, steaming through the ice, with the foam/ice wrinkling up on either side of the bow. Back to Onward and reality and a very short trip south to an anchorage just outside of Kahli Cove, and north of Dargun Point. The cove entrance was daunting. We passed several oyster farms with small boats and a floating shed, avoided various rocks, visible and presumed, and after making a small circle to note the depth at our presumed swinging radius, anchored at the furthest location. It was impressive at mid-tide but when we awoke the next day at low tide, it was awesome. Where once there was water and the semblance of two possible exit channels there was now only rock and gravel. We had a quiet evening, a lovely sunset, and though our swinging room was very limited we were well protected from waves and wind. Dinner menu: beef Stroganoff; rice; zucchini with oregano, olive oil; beet/jicama salad; watermelon.
Sunday, June 6 (Kahil Cove to Kaguk Cove, PWI; 2.9 hours, 15.7 miles). A leisurely rising to cloudy skies, calm winds and very, very light rain. Sandy provided hash, with eggs on top for the female crew. The tide was low and by the time it bottomed out at 2.8' below normal we were most impressed! Where we had seen small passages in two directions the night before we saw only rocks. While waiting for the tide to get well into flood we saw a black bear munching on grass at the nearby shore. With much caution we re-traced our entry the day before and by the time we had cleared the entrance we once again were faced with an errant fluxgate compass, 25 degrees “off.” We recalibrated the compass twice, making circles in the water, and then headed south, with Sandy monitoring our course past the rocks and bars. On entry to wide open Kaguk Cove we were greeted by perhaps eight sea otters, all very curious at our arrival. By now the weather was near ideal, warm, very light breezes and almost no clouds. We launched the dinghy so that Liz and Sandy could check out the otters (only at a distance, though they did see a marten). The otters appeared when the engine was on, and remained completely out of sight when we were quiet and waited for them. Later, Tom and Liz explored the inner cove. With the motor shut down they drifted in the sunshine among the trees while Liz recounted the tale of her just-finished book, Samurai’s Garden, by Gail Tsukiyama. Back on Onward the sun had passed the yardarm and we broke out the books, libations and munchies. Dinner menu: grilled chicken legs with seasoned salt, lime juice; barley/onion/mushrooms; peas/water chestnuts; bananas sautéed with maple syrup.
Monday, June 7 (Kaguk Cove to Nagasay Cove, Esquibel Island; 2.5 hours, 14.1 miles). Up a tad before 8, near calm and a low tide, early fog and soon brilliant sunshine. We raised the dinghy and headed north, west and then southwest with a 10 knot headwind and 1' chop. Our destination was especially challenging, something we wouldn’t have dreamed of taking without the Douglass book to guide us and give us some backbone. We entered Launch Passage at 12:30, a narrow cut through Esquibel Island, at one hour after dead low tide, thus bringing us back to mean low water due to the 2'8" minus tide predicted for today. Rocks and shoals on both sides, the bottom visible, 9' as the controlling depth (our depth sounder showed 3.5' at one point), and huge patches of kelp that totally blocked passage in three different locations. Our speed dropped to 1+ knot even with the engine at cruise rpm (1600) and the rudder was close to useless. Eric reported we were trailing a huge amount of kelp, now caught in our prop and rudder. Liz was at the bow pointing the directions to steer though Tom at the wheel was hard pressed to change direction. Sandy monitored our track on the laptop per indications from the GPS. At one point she called for a dramatic turn to starboard since the “boat” was displayed on the shoreline. Tom told her to look out the window to verify we were still in mid-channel – we had reached, and exceeded, the margin of accuracy of the chart and GPS. Once through the mini-passage and out of the kelp Tom alternated several times between full power forward and then full power astern to clear our prop, we hoped, of most of the kelp, and once again we were able to move through the water under control. A short distance later we turned to port and dropped the anchor just north of two rocks, with 15' under our keel at low tide. With all the excitement Eric temporarily managed to forget his bronchitis and join in the navigational challenge. But, Tom decided, once was enough; tomorrow we’ll leave our cove via a somewhat wider, longer route, with only one kelp patch to cross rather than three. Dinner menu: roast lamb with mustard, garlic, soy, and olive oil; potatoes; sautéed celery; tomato/cucumber salad; cantaloupe.
Tuesday, June 8 (Nagasay Cove to Klawock; 5.5 hours, 28.0 miles).
We awoke to a sunny morning and had sun and some clouds all day long.
Winds were from the S and SW at 5 knots in the AM and rose to 10-15 knots
during the day with seas in the open areas rising to 3 feet. Sandy and
Liz set forth in the dinghy to explore Launch Passage where we had entered
the day before. It was quite an adventure! The passage was blocked with
streamers of long, tough kelp which caught in the dinghy outboard engine.
With wind and tide both pushing the boat strongly in the wrong direction,
Sandy paddled from the bow to find a free space while Liz extracted the
oars, lifted the engine, and used a paddle to free it from kelp. Then
both paddled madly to get upstream of the passage so that they could use
the engine again. They then explored the alternate passage out of the
harbor. Then Liz and Tom checked out the alternative exit as well, at
least 7 miles more distance but much less fearsome. The kelp could be
avoided and minimum depth was 24 feet. At noon we hoisted anchor and then
did a long circuit around Esquibel Island, avoiding the reefs off the
end of Anguilla Island. Once again we had to re-calibrate the fluxgate
compass to narrow the disagreement between it and our course. It was a
long trip, much of it with a following sea which somewhat complicated
the autopilot steering. Liz and Tom, with help from Sandy, started our
first reading-out-loud book of the summer, A Question of Intent, by David
Kessler (and new dean of UCSF’s Medical School). It is about his
time as FDA Commissioner when he took on Big Tobacco. It provides a wealth
of true history but written in the style of a detective thriller. Tom
ran the wing (get-home) engine per his routine of having it on for at
least 30 minutes every cruise leg to ensure that it remained in good condition.
Since it has its own propeller on the port side of the hull and without
a rudder it tends to push the bow to starboard. The autopilot does a remarkably
good job of building in a steady correction for the rudder to maintain
a reasonable course. During the day we traversed three complicated narrows,
two with buoys and one without, threading our way through formidable reefs.
In time we entered the protected waters near Klawock, a native community
of <400, preceded by a large and active sawmill. We passed by the main
harbor and went around a point to anchor in shallow waters which left
us with <10 feet under our keel at low tide. Since the entrance is
considerably shallower we had to leave on high tide. Dinner menu: Wednesday, June 9 (Klawock to Craig; 1.1 hours, 5.8 miles).
A quiet night. We rose a bit earlier than usual to catch the high tide;
our exit from the bay took us over a one fathom area and on a low tide
we just might “kiss” the bottom. We had a brief navigation
error which occasioned a call from a nearby local fishing skiff that warned
us we had just passed by some rocks, our first but thankfully uneventful
occasion of this sort. Our short trip south took us by a huge sawmill
and then past large fuel tanks to the north harbor of Craig. We threaded
our way down a narrow channel to a temporarily empty wharf and tied up
at 9:36. The balanced of the day involved errands, renting a car, checking
out a book store and later, a jewelry / souvenir store), and learning
that Liz would be unable to post our logs on the web. Our website requires
access to the web via her Apple PowerBook G4 and its web application software,
Dreamweaver, so alas, the book store's newly installed networked DSL line
restricted to in-house PCs wouldn't work. So, full text and pictures won’t
be available until Prince Rupert. After another fine dinner Sandy and
Eric packed their seabags and we hit the sack for the last night of this
cruise. Dinner menu: lamb curry; saffron rice; brussels sprouts; beet
and artichoke salad; chocolate ice cream. Thursday, June 10 (Craig, in port). A gray day but fortunately no rain. After a fine breakfast at the Dockside Café we loaded up the rental car and made the 7-mile trip to Klawock, where we visited the totem pole park. Billed as the largest number of poles in SE Alaska, there were 17 still standing and 4 empty platforms. Several of the poles were quite recent and very well done while others were weathered and several sprouted vegetation. From there we drove 20+ miles to Hollis, the ferry landing at the eastern side of the island, arriving 3 hours too early for the Ketchikan ferry, and with no place to eat or even to get in from the cold. We had miscalculated the time we would spend at the totem park and due to our abundant breakfast, had forgotten about our intended plan to eat at Klawock. So, back to Klawock where we had lunch at Dave’s Diner, an Alaskan original whose kitchen was in an old bus, and were served and regaled by a vintage lady from Liverpool, now some 17 years in Klawock. We then made the cross-island trip for a third time, arriving just ahead of the Prince of Wales ferry that was to take the Wolmans on the three-hour trip to Ketchikan and a night in a hotel before they fly to Seattle on the following day. The lady who managed the loading told us that the inter-island ferry system had been started in 1997 due to the frustration of Prince of Wales’ 3000 islanders with the inconvenient twice weekly service then provided by the Alaska ferry system. Now the ferry makes two round trips a day in the summer and one in the winter, with a new ferry to be added soon to provide services from the north end of the island to Petersburg and Wrangell. Quite a change from the past. After saying our good byes to the Wolmans, we made our fourth island crossing through all of the massive clearcuts, few re-planted, and back to Onward. The balance of the day involved our usual in-port chores; food shopping, laundry, re-filling the water tanks, detailed engine check, cleaning the head and vacuuming the boat, phoning our near and dear, and a final saunter around the many boats, “kicking the docking lines” and chatting with the occasional fisherman. |