Wrangle Narrows

Day 65 – July 14

We anchored on the east end of Beecher Pass on the west side of Keene Island (a section of Wrangle Narrows last night. Early this morning it was fun to watch the seemingly racing skiffs, from the fishing camps heading out for a day of fishing. I believe I counted close to 25 of them in a fifteen minute period. About an hour later, 3 came back together. Hum, the question is … did they not like fishing or did they limit out?

We headed out with in very light winds and calm water, under a canopy of fluffy clouds with patches of blue and sunshine peaking through. We anchored for the day and night in the south bay of Butterworth Island, still in Wrangle Narrows. This was a very long cruising run of about maybe 8-10 miles. The cruise wasn’t even long enough for Chris to get her hair cut. She had to come out to tie their lines still in her jammies with only ½ a haircut.

This is a cute narrow inlet which looks like it might be fun to do a bit of kayaking or exploring by dinghy. We barely got anchored when Glen lower the dink and took off exploring on his own.

Turns out he was scouting a good place to put the crab pots down. It looks like we will spend the day relaxing on the hook and just hanging out.

We went exploring by kayak and saw Mink or some other weasel looking critters, seal, dalls porpoise, and Stellar Jays or Blue Jays, and several Eagles. One large Eagle sat on the side of its nest, which contained chirping chicks, while its mate sat at the top of a nearby tree watching over the situation. Our paddling took us out and around Butterworth Island.

Back to the mother ships, and then Tom went out to do a bit of fishing. He came back with two nice sized Dolly Varden’s. He went back out to try for some more, but no luck. These two fish made for a nice dinner for the group.

Petersburg and heading South

Day 64 July 13 – Petersburg and heading South

Yesterday was another blast, of Iceberg dodging. Glen masterfully picked our way through the ice and over the bar to get us into the bay/channel toward Le Conte Glacier. The photo review last night was a riot. Just how many photos can one or 6-7 cameras take of the same blobs of ice? Let’s just say a lot. Debbie (on Miner’s Debt) has the record for the most photographs taken this week with 885, to Deb and Noble’s 730, digital cameras rock. Some good shots were taken by all.

It’s a sunny day in Petersburg. Up early to see Deb and Noble into a taxi at the harbormasters office for the first leg of their trip home. It was great fun to have them with us this week.

Just as their taxi was pulling up, I walked out of the Harbor Masters office and saw this guy standing at the head of the ramp. I thought hey, that’s the guy we saw in …. , no it was in ….., no - think again ?????? It’s Jim Waters from the ski patrol! What the heck! We’d heard that he was going to be in Alaska this summer but never expected to see him. What a small world.

He came down to the boat and we visited for awhile then went our separate ways to do our chores. He some laundry and kayak repairs; and us a quick walk through town including a stop at the grocery store for more flour. It seems that this bread baking deal is working. We topped off our water tank just before leaving town. We are topping off the tank whenever possible now, as our water maker does not seem to be working at peak performance. Meaning that sometimes the water it makes tastes – well let’s just say it’s not Evian or Talking Rain.

Okay for a recap – We’ve seen the following friends up here traveling this summer. Some have blogs, which I’ve linked to this blog.

Ski Patrollers – John Reed – Omega, and Jim Waters – Kayak of unknown name

Roche Harbor YC – Jim & Marcia Krell - Chinoo, Steve & Kim Oberto – Maximo

Go check out their blogs to see what they are up too.

Nat and Linda Collier just left Seattle for their northern adventures in the Broughton Islands of BC. I’ve linked their blog to ours as well. We hope to meet up with them at some point in a few weeks.

We have left Petersburg and are now officially heading south. Bummer. There is so much to see up here it is amazing. We planned four months for this adventure, with basically two in Alaska, but we can now advise that that is definitely not enough time. We very likely will be coming back, but not for a few years. We are heading through the Wrangle Narrows toward Wrangle where Debbie Bailey will be set ashore on Tuesday to fly home. The Wrangle Narrows are the narrows we came through the other direction about a month ago Twenty One (21) miles long with over 60 marker buoys to direct travel. Much of it is about 80 feet wide and some places a bit narrower. Its shoreline is speckled with fishing camps/lodges, and personal houses and/or cabins, and many many Eagles.

Le Conte Glacier and on to Petersburg

Day 63 July 12

We left Portage Bay for Petersburg by way of Le Conte Glacier. Across from Thomas Bay we spotted ice on the water. Deb and Noble’s first icebergs; stopped for a Crompton photo op. We can’t post the photos however because they might be used for their Christmas cards.

Liz is making banana cake, so I hopped on to the Blog to exclaim, what a magnificent trip this is! Just a note, I am the Deb who is on the Magic Moment, not to be confused with the Debbie who is on the Miner’s Debt. The expanse of SE Alaska is difficult to fathom. Just imagine ALL of Puget Sound in the middle of just one small portion of the water we are cruising. Now with small pale blue icebergs floating around there is an added bite to the air. Signing off now, a whale just passed by the starboard side of Magic, it’s steam spout is still hanging in the air!

Deb again. Liz has moved on from banana cake, to loaves of French bread, to a pan of cinnamon rolls for our send off breakfast tomorrow. Wall of blue icebergs straight ahead! We nose our way through the smaller bergs in an effort to see if we can make it through the iceberg wall ahead of us and into the inlet that leads up to Le Conte Glacier. A whale humps his back and shows his tale as he dives. We were so busy concentrating on weaving through bergs that we missed the photo op. As we thread our way through, the bergs get bigger and take on massive interesting shapes. Occasionally a large boom or crack can be heard with a sound like shattering fragile glass. Once we make it through the wall, with hope that the ice won’t settle in a way that won’t let us out, the bergs become more massive with a lot of smaller ones. We realize that at our slow speed it will take 2 hours to make it to the glacier and with the bergs off in the distance looking like mini mountains, our success doubtful. We decide to turn our “Polar Star” around and head to Petersburg. We made it back through the wall, the tide going out loosened the wall and the exit route was easy. For extra fun Glen sped up and tried to get the small icebergs to flip over. He got two to flip, but no pics so it doesn’t count.

Harbormaster has us in slot 47 and 39 in Petersburg, we will be there soon. The smell of warm baking bread fills the cabin. We’ll have Halibut, crab, and steamed shrimp, picked yesterday from our shrimp pot, along with some other delight for dinner. It’s our turn to cook. Then we will recap our Nordic adventure and finish with reviewing photos on the big screen. This is an almost nightly occurrence, and a fun way to see what we each captured from the day.

Red Bluff, Saginaw, Kake, and Portage

Day 62 – July 11

This place is amazingly beautiful. Tall rock walls up both sides of the channel, and a big river delta at the head of the bay. It was on that delta that Tom, Chris, and Debbie saw a momma bear and her yearly sized cub last night. The girls were in kayaks and Tom in his dinghy. They got some photos. The Magic crew did not participate in this ashore outing as we were sequestered in the galley making a Halibut and wild rice dinner.

There are waterfalls all along the rock walls, some small, some big, and one huge. On the way into the bay last night Glen nosed Magic up to the huge one for a photo op.


It was more like a boat wash. Deb was on the bow and all she needed was the shampoo and a towel. With Magic’s bow in the spray (never directly under the falling water), we still had over 110 feet of water under us… Pretty amazing.




This was another partly sunny and overcast morning. Glen went kayaking up the creek while everyone else stayed back and did morning stuff. Crab pots were checked and empty as were all the other pots pulled by other boats in the bay. Pulled anchor and headed out, stopping to pull Magic’s Shrimp pot which was out near the entrance to the bay. Whoo Hooo, about two dozen little critters. Cocktails and Prawn tails tonight! No bear sightings this morning.

We stopped in Saginaw Bay to do a bit of fishing. Immediately Glen has a Halibut on the line and into the boat. Yippee. He’s (the fish) not nearly as big as Nicole’s, but he’ll still make a nice meal or two for the crew. Now that we have a scale onboard, we can stop guessing; this one is 12 lbs. Glen also caught three Rock Cod but released those to go grow up. He claimed that they were too much work for the amount of ‘meat’. Whatever, he is really picky these days.



Okay enough fishing for now, we’re off to Kake, for our Cake oh I mean Kake walk. Kake is known for having the tallest totem pole. We will likely stay in Portage Bay tonight.

We made an unscheduled stop out in the big water to do some generator repair on Miner’s Debt. They should really plan these repair stops for areas where there is fishing to be had. Tom has had a few problems with keeping his generator working. But today he lost his batteries went dead because of the lack of generator. The guys tried to put a ‘bandaid’ on the system but couldn’t find the right size. We’ve decided to skip by Kake and we are heading directly to Portage bay for the night. No Kake walk for us on this trip. Heading down the channel and encountered several whale sightings. Most off in the distance i.e. just out of camera range, but one pair surfaced about 400 feet off our bow. Glen called the alert and the camera crew went into action. The whales surfaced a couple more times about 100 feet off our port. Deb and Noble are in heaven – Waterfalls, Bears, Halibut, Cod, Eagles, Otter, and Whale all in 24 hours.

We had perfect ‘Liz water’ all day long. For those of you who don’t understand this, it means very flat, calm water. No special jewelry today. We entered Portage Bay and found it to be quite large and outlined by a very wide green grassy shoreline. There are quite a few boats here so it must be a popular spot. Looks like a good place for dinghy and kayak rides. There is a large snow capped mountain standing seemingly by itself at the far end of the bay. We set anchor for the night at about 8pm.

The guys kept themselves busy into the evening with Tom’s generator. They think the problem is an electrical connection on the pump. They rewired it, and it started working again, or at least it’s working for now.

Baranof to Red Bluff

Day 61 – July 10

We woke up to an overcast morning with spots of blue sky above us; promises (or dreams) of sunshine. Sophie came over for her morning visit and nap. Chris still thinks the dog is a traitor for jumping ship daily. Really she is just showing her independence and adventurousness. Glen and Deb left in ‘Little Magic’ to go outside the bay to try to catch one of Hal’s cousins. Time will tell; we might even get fish for dinner. Noble and I stayed back nice and warm. They came back with wet empty gear again. Ok guys this is becoming a pattern and a habit! Get with it.

We headed out for Red Bluff which will be a long arduous cruise of about two miles. Hardly time enough for a nap, so I won’t bother. Maybe I’ll try to get a bit of work done on the computer. We are traveling very slowly down the coastline not too far off shore. Waterfall after waterfall, snowfield after snowfield, and Eagles in the trees along the way. This is truly a beautiful place. The sky is still cloudy and gray but hey, it’s not raining, and the water is what has been aptly named ‘Liz Water’, smooth and calm.

Red Bluff is aptly named since there is a large bluff near the entrance that is red. Looks more like it should be in the Grand Canyon.

Baranof Hot Springs!!!

Day 60 – July 9 Warm Springs Bay

Continuation from yesterday …. It rained off and on all day. We traveled down the Chatham Strait. The crew described the water as ‘well not perfectly flat’. Tom took 2-3 hits over the top. Glen’s windows (I don’t do windows) got washed with abrasive salt spray several times. He will get to rinse them with fresh water later. I (wearing my special bracelet) rested in the salon.

We pulled into Warms Springs Bay for a visit to the Baranof Hot Springs. The dock was full, which we expected (rafted 2-4 boats out), so we anchored across the bay and stern tied to shore. We had dinner and then moved to the salon for our evening photo show and movie. The Miner’s home movies were a hoot. Okay not so much for the photography (which seemed to be a lot of sky – floor of the dinghy – Tom’s back – the sky etc…) but for the audio. Chris was trying to take a video and hold on at the same time, Debbie was screaming for glee, and Tom was saying just ‘keep filming’.

We woke up this morning to sunshine. By 8:00 am 5-7 boats had moved off the docks and a couple anchored boats headed out of the bay. Our plan is to go exploring on shore today and of course check out the hot springs. Tom did a bit of fishing off the back of his boat this morning, here is what he caught.

We went ashore, walked around the boardwalk community and then up the hill about a ½ mile to the lake. Much of the trail is boardwalk. It seems like Alaskans don’t like to hike on the dirt because they build great boardwalks all over the place.

Glen cooling his jets.

The middle pool.

This is a small community of about a dozen houses or cabins, a transient dock, small general store, and hot springs; all alongside a beautiful and large waterfall. A community bath house has 3 private ‘horse trough’ tubs which are fed with water from the hot springs. Up the trail heading to the lake there is a cutoff going over close to the inlet to the waterfall. Follow that path over root and rock and you’ll find the natural hot springs pools alongside the rushing water of the upper waterfall. There are three hot pools there, the uppermost one small and too hot for man or beast, the middle one about 110 and very relaxing, and the third one closer to the river and closer to 100. For those that like their soak a bit cooler there is yet another pool right next to the rushing water, which is fed by the river. Only Glen was brave enough to try its frigid water. The community bath house troughs are not as hot as the water further up the hill. Glen, Noble and I relaxed in the upper pools and visited with some fisherman who we’d seen and photographed in Angoon yesterday. They also had parked over the top of the sunken boat before someone told them about it. While we were up the hill, Tom, Chris, Debbie and Deb/Parker enjoyed the community bathhouse and visited with the locals. Tom and Glen had tried out the upper pools earlier. After everyone was wet and relaxed, we headed back to the boats for awhile.

The lake, and community bath house. That's Debbie and Chris in the openings.

Later in the afternoon someone spotted the community store open, so we went back ashore to check it out. Yep, they had a small amount the basics (but no flour which I wanted), books, local art, candy, some food, and the two most important things it seems for some of this group - espresso, and ice cream. Glen shared his ice cream which if you know Glen doesn’t happen often but when he does it’s only with those who really want to ‘share’.

While waiting for everyone to exit the store I saw a large salmon jump three times in the rough water at the bottom of the waterfall. It apparently was trying to go up the waterfall. Humm, if indeed it was born up there, it had better find another way back home because it will never make it up that waterfall. Unfortunately I could not move my camera fast enough to caught this action.

On the way back across the bay it was noted that the inner bay close to the boats was now navigable by dinghy, so that meant a quick trip in to check it out. Yep, there was an inner bay, which looked more like an alpine lake. There were four locals in there on shore, two by a campfire and two down by a stream. Glen tried to say they were panning for gold. Dreamer. More likely they were fishing and having a picnic of sorts. Tom claimed to have seen a large fish (salmon) jump in there so he rushed out to get his fishing gear and return. This time he saw a seal in there but no fish. Go figure.

Angoon

Day 59 – July 8 Angoon

Morning in Angoon; raining off and on, it rained all night. Walking the dock here is a bit scary, there are about 40 locally owned boats on the docks. The majority of them showing signs of non usage for what could have been years. Very large sea anomies of varying colors and a variety of sea weed growing on their bottoms, while moss, mold and other above water slim growing on the topside. The shoreline looks like a grave yard of old boats of every kind.

It is a full service harbor with a restroom right on the docks. Not sure anyone would use it (no door), or where it drains too (don’t ask), but there is one.

We went for a dinghy ride up … up stream. Of course we went through rapids so the guys were happy.

Saw a momma deer and her twins on the shoreline. They watched us for a minute and then momma said ‘off the beach’, and they ran for the trees.

Back to the big boats, where

Deb and Noble were found fishing for bait.

Some rigging for the sunken boat was now visible a couple feet below the surface. Still no sign of a really big fishing boat down there. Loaded up and headed out of the harbor trolling along the way. No luck.