June 30, back in Alaska

View from the back of the boat in Auke Bay

I am back at the boat with Sherm after an uneventful flight yesterday. We got in fairly early and played tourist all afternoon. We took a cab ride up to the Mendenhall Glacier, the ice as its known by the cab drivers, and hiked up the lake to the falls which is as far as you can go on the south side. We did finlly see an Alaskan bear. It was a small 2 year old that is on its own and it was climbing trees right amidst all the hundreds of tourists wandering around. Seemed oblivious to the cameras and people all trying their best to get a good shot of it with their cameras. we were no exception.
Went shopping and just hung around all evening enjoying the warm sun. Apparently they had a little storm while we were away because there is new snow on the mountains and the dock master said something about a big wind that roughed up the boats on the outer breakwater. Everything is fine at the boat and were getting ready to head out and meet Glen and crew in Tenekee springs. Glen called and they are at Hoonah waiting for the gas dock to open, something about alot of miles under the keel since leaving us. They are going to hang around and try to get a ride on the longest highest and fastest zip line in the country. Bummer, we will miss that this time around.

If we find a good photo of the little bear I will post it later. Were off right now, we have three good days to get to Sitka where we will pick up Chris and Debbie.

Friday June 27th

Today was the family service for Chris's mother, she was laid to rest on a beautiful day at Haven of Rest in Gig Harbor with a view of the sound and the mountain. Very nice cerimony with just family present.
Tomorrow, Saturday we will have a party to celebrate 83 years of life. Should be a good party.
Sunday, I head back to the boat along with good friend and coworker Sherm Voiles who will help me get the boat to Sitka where we will meet Chris and Debbie who fly in on the 3rd.
Glen, let me know where you are if you can get this blog and if you are doing the outside route we still may be able to hook up with you to do that from Elfin Cove. By my calculations you should be doing Glacier Bay Friday, Saturday and Sunday and headed for Elfin cove on Monday. We would be a day behind you getting to Elfin Cove if we leave on Monday after getting the trim tab repaired. If we leave on Sunday afternoon we could probably meet you in Elfin cove on Monday.

June 23

I am headed home tonight to be with Chris and family. It looks like we will have a family service on Wednesday and a memorial on Saturday. I need to be back by Sunday to move the boat and start moving to Sitka. So I will take a week off and resume the blog when I get back up here.
Glen and Liz are headed to Skagway and then off to Glacier bay. I guess were going to miss all the northern highlights but that cannot be helped and that gives us a reason to return another time.

June 22, 2008

We are in Auke Bay now, and I have a place to leave the boat for up to 10 days if I need to. Chris flew home last night on the 830 pm flight. Iola is still fighting to stay alive but it is just a matter of time according to family. I will wait until we have a definitive outcome and then make arrangements to head home. Until then I will hang out here in Juneau and clean the boat, do laundry and restock with supplies. I will fly home for the funeral if it comes to that and then return to start moving the boat towards Sitka and catch up with glen and Liz whereever they may be. Hopefully Chris will be able to return with Debbie at the end of the month and we can resume our trip together.
this is certainly a sad disruption of the trip but it was not unexpected and we have been waiting for the call that finally came yesterday afternooon.

Becky and Mikey leave tonight on the 830 pm flight and so I will have the boat to myself for a while. We will miss the kids, we had a great week and saw some awesome things. Todays trip into downtown Juneau will not go down as one of the more awsome thngs. We used the public transportation system and it was quite an experience in both directions. It was quicker going in to town than returning with a jam packed bus that kept getting more passengers at each stop and no one getting off. The passengers were quite an eclectic mix of locals and tourists. It is a long way from Auke bay to downtown Juneau so for a buck 50 vs a 25 dollar cab ride we will put up with a little oddity.
We decided that our way of cruising Alaska beats the cruise ship model. There were three big ships in Juneau today and the streets were filled with tourists. w/e actually felt out of place among all these people We have ot seen those kinds of crowds since leaving seattle a month and a half aco.

I filled up with fuel here for a paltry $4.46 a gallon plus tax.
Beats the heck out of Wrangell fuel prices.

June 19-22

June 21, 2004
We pulled out of Oliver Inlet just before High tide after doing a recon with the dinghys to find the deepest spot and any hazardous rocks that might damage the boats. We found the rocks but no deep channel so with high tide we had 8 feet of water under us if we avoided the rocks we found which we did. Not sure if I would do the entry again, it was a little nerve racking.

We got outside and almost immediately had phone service and I got a call from Michelle. It was the call we have been anticipating about chris's mother. She has definitely taken a turn for the worse and the Family felt it would be wise to fly Chris home. So I pushed the throttles forward and we made it into Auke Bay in Juneau in less than 2 hours. She was in a cab and made the 830 pm flight to Seattle. I will stay and make arrangements to moor the boat and fly home later once we know what the outcome will be and when any services may be scheduled. As of this morning the 13rd there was no change, she was still hanging on which is good, Chris needed to see her one more time before her mom passes.

Becky and Mikey are leaving tomorrow evening so were going to do the tourist thing in Juneau and then see them off.

June 20, 2008

We left Taku Harbor late in the afternoon and cruised a short distance up to Oliver Inlet where we spent the night. It says it can only be entered at high slack so we timed our arrival appropriately and went in. The book said 8 feet minimum at a 13 foot tide. We had a 13 foot tide we were entering on and got down to about 6 feet. Were definitely in until the next high tide gives us enough water to exit. The inlet is fantastic. A range of snow capped mountains look down on the inlet from the west and were surrounded by low lying green forest and the entire shoreline looks like someone mowed the lawn. The day was a bluebird day, warm and sunny after a cloudy and rainy morning.
We caught 8 good sized 7 to 8 inch crab in here, there are no commercial traps inside because the entrance is so shallow they can’t get in to service the traps except at high tide and then they could not get out until the next high tide.so they crab are big.
We enjoyed a lazy sunny afternoon, temperatures got up to almost 80 in the sun but there was a cool breeze.
This morning we woke up to grey sky and light rain. We went down to the end of the bay where there is a one mile boardwalk and boat portage between this inlet the one to the south. We met a park ranger there and he was getting more equipment for a work oarty and he was carryihng a 12 gauge shot gun. Chris asked him if there were bears about and he informed us that the population was about one bear for every square mile on this island. Maybe I should have brought my shotgun as well.

June 19
Tonight were in Taku Harbor. We were headed for Juneau and a date with a fishing guide but when Glen called to verify the reservations the guide suggested we might want to cancel because for the last two days no one had been catching anything and he thought we might want to save the money. So we stopped short of Juneau and will find something else to do for the next couple of days.

While in Taku Harbor Becky landed a nice sized Pacific Cod while fishing from the dinghy. Poor Mikey, all he has caught so far is a large bullhead, a couple of small flounder and a bunch of bottom plants.

Glen, Liz and Nichole took off this morning in the dinghy and headed for Fords Terror and Endicott arm. They were gone for nearly four hours and did the grand tour making it all the way to the Glacier and went into Fords terror drifting in with the incoming tide.
While they were gone Becky and Mike took the dinghy out fishing. The fish won this round taking three lures while they landed non. We should have gone with Glen and Liz on the dinghy tour, about 40 miles round trip because the day was glorious for cruising down to the Dawes Glacier.

We tried our hand at salmon fishing while waiting for Glen to return and like everyone else in Alaska had no bites. We then spent about two hours floating around watching three humpback whales that kept swimming in circles around the boat. Again, try as I might, not one of my pictures turned out. I did get some decent video footage of the three whales when they surfaced about 50 feet from the boat.

We gave up on salmon fishing and tried some halibut fishing and Becky hooked a 20 to 30 lb halibut almost immediately. She is a happy camper now and will be taking some nice sized Halibut filets home with her.

june 19

June 18, 2008

We stayed in a small cove north of Good Island in Gambier bay after a long run up Frederick sound from Thomas Bay. The run up was smooth until the last 10 miles then a south wind kicked up and it got a bit lumpy. Glen and Liz were about 3 hours behind us as they decided to hike up to Paterson Glacier.

We motored over to the cove at the northwest side of Tracy Arm, just inside the sand spit. It had been a fairly choppy run made interesting by the number of whales all around us. One surfaced a boat length in from of us but try as I might I could not get a decent photo of any of them playing on the surface.

We decide to go ahead and run down to the Glacier in Tracy arm. It is over 20 miles to the glacier through stunning rock walls with hundreds of waterfalls and floating ice bergs.

We reached a point about 5 miles from the Sawyer Glacier where we could go no further due to the jammed up ice floating in the water. Glen and Liz and Nichole decided to take the dinghy on up through the ice to the head of the Glacier, I could not talk my crew into doing that. They left the boat floating among the berg bits and we shut off the engines and sat for a couple hours enjoying the scenery, the thousand foot walls and just the grand nature of the place.

As we were waiting for Glen’s expedition to return we watched the Norwegian Sun, a large cruise ship come around the corner into our section of the fjord. As we looked very much like a couple of floating bergs I called them on channel 16 and advised them we were directly in front of them and one of the two boats was unmanned and unable to maneuver out of their way. The Female Captain acknowledged our location and asked that we remain together and she would go around us.

The ship passed within a few hundred feet of us and as large as it was, it dwarfed our little boats but it was dwarfed by the cliffs around it. We watched as hundreds of tourists on board took photos of us taking photos of them.

Glen returned shortly after the cruise ship passed by and we motored back out towards the head of the bay and an anchorage cove near the entrance of Tracy Arm. We took our time, stopping along the way at waterfalls and at several bergs to take photos and enjoy the day. It was a cloudy wet day with the clouds obscuring the highest parts of the cliffs but also adding to the scenery with different layers of clouds hanging low along the cliff lines.

At one point glen put the bow of the boat up against a berg and I took some video which makes it look like he is actually pushing the berg and moving it.

As we approached the anchorage I was watching the mapping software and saw that we needed to avoid two rocks at the entrance before turning into the cove. I spotted what I thought were the two rocks off to my starboard side, they were both bare and exposed and were in the right position to be the rocks on the chart and my course was taking me well to the left of the rocks when I last looked. On one of the rocks sat an eagle and Becky and Mike and Chris were all on the bridge looking at the eagle. I looked back at my mapping system and now the boat icon was sitting right on the rock symbol which got my attention and I pulled the throttles back, threw the engines in reverse and reved the engines in reverse doing an emergency stop. As we did that we all felt the boat strike something, the bow rose up with a horrible grinding noise, our momentum stopped and then the boat slid off and backwards. We were all convinced and I was certain we had just struck a rock.
We were floating free and I backed well off the spot and then shut down and ran down below to check for leaks. A quick check of the hull showed we were not taking on any water thankfully. Chris and Becky were in their life jackets by the time I got back on top and I found out later that Chris put Sophie in her life jacket first then had shown Becky where to find them.
I had just told Becky earlier that her chances of swimming to the shore here was not good, that the average swimmer has a 50% chance of surviving a 50 yard swim in 50 degree water. This water is 44 degrees. She remembered that and was thinking we were all going to perish like the people on the Titanic. Not likely because Chris had jumped on the radio and yelled to Glen that we had just hit the rock. Glen was standing by a few feet away so if we were going to sink we could have got onto his boat quickly.

I was sure I had ripped off my running gear so I was quite pleasantly surprised when I put the boat in gear and it moved forward and reverse and the rudders both worked. Hmm!
We motored on in to the cove and tied up next to Glen who had anchored. in the cove. We did a thorough check of the hull and we were completely intact. We got out the underwater camera that Chris had given me for father’s day and checked for damage under the boat. Other than what appeared to be some missing paint there were no obvious gouge marks. (Thank you Chris for the Camera)

We slept soundly that evening and early the next morning I got up and took the Dingy out to the rock to check on how much fiberglass I left behind. I was surprised to find no rock in the spot where we were sure we had run aground. The water 100 feet out from the rock the Eagle was on was 50 feet deep and dropped quickly to 170 feet. Ok, what did I hit. Theory is a clear piece of Iceberg. Many of the bergs are like ice cubes, clear and they take on the coloring of the water. There was one large piece in the area but it was not all that hard to spot.

The other theory is that when I saw the boat and rock Icon on an imminent collision course I threw the boat into such a quick emergency stop that the cavitation of the props trying to bite in the opposite direction caused the noise that everyone thought was us scrapping on rock and the boat rising up and then back down was the stern wave rolling under us.

It appears after all that we hit nothing, that the boat can go from 10 knots forward to reverse in a boat length if it needs to. Besides, the trip was getting a bit boring and we needed something to make it more exciting.

june 16

Were in Thompson Bay tonight, just north of Petersburg. It was a challenge finding a spot to anchor since yesterday was opening day for commercial crab fishing and every reasonable spot to drop an anchor is filled with crab bouys. We backed into a small notch and stern tied just east of Spray Island. It seems to be fairly well protected and today has been a sunny and warm day after several cloudy cool and misty days.

Petersburg is a typical Alaskan fishing community, built around the norwegian immigrants and a fish cannery. it is still a going concern and the harbor is filled with working boats.

Chris found the reincarnation of her family's first boat a 17 foot bell boy and we got a photo of it. It looks a bit worse for wear and appears to be in need of a some cosmetic improvements. She is quite happy with what we have and was wondering how in the world they fit 2 adults and 4 kids in it and so was I.

We tried our hand at salmon fishing today, dodging small icebergs as we trolled north and of course we caught nothing. Even the gill netters around us appeared to be catching little or nothing so we did not feel so bad.

We saw one whale today in the bay but could not get close enough for good photos and it was not to interested in giving any kind of show.

June 15th fathers day

Were in Petersburg today. Becky and Mike arrived on Saturday after one false start on Friday. They got as far as their driveway at 0400 to head for the airport and checked their tickets only to discover the flight left on Saturday not Friday. It was a trial run. So they made it on time Saturday and after a quick tour of Wrangell just so they could say they had seen it we shoved off. Glen and Liz were going to hang around another day to wait for Nichole and we would meet them in Petersburg. We decided to stay at Roosevelt Bay about half way between Wrangell and the south end of Wrangell Narrows. Glen had checked it out earlier and thought it would be a good anchorage. we stopped half way there to do some fishing and Mikey caught two rockfish. They were easier to catch than they were to clean.
Roosevelt Bay is a perfect anchorage, well sheltered, with a good holding bottom.
We dropped the crab bot and shrimp pots and then tried bottom fishing from the boat. I managed to hook onto something really big cause it bent the pole, and snapped the line all in about 10 seconds. Just long enough for Mikey to see I had something on and then it was gone. Mikey and I continued to fish for another couple of hours despite the swarms of no see ums hoping for a second shot at whatever took my lure.
No luck but the next morning i gave it another shot and had another big one on the line in a matter of minutes. This time I got him to the surface and everyone saw the sizable halibut before he decided he was done playing me and he took the second lure off the end of the line and was gone.
Ok, we need bigger stronger line.

The run up the narrows to Petersburg was uneventful except for the large number of other boats going every direction and all the small boats fishing the narrows.
Were back with Glen and Liz and have met up with another friend from the skipatrol, John Reid.

Will head further north tomorrow and try for more halibut now that Mikey and I have bought heavier line and more lures to feed the halibut with.

June 14th Wrangell

We pulled in to Wrangell yesterday afternoon and went to the fuel dock to fill up. I should have filled up at Port Protection because they were nearly 35 cents cheaper and had no city tax added on top of the total price. We paid 5.11 here plus a 7% city tax, yikes. That will kill the budget pretty quick. I hear fishing is pretty good around here so maybe I can hire on as a rookie deck hand for a few weeks to pay for the trip home. Apparently Wrangell is the most expensive place in alaska to pick up fuel, not sure why but I found that out after going bankrupt at the pumps.

We picked up a couple of halibut fillets from a couple fishermen who were getting ready for crabbing season which starts Sunday. They were just going to use it for crab bait so they let me have a couple of really big pieces which should feed us for a couple of meals.

Went up to the Wrangell theater last night and saw the late movie "What stays in Vegas" along with most of the teenage kids in Wrangell.

Becky and Mike should be arriving pretty soon and we will head out to Roosevelt lagoon then on to Petersburg tomorrow and wait for Glen and Liz. They are staying one more day here waiting for Nichole to fly in on Sunday.

June 13th

We are back after a journey to the edge of civilization in Alaska. The west side of Prince of Wales Island is well worth the trip. I have been keeping up with the blogs and below is a full week worth of updates, enjoy.

June 9, 2008

We are sitting in Miner’s Bay today, which is what I am taking the liberty of naming since the maps have no name and the guide books do not even mention it as an anchorage.
We are just north of Hamilton Island and east of Divide Island. It forms a perfect anchorage protected on all sides by little islets and a reef of rocks. Were anchored in about 40 feet of water on a mud bottom with good holding and the only wind that could get us is an east wind and that is unlikely. It is very strange; many of the places we have looked at or used for anchorage are not listed in the popular guide books yet are better than the ones they do recommend. In this area they mention two bays to the north of us, neither of which seems as nice or as easy to enter and use. If everyone who ventures up here uses the same old tried and true anchorage then one never gets to discover new places. Glen and I are willing to explore and try different places with him being a bit more daring than I. When my sounder says 10 feet under the boat I get nervous, I am not sure where he gets nervous but while we were gone he went into Whaletail Cove with less than two feet as Liz tells it.

We entered between Divide Island and Middle Island through a fairly narrow opening but with plenty of depth throughout if you stay in the middle of the course. You do have to watch your charts pretty close as you approach through Shakan Bay as there are lots of rocks and shoals but they are clearly charted according to Nobeltec and deep water is easy to navigate. The entrance has two 9 foot shoals coming off Hamilton and Middle Islands but the middle showed 50 feet minimum depth. Were kind of remote right now, I could not even pick up a weather forecast on the radio and I suspect that will be the case until we move a bit further south. Not many people venture this way and I don’t expect to see many other boats while we are here.

It rained all day yesterday afternoon and was pretty gloomy. Today we have some patches of blue sky with clouds that should burn off before long. The sun even has some warmth to it this morning.

We tried bottom fishing from the dinghy but after an hour of drifting aimlessly and catching only one small rock fish we called it quits. Still have to go check out the crab and shrimp pots today but there is no rush. From here we have a leisurely few days to explore El Capitan Passage then work our way back to Wrangell to pick up Becky and Mike and Nichole.

No luck with crab or shrimp at Miners Bay. Once again, good thing we brought plenty of food cause we would be on a survivor diet if they were waiting for me to bring in any fish or game. I have caught multiple small flounder, a couple of bull heads and today I caught a fish smaller than the lure I was using. The other day I snagged a fish by the tail and it was probably the largest to date but it got loose before I could land it.


June 10, 2008

We are in Devil Fish bay tonight after winding our way through El Capitan Passage at low tide. Very interesting and fun transit, the whole thing is only about 70 feet wide but we had at least 8 feet of water under us the whole way and most of the narrow parts were 10 to 12 feet deep. Liz and Chris think were nuts but it was really no problem.
We saw a herd, flock, gaggle, pack or whatever of sea otters. There were about 20 of the critters swimming in the passage. They were hardly fazed by our passing and slowly moved out of our way and then resumed whatever they were doing after we passed.

The guide books talk about the difficult entrance to Devil Fish Bay but there is only one rock and it is pretty obvious where it is and easy to avoid. We never had less than 30 feet going in to the bay. It is a pretty place but windy. The narrow valley funnels the winds through but we have a good set to the anchor and we should be fine. Hopefully we will see some wildlife along the shore as it is a nice grassy river mouth perfect for evening grazing by deer moose or bear.

The reason for the name of the bay has something to do with a large angry fish that rose out of the waters and destroyed a native village in ancient past. Apparently a group of researchers set up camp in the bay in the early 70’s and were so overcome by the feeling of dread and imminent doom that they packed up and left. No telling what they were smoking or what they were researching but we saw no large devil fish and felt no sense of foreboding or doom. However something did get into the crab pot at carry off the entire bait can and the fact that there was no wildlife anywhere in the bay could mean there is something down there after all?

Woke to brilliant blue sky and perfectly calm waters.

June 11, 2008
Cruised an hour down to Sarkar Cove where there are a few homes and the El Capitan Fishing Lodge. I set the anchor and got a good set or so I thought. We were in 40 feet of water and I had 140 feet of chain out so the scope should have been more than adequate since there was very little wind. We put down the crab and shrimp pots and I spotted a whale spouting off in the distance and spent the next hour following two humpback whales as the slowly swam in the confined waters just outside of the cove. Unfortunately I did not have a camera and they were staying down for long periods of time so there really wasn’t much to see. After a couple hours of just taking it easy we took the dinghies up the river that leads to Sarkar Lake. The tide was still to low to make it into the lake and it did not look like it would be high enough to get in by Dinghy so we figured we would return later by kayak. We got some good photos of eagles feeding on the swarms of small fish in the river. When we got back to the boats Glen noticed they had moved. We were within 20 feet of shore now, the anchor had dragged and the boats were within feet of going aground. OK lesson learned, use the big boats big anchor to hold 50,000 lbs of boat in place no matter what the wind is doing. Once Glen dropped his we didn’t move again.
We did take the kayaks back to the lake, were able to paddle up a short set of rapids into the lake and spent an hour paddling just a small portion of a very large and intricate lake with dozens of small islands. Not a sign of civilization ore development anywhere around the lake. Well worth the trip in and we got several more good shots of eagles hanging out in the trees and sitting on the river bank.
The evening was spectacular with a spectacular sunset and Glen and I spent an hour taking pictures of the ever-changing colors as the sun set behind the mountains to the west.
We woke to another beautiful sunny but cool morning. I am usually up first at about 630, and brew some coffee, sit on the back deck and read or compose the next blog and enjoy the peace and quiet. Glen is up next and then the girls slowly get moving by 10, so then its time to take Sophie to shore for a walk, followed by breakfast, and then check the crab and shrimp pots. It is just so hectic and there is so much to do that it’s noon by the time were done with all that hard work and ready to get underway for the next stop.

We stopped at the Forest Service dock at El Capitan Cave after an hour of cruising with the thought of walking up and exploring it a bit on our own. We did not expect anyone to be there and were surprised when two forest service rangers came down to greet us. They had just finished the last guided tour of the day and said the cave was only open via the guided tour the next one being at 900 am the next day. We decided to stay the night at the dock and take the tour on Thursday. Glen and I walked up the trail to the cave entrance, 374 stair steps in about an 8th of a mile, a pretty good workout considering we have not had much physical work in the last month.
Pleasant stay that afternoon just sat around and read books and enjoyed the cool but sunny weather. One of the rangers came down and joined us for dessert in the evening and told us about the area. The cave is one of 500 on the islands around here and is the deepest in North America. They found signs of human use in the caves dating back 10,000 years so it is quite an archeological find. They do three tours a day, 7 days a week from June to September with a maximum of 6 people per tour. Prince of Wales Island is the third largest island in the US, Hawaii and Kodiak being the only bigger islands.
We woke up this morning to rain with the forecast is for rain over the next several days.
After the cave tour were going to head back through El Capitan Passage and work our way back towards Wrangell. Should be there by Friday weather permitting and restock and wait for Becky and Mike to arrive. We are looking forward to sharing this experience with others. Were going to have to get better organized with our stuff however as we have spread out all over the boat and will now have to consolidate our stuff into our back cabin and the salon to make room for guests.

The tour of the cave was great! I am not much for crawling underground where there is no light but the cave was interesting and worth the time and effort. Not to worry, I will not be taking up cave exploring anytime soon.

Our first small mechanical problem. Well not really a mechanical p;roblem, more like an operator error. We have been going a total of 35 hours since the last fill up with fuel and we were down to a quarter tank again. I figured I had enough to get back to Wrangell but the Generator ran out of fuel this morning which means were getting pretty low on fuel. The Generator draws fuel from the port fuel tank and its fuel draw tube is shorter than the draw tube for the engine which means the engine will still run for a while after the generator stops. Not sure how much longer but I went down to the engine room to check on the engine filters and noticed I was getting air bubbles which is not good. Either I was really low on fuel and about to run out in both engines in the middle of Sumer Strait in the fog or my filters were clogged and the end result was going to be the same eventually
After a discussion with Glen on the radio about fuel options we were advised by a helpful local who overheard our conversation that their was fuel at Port Protection about 10 miles up the coast. We made it there and I was quoted $5.11 when I asked the price per gallon but ended up getting charged $4.64. Hope no one gets in trouble for selling me cheap fuel. I decided to change out filters at the same time just in case and it appears that really dirty filters were causing the engines to work to hard and it was pulling in air from somewhere causing the air bubbles. I quickly changed them out and will keep an eye on them for a while. Apparently I picked up bad fuel somewhere along the way.
Were anchored in Red bay tonight, a big sheltered bay on the north end of Prince of Wales Island about 30 miles west of Wrangell. We should be there early on Friday to get ready for Becky and Mike who fly in on Saturday.

June 8

Were back in Alaska. We took a week off from boating to return home for the US&R National Work Group Meetings which I hosted in Tacoma. Since I was the host I figured I should be there.
After a week of meetings I was ready to return and resume the trip.

We checked bills while we where home and Chris had a chance to visit her parents. Her mom is not doing well so it was good that she got another chance to visit with her while we were home.

Remember how I reported the success of the Verizon phone card over the AT& T air card on our way up here. Well that comes with a cost. Silly us did not relalize the whole time we were in BC that we were roaming while we were talking on Skype and blogging and answering emails and surfing. That will cost us about 50 gallons of diesel. The card is still working better than any of the others but we will have to be a bit more judicious in its use. Here in alaska it appears to be working without roaming so hopefully the bill will not be quite as shocking.

Left clouds and rain in seattle for a few clouds, sun breaks and a few rain and hail showers in Wrangel. After doing a load of laundry and shopping and picking up our dog from the sitters we were ready to go. Sophie, our dog stayed with a lady here in Wrangel who came highly recomended by the locals. She has 5 dogs of her own and is building a pet store. Her dogs are all large breeds like half wolf and half shepherd. When we dropped sophie off with her one of her half wolfs was with her and he did not immediately eat sophie so it got off to a good start. Apparently all went well because Sophie was returned to us intact and without any teeth marks in her. In fact it appears that Sophie managed quite well and ended up sleeping with one of the big dogs on the same bed.

Only one small disaster to start off the second part of the trip. We bought some liquor at the store and on the way back to the boat the cart tipped and the only thing that fell out was the 40 dollar bottle of taquilla that immediately shattered on the sidewalk. A couple of local fishermen driving by stopped, looked at me and said, "that my friend is a serious crime, wasting booze!" the only consolation is that it was Chris's and not mine.

Liz and Glen were waiting for us and as soon as we were done shopping we headed out. We are now sitting in St Johns Bay where we spent a very quiet and peaceful evening. It is raining this morning as I type this but it appears that it may clear up a bit. The weather is actually a bit better than it was in Tacoma last week believe it or not.

We are headed for the area of El Capitan passage to do some exploring this week before heading back for Wrangel and picking up Becky and Mike and Nichole and her aunt.

June 3