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.