July 12, Petersburg

Water fall at Red Bluff Bay

Bears, eagles, whales, waterfalls, icebergs oh my, bears eagles, whales, waterfalls icebergs oh my! Debbie has seen it all now and was turning every which way today looking for the elusive whales that were always just beyond camera range, and scanning the miles and miles of shoreline for the bears that were lurking just inside the tree line and took over dozens of photos of waterfalls. Eagles became common place and by the end of today she saw and photographed every iceberg in LaConte Bay. Today was a great day even if it was a bit wet and a bit grey.

We left Red Bluff Bay yesterday and on our way to Kake where we sere to look at the totem poles and visit the village, we stopped for about two hours in Security bay to try our hand at halibut fishing. The guide book said it was a good place to jig for halibut. Glen caught one in abot 2 minutes and that turned out to be the only keeper of the day. I caught two infant halibut that I threw back to grow into adults for the next time we come up here. I caught three bull heads and two rock cod and a star fish and we called it a day and headed towards Kake. Before we got there I tried to turn on the generator to recharge the house batteries but the Generator would not stay running because once again it was sucking air into the fuel system and Diesels do not run well on air. We stopped in the middle of Keku Strait just off Kake for about an hour and tied the two boats together while Glen and I tried to fix the bugger. We tried to fix it by removing the filters from the system to see if that was where we were getting air but alas, it still would not run. So after bobbing around working in a hot engine room with the strong smell of diesel fuel and getting somewhat queezy, we opted the keep moving to more protected waters of Portage Bay 30 miles further along and skip sightseeing at Kake. Without the Generator my house batteries were too low to use the inverter and I lost all the equipment that uses 110 volts. Little things like the computer with the nobeltec mapping software, the refrigerator and freezer just to name a couple important items. So it was pretty important to figure out the generator and soon or all the crab and halibut we had frozen was going to be lost. Not to mention I would have to resort to paper charts for navigation or trust Glen to keep me off the rocks.

We made it to Portage Bay and anchored along with about a half dozen other boats. That was the most boats we have shared an anchorage with yet on this trip. With Glens help I was able to isolate the generator problem to a poor electrical connection on the fuel pump. The same fuel pump that I was unable to find a replacement for when I was down in June. We may have found a way to fix the faulty connection and so far it has continued to run without a problem but it would be nice to have a replacement for when it does finally fail completely.



Entering LaConte Bay, narrow channel, shallow water and small icebergs

From Portage bay we were headed to Petersburg where Debbie and Nobel, Glen and Liz's guests need to fly out of on Sunday. We thought a small side trip to LaConte Bay to view more icebergs would be an appropriate way to finish the trip for Debbie, Nobel and our Debbie. Now keep in mind that when I was planning this trip I had crossed LaConte Bay off the itinerary because of the guide book description of the hazardous and difficult entry into the bay. This is how it is described. ("LaConte attracts special interest, however its remoteness, difficult entrance, lack of large scale charts or aids to navigation means it is seldom visited by cruising boats. You must favor the north shore to avoid the large drying mud flats that flow out of the Stikine River North Arm while at the same time avoiding a line of rocks that extend from the north shore into the narrow, shallow channel for a few hundred yards . You must avoid this dike of rocks and the stationary icebergs all major obstacles. It is not well charted so you are entirely on your own when entering. The water is opaque giving you no visual warning of the depth or rocks. The low water bar (20') can be plugged with groundeed bergs and at the same time a strong 3 to 5 kont flood current can put you and small bergs on direct collision courses with the stranded house sized ice chunks leaving you unusure of which side to pass. Several groundings have occurred on this reef, extreme caution is advised.") But once again, with Glen leading and total faith in our ability to avert disaster we decided to give it a try. And sure enough we found the guide books once again a bit on the overly dramatic and exaggerated side of difficulty. We were able to wind our way through house sized icebergs and find open water with a few feet to spare on either side and defy the shallow water, minimum depth 22 feet, and made it into the inner bay. Once inside, proving to ourselves that we could do what the books advised against, we turned around and made it back out before the icebergs that were not grounded on the shallows and still floating moved too much and blocked out only avenue out of the bay. Of course we did take time to scoop up small ice chunks for our drinks with the fish net. Why else would we venture into such a terrifying location?

Were now in Petersburg and had time to walk the town, which was all boarded up and closed down, after dinner. Dinner tonight was fresh shrimp and halibut, yep, were actually eating food that we managed to catch.



Petersburg

Our Debbie set the record for photos taken this week. She had snapped over 800 photos so far. Get ready for the slide show gang; you’re going to get to see the entire week of cruising frame by frame from her camera. Today we saw waterfalls, whales, ice bergs and more ice bergs and a few more whales, a bunch of eagles but no bears. In all fairness, this is amazing country and there is so much to see and enjoy and every day brings a totally different veiwscape and surprise. visiting it the way we are is an up close and personal experience of Alaska and as I have said before, four months is not enough tme to do it all. We will be back.