Sitka to Ketchikan

  7/26/13 We left Sitka and cruised up thru Olga and Neva straits to our current anchorage in Schulze Cove just outside the west end of Peril Strait. I decided that I was not going to run Surgius Narrows at its peak flood. The book advises against it as the currents can run quite fast and violently through there. I could see from a distance that the red entrance buoy was laying fully on its side in the current with white water lapping over it. I promised Chris we would not do any exciting stuff that was avoidable. We stern tied about 2/3 of the way into the bay and Pete and Dave joined us a bit later. Glen was delayed, having to return for more internet connectivity and he powered on through the rapids on to Little Bear Cove where we were planning on being and we did not make radio contact with him till after he went through so he stayed the night in Little Bear. The fish were jumping all around us but both Pete and I tried an assortment of enticements and could not get any interest from the fish. Were convinced that every time they jump they are flipping us off. They are just pinks or chums anyway but they would be fun to catch and release on the lightweight casting gear. Passed Steve and Kim Oberto in Maximo at the entrance to Peril Strait. They were headed for Sitka and said the Coho were fighting to get their bait in Gut Bay south of Baranoff Hot Springs. Sure, were not going there.

 7/27/13 Buck and Lisa are going to try to meet us on the north end of Vancouver Island mid August. If we do Anan on the 4th and head for Ketchikan that afternoon and leave Ketchikan on August 5th that will give us 8 days to go 390 miles. We can do it if there are no weather delays. Will suggest Aug 15th to them as a good target. Not sure how long they want to stay. Were headed for Appleton Cove for tonight. Not sure if we can stern tie there, as I recall there were lots of mud flats all around the anchorage so we shall see what works. Hopefully we will be back in the crab there.

 7/28/13 Stayed in Appleton Cove last night. Pete and I went out fishing and after catching lots of strange looking bottom creatures we went really deep, 250 plus and immediately caught two nice sized Red Snapper, Also known as Yellow Eye Rock fish and then a third one. All keepers. We cooked up two of our Pinks, did that before we knew we had snapper, and fried up one piece of snapper for everyone. It was a great meal. We checked the crab pots and low and behold, we got crab. Lots of crab. The pots were crawling with them and between the four of us we had at least a dozen keepers. No sea otters thus we have crab. No shrimp however and the salmon are not biting what were feeding them. The last week has been cooler with clouds and rain at night. But today we woke up to beautiful blue skies and warm sun. High pressure has built up so were in for some good weather for the next week. Amazing Anchor! My Ultra held all four boats, that's 120 feet of boat on one anchor in a 15 mph side wind. We were side tied in Appleton Cove when the wind shifted to the west and was pushing against the side of our boats. My anchor was taking the full weight as well as my stern tie. We tried to put some strain on Pete’s anchor but it pulled all the way in without ever grabbing. That means mine was all that was holding us. We reset Pete’s for the night but I am very happy that mine was able to hold all that weight. We are in a small cove behind Cabin Point just south of Angoon in Hood Bay. Very secure and pretty. Took a long dinghy ride up to Angoon and into Kootznahoo Inlet. It is a very isolated and intricate lagoon that you enter through reversing rapids. Dave and Mary balked at the rapids but got sucked in anyway so Glen had to go back and lead them to our location since it is so intricate and confusing back there. Quite an amazing and special place, very quiet and mystical.. On our way to Baranoff we stopped several times to watch whales feeding along the shoreline. We had just started up again and were at full speed when we had a close encounter of a Whale kind. A large humpback rose up out of the water without blowing just two boat lengths in front of us on a crossing path. I dumped it to idle speed and then out of gear and coasted to a stop. We were so close that I had to stand up to see him over the bow of the boat. He rose up a second time right next to the bow, his tail under the boat and then a third time about 30 feet off the bow. He never acted as if we were intruding or that he was the least bit concerned that we were there. He finally flipped his tail up and dove under allowing us to continue on. We got a couple good photos of his back but my camera decided to act up at that point and I did not get the close up of his tail fluke as he dove away. We found space on the docks and hiked up the boardwalk to the hot springs for a bath. It is a very warm pool, about 115 degrees and only a couple of us were able to fully immerse ourselves in the water. The hike is mostly up a nice boardwalk but the last 300 yards is up and over a muddy root covered trail and the hot pools are just feet from the roaring river that falls out of the lake above into the bay at the head of the docks. I went out fishing at the head of the bay and picked up three more pinks in about an hour. No more pinks, need silvers and halibut. My wife who used to complain that I couldn’t catch fish is now complaining when I do. A guy can’t win. We had crab fettuccini on the dock with the whole armada, another fabulous meal. It is finally getting dark enough to see stars at night. Last night was glorious. By this morning the docks were full and the bay had a 9 boats anchored in the bay including a good-sized expedition yacht and multiple large seiners. The walk to the hot springs was busy in the morning with everyone headed up for a morning soak.

7/30/13 We left the hot springs headed for Lords Pocket, a small cove surrounded by a couple islands near Kake. The crossing of Chatham Strait for the 3rd time was a bit lumpy until we got across and into Frederick Sound where it smoothed out to flat glass. A couple whales put on a show for us off in the distance, it was sunny and warm. Glen surprised us all by telling us he was going to drop a line for some halibut on some 100 foot deep spots just outside of the nights stop. I picked another high spot nearby and dropped the halibut gear and fished for over an hour drifting back and forth across the top of the mound with no luck, not even a nibble. A couple of whales were feeding nearby so I stopped fishing and moved closer for Chris to get some photos when all of a sudden they breeched 200 feet in front of us, coming clear out of the water. No pictures of course because we were not expecting that action. Then they resumed swimming in our direction passing right under the boat. We cruised back up to where Glen was fishing, he had caught two smaller 12 lb halibut so I dropped a line and almost instantly got hit by something big. For the next 30 minutes I reeled him in, let him run, reeled him in let him run. He was big and did not want to come up. I knew we were in trouble however because I was not in any way ready to land a big fish. We were fishing from the big boat with No Debt bow tied alongside. All the fishing equipment including Pete’s harpoon was on board No Debt so with Chris’s help, (she did not think she could hold the rod because of how hard I was working to hold it and real it in) I got into the bow of No Debt and was able to get one of the gaffs then Chris got into the bow of No Debt but it was quickly obvious that she was not going to be able to Gaff this thing. So Glen motored over in his big boat and he transferred from his bow to the Bow of Miner’s Debt and got into No Debt to assist. First we had to get Chris out of No Debt back onto Miner Debt to get her out of the way because three people in the bow of No Debt was not going to work. Once Chris was back on the big boat I reeled in the big Halibut and Glen put the Harpoon through it. Now we had it and just had to figure out how to land it. I got a loop on its tail so no we had it two ways and no way was it getting loose. Glen tried killing it with a knife but it did not take kindly to being stabbed so it began thrashing in the water and soaked both Glen and I. I finally was able to cut its gills and it was over. It took both of us to get it out of the water and secured to the big boat. Beautiful fish weighed in at 76 lbs and was almost 5 feet long, the largest thing I have ever caught. I have no earthly idea how anyone by themselves would have landed this fish or for that matter how you land anything bigger. There are pictures of 300 lb halibut everywhere and for the lfie of me I can’t figure out how you would manage something that big and strong. We spent the night cleaning and fileting the fish. Glen and I took them to shore and set up a table to do the cleaning and then brought them back for vacuum sealing on our back deck. The halibut steaks and roasts filled up our freezer and Pete and Lindas. Great night. We did not have halibut for dinner since we already had pulled out a bunch of pork chops so Chris said we had to eat those first since they had been out of the freezer for a couple days. Halibut tonight.

We went over to Kake after anchoring in Lords Pocket to explore. The tallest totem in the country is its name to fame. That is really all that they have. The village is really run down and there is nothing there for visitors, no stores no shops. We ran into the local police officer and he said the bears were feeding on the salmon run down by the creek so he gave the ladies a ride down in the back of his patrol vehicle. Glen and I walked. Sure enough, the black bears were feasting on the spawning chum salmon. There were four total that we could see and one mother with a cup just across the river from the hatchery viewing area. Pretty cool to be that close. Pete spun his prop on the way back so i ran everyone back in no debt then returned to tow pete back to the boats.

 7/31/13 We cruised on down to the north end of Rocky Pass and found a nice spot to anchor and to wait for the rising tide in the morning to pass thru the intricate and narrow channel. Glen, Nat and I ran Glens dinghy through to check it out and on the return trip his gears finally gave out and we had to motor back at near idle speed. He had hit rocks twice before on the trip bending his propellor shaft and the gears finally said enough was enough abuse. 

8/1/13 We motored thru Rocky Pass without incident, it is narrow and complex but the charts were dead on accurate and we had no problems finding our way around all the rocks and shallows. Not sure I would ever do it with paper charts or without a good working GPS. Found a really nice anchorage in Totem Bay on the north side of Sumner strait. The Douglas book does not speak highly of the bay and it is poorly charted so it is doubtful if many people use it. The cove I found was well inside all the shallows on the SW side of the bay just past two small islets. The chart showed that we anchored on land but we were in 20 feet of water at low tide 100 feet off a gravle beach protected from all but a NE wind. It was a perfect small cove with limited swinging room but enough for all four of us with a stern tie. I decided to name it RHYC cove.

 It was hot, near 81 so we had to take the dinghies out to get some cooler air. We took the shrimp pots out to a deep 330 foot hole just outside of the bay thinking it had to be a good shrimp hole. It was quite windy out there and the chop was all that No Debt wanted to handle. Tried fishing but no one was biting. Went up the river at the head of the bay at high tide after dinner and the fish were thick but again no luck. A few would grab the lure but I could not get them hooked. There was one black bear but he took off as soon as he saw Nats boat. 

 8/2/11 
Woke up to another great day. Went out to get the shrimp pots this morning and nothing in them. Dave lost his, not where to be found. We searched for quite a while in dense fog but no luck. Cruised on up to wrangle this morning in thick fog all the way to the south end of Wrangle narrows. The water was flat calm but had less than a quarter mile visibility all the way.  Thank god for AIS and good radar.  From Wrangle we will head down to Anan Bear observatory for hopefully some up close brown bear encounters. We have seperated from Colliers and Mehlum's and will be with Jung's for the trip home. Glen and Liz will be with us for the next couple days and then they have to leave the boat and head home for a week so we will be leaving them as well. Jim and Cheryl Matheson are here in Wrangle so we can catch up on all their adventures as well. Next posting will be in a couple days in Ketchikan.