Hello Again From Southeast!

We have arrived in Juneau! We got here a couple days early for reasons I will soon explain, for now let’s just say it has been an awesome several days.

Leaving out of Petersburg we headed NW into Frederick Sound where it is reported that humpback whales like to congregate so we were on the lookout. No whales but Dall Porpoise visited again as they have been doing quite regularly, playing in the bow wake and jumping in front of the boat. They are so graceful and fluid in motion.

The weather was fairly good so we decided to continue on NW past Patterson and Baird glaciers which can be seen easily from Frederick Sound. These are not the biggest glaciers around but actually, they are huge. The glacier blue ice is an amazing color. The skies were overcast so the photos don’t do the glaciers justice.

Rounding Cape Fanshaw leads into Stephens Passage but we had gone far enough for one day. In fact we passed two anchorages that were on our list of possibilities just to make some distance. These passages and sounds in Southeast are quite large and can be intimidating. However, they are much more protected than say Queen Charlotte Sound and are not quite so foreboding. As it turns out, I needed to change a fuel filter and there is a fairly good anchorage in Cleveland Passage just around the Cape so the timing worked out quite well. (N 57 degrees 13.443’ W 133 degrees 30.190’). Thirty-eight nautical miles today and 894nm so far.

We anchored in about 58 feet of water which is as much as I like to anchor in. In Alaska things are just bigger and the anchorages can be much deeper and wilder. DUNVEGAN carries 300 feet of anchor rode and 50 feet of chain shackled to a 15kg Bruce anchor so we do have some flexibility. We also carry 600 feet of line on a reel for use as a stern tie if needed. Deep anchorages, big tidal exchanges, heavy weather and big water all conspire to challenge ones preparations and abilities. After the evening blow, the wind and water flattened out and we had a quiet night. The days start early up here, check out the sunrise time.