I left
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Full Circle
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
My Headed Home Face
The weather has turned absolutely beautiful! Unfortunately, as you know Ginger has flown out back to hot, hot, hot
For those of you who know the area, I motored from Lagoon Cove to Francis Bay (N 50 degrees 21.011' W 125 degrees 02.506') at the lower end of Yaculta Rapids, 69nm, transiting all five tidal rapids. I noticed a Sundowner Tug at the dock in Shoal Bay but I was between rapids and couldn't take the time to stop in. I think it was a 36' with red trim. The further south I get the more boats there are. Going through the rapids was like playing bumper cars! That was the day after Ginger left, yesterday.
Today I left
I should be back in Anacortes in acouple of days. 1963nm to date.
Alaska veteran M/V DUNVEGAN may be for sale.
Changeup
(This was written two days ago and I've traveled a lot since but here is what I had to say then.)
Fog, fog, fog and five straight days of driving rain. These photos are of Lagoon Cove Marina, Ginger's ride and morning in Cutter Cove.
But today is a transition day. Same weather this morning but much improved in the afternoon. Broken skies and the sun is burning hot when it peeks through. The boat is soggy. Soggy to the point that there is mold growing in many, many hard to clean places. Everything that can be opened is now open.
The other part of this transition is that Ginger flew out of Lagoon Cove (N 50 degrees 35.939’ W 126 degrees 18.821’) on a Kenmore Air float plane. The plan was that I would see that she got off OK and then I would head downstream trying to make a full day’s transit in a half of a day. But Kenmore Air was four hours late and put me way behind the curve so I am spending the night in Lagoon Cove again. There are worse things than spending another night here. Tomorrow morning I will shove off at 0530hrs.
I am sad to see her go. Ginger has been the best first mate. I have put her through the fog, the endless rain, the five footers, the eight foot steep-to swells and the long days with not a whimper. There have also been the amazing, beyond belief days sprinkled throughout! She spent 44 days on this little boat with me, that might be asking too much. I would do it again in a heartbeat!
It is really amazing how quickly things can change. I am rapidly shifting back into my singlehanding mode. I have been aboard 65 days as of today and am feeling quite comfortable with it. I was feeling very pressed to push hard to get back to Anacortes once Ginger left but with the weather change and the experiences along the way, I am now starting to want this to never end.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Dear Owen
Owen,
As much as I sometimes worry about something going wrong, DUNVEGAN (PLACEBO) has not missed a beat. she is a natural for this kind of cruising. We have met a lot of people cruising who admire her even though she is usually the smallest boat in the harbour. Thanks for taking such good care of PLACEBO (DUNVEGAN) and passing her onto us. She has given us a once in a lifetime experience and we are grateful. (Although, this trip has convinced us that we will return to Alaska in a boat).
Tom and Ann remembered the boat and said to say hi to you and Suzette. I updated them on BOOMER, I think they would like to hear from you sometime.
My advice to you is to not wait until everything is perfect with BOOMER to cruise to Alaska, just do it! You will probably want to make some modifications as a result of the cruise anyway.
We are currently sitting at the dock in Kwatsi Bay, still as wonderous as ever. In two days we will be in Lagoon Cove where Ginger will fly from, back to the lower 48. I will singlehand back to Anacortes on no particular schedule. We stopped by Lacy Falls on the way in. Here are some shots of the falls and Kwatsi Bay.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Fog and Fish
Arriving at Shearwater after a long run we took on fuel, took showers, did the laundry, shopped for groceries and went to dinner in a real restaurant. Sorry, no time for blogging.
As I write this (7-19-07, 2112hrs.Pacific Time), we are at the dock at Greenway Sound Marine Resort (N 50 degrees 50.323' W126 degrees 46.290'). Business looks to be a little slow here but they weren’t even open when I came by here on the way up.
We have put on 702nm in 14 days since leaving Juneau averaging 50nm per day. 1761nm total to date.
Admit It, There are Easier Routes
We left Klemtu with a favorable weather report (except for the fog which didn’t last very long) and decided to take on Milbanke Sound where I got me butt kicked on the way up. Well, that lasted about three miles, or until the swells reached about eight feet and a little too steep. Ginger didn’t much like that and I didn’t either. We reversed course and headed for Oscar Passage to take the much more protected inside route to
Spirit Bear Makes an Appearance
Note to “
The reason the glaciers are blue is because the ice is formed under tremendous pressure, and all the oxygen is forced out of the ice. So it is not at all like the stuff that comes out of the freezer compartment of your Frigidaire. Like getting diamonds from coal, except not. Anyway, the glacier ice absorbs most of the light spectrum, except the blue light, which is reflected, making the ice blue.
Think I’m pulling your leg on the halibut huh? Here is an exact quote, taken from the
Big Ships, Little Boats
Here is the range of sizes of vessels plying the waters of the Prince Rupert area.
Leaving the harbour, within one hour we were back in the fog. Two hours of dodging navy ships, fishing boats, logs and islands led us to the top of Grenville Channel, or "The Ditch" as it is called because it is a channel 45nm long and an average of about two miles wide. Here we got a pretty good closeup view of a large killer whale. We motored 77nm today to an anchorage called Coghlan (N 53 degrees 23.740' W 129 degrees 17.211') near Hartley Bay. Not much time for play right now, just putting some miles on.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Full Steam Ahead!
If every day was perfect, how would you expand your experience?
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Leaving Ketchikan
Ketchikan has no clouds and is warm and absolutely beautiful!
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Too Cool!
Special Edition
Sometimes on this cruise, posts can get a little out of sequence as you may have noticed. I hope that most of it makes sense though. Here is one that I didn’t get to and I have posted some similar photos before but these are better.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
The Wonders of Stephens Passage
July 7 - Ginger started the day in a sad and somber mood, mourning the death of a friend, but
We were seeing whales all along the route, but at the southern end of Stephens Passage, the humpbacks started breaching. We first noticed it off in the distance, by the giant splashes they were making. Leaping into the air and landing on their backs- kerplosh!
We motored in to Port Houghton, headed for
After a couple hours of labor, the 100 lb halibut was reduced to 45 lbs of ziplock bagged fillets, completely filling the mini-fridge of the DUNVEGAN. Dinner was cooked and cleaned and it was time for rest. But no, there’s more.
All day long we had been hearing the Coast Guard talking about a boat in need of assistance, but we couldn’t really tell where the boat was located. Finally, we heard the skipper of the broken-down boat spell the name of the bay where he was located, and we realized we were in the same bay. So, off we went to do some “night ops”. The broken boat was a commercial crabber, who has lost his outdrive. I mean really lost it as in totally gone! We towed him into
Finally hit the rack at midnight, with the realization that being sad wasn’t going to help anyone. We will carry on with the trip.
Sad News
July 6, the phone rang early. Never a good sign. It was news that a close colleague and friend of Ginger’s had passed away suddenly while on a business trip. He was only 46, and left a wife and two young daughters. She will miss his bad jokes, politically incorrect everything, and his wildly creative intelligence.
With a heavy heart, we left
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Hot! Hot! Hot!
The Fourth of July appears to be a big deal in
The weather here is about 58 degrees, overcast and occasional sprinkles. I did get to look at the weather in
A nice day to go to Mendenhall Glacier! I post some photos for you folks in all those hot places so you can just gaze at them and cool off! As I’ve mentioned before, if you click on the photo, you should be able to get a much closer look at the ice!
An aside to this post; we got information today that the
Hire the Guys that do it Best.
Today we took an early cab to
We spent the whole day and had good luck. Collin even hooked a halibut under very unusual circumstances. The bottom was at about 100 to 125 feet and we were trolling at 55 feet. We all thought he had a king salmon on; it was big and put up a pretty good fight. At the boat it turned out to be about a 35 pound halibut! Halibut are bottom fish and are almost never caught trolling, so this was a big surprise.
By the way, if any cruisers read this blog and are headed to the