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.

It sounds like the lower 48 is scorched and burning up. Up here it nice and cool, not too cool, just right.

We wanted to go into a long inlet called Tracy Arm south of Juneau but I didn’t want the wear and tear on the boat. The wear and tear would come from all the ice floating away from Sawyer Glacier that we would have to navigate through. A company runs a charter service using two boats, one 58 feet and the other 65 feet long. The owner and captain did a great job of getting us up close and personal with the glacier. To be honest, Tracy Arm would be absolutely spectacular even if there was no ice! Again, the blue of the ice is just amazing and the glacier was actively calving when we were there.

I will include a photo of a 37’ Nordic Tug that I will guess was a charter because I don’t think this guy would take his own boat into this place.

So, I hope that gazing at these beautiful ice photos will provide some relief from the heat. Fire up the air conditioner, grab an ice cold beverage and click on the photos for a close up view. Enjoy!

The Wonders of Stephens Passage

July 7 - Ginger started the day in a sad and somber mood, mourning the death of a friend, but Alaska just kept throwing spectacular nature shows at us, making it impossible not to smile. We motored down Stephens Passage from Taku Harbor, expecting a south wind and rough seas. The passage stayed a mill pond all day. Passing Sunset Island we came upon a colony of sea lions. There must have been a hundred, swimming, fishing, and lolling on the rocks. Wish this blog had a sound track so you could hear their groaning and growls. The bigger ones looked like they weighed 1000 lbs.

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 Sanborn Canal. We stopped to fish a little, mainly because we needed some fresh bait for the crab trap. We hadn’t been fishing more than a half-hour when Ginger tied into a big one! Another barn door halibut! This time, we felt like old experienced deck hands. Frank got the halibut spear ready while Ginger horsed the beast up from the bottom. Then a sea lion popped up, right next to the boat, obviously attracted by all the splashing and thrashing. So much for old experienced deck hands… we really didn’t know what we were going to do if that sea lion grabbed a hold of the halibut, which by this time was tied to the boat dragging in the water behind us. Ginger started yelling at the sea lion like it was a misbehaving dog. NO! GET BACK! And other words not suitable for a family-friendly blog. Maybe the yelling worked, because the sea lion stayed away long enough for us to get the beast hoisted up by the lifting boom.

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 Sanborn Canal, a safer place for him to wait for a tow to town. (58 nm away).

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 Juneau, pointed south. It is time to retrace our steps and head in the direction of home.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

The Fourth of July appears to be a big deal in Juneau. Big parades and a great fireworks celebration, or so I’ve been told. I was in bed long before the bombs were bursting in the air. We did get mixed up with the parade a little bit when we tried to make our way down town to pick up our tickets for the Tracy Arm run tomorrow. The parade had just a bit of a freaky touch to it. Lots of politics and great diversity. This was a kind of a day off, at least we started out without any plans.

The weather here is about 58 degrees, overcast and occasional sprinkles. I did get to look at the weather in Missoula. 101 on Thursday and 103 on Friday and then cooling way off to 95. I think I will be happy with the weather here.

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 Ketchikan newspaper quoted this blog in reference to the situation back in Prince Rupert and the flooding problem. We’re almost famous!

Hire the Guys that do it Best.

Today we took an early cab to Auke Bay, about ten miles from Juneau, to meet with our guide, Jason from Southeast Sportfishing for a day of salmon fishing. We need to get Collin hooked up with a salmon! The outfit is running all new welded aluminum Allen Marine boats set up for charter. Jason is the kind of guy that eats, drinks and breathes fishing. Born and raised in Alaska, he knows this area and the fish intimately. He took us down the west coast of Admiralty Island to Lizard Head.

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.

We also caught two king salmon, three nice bright chum, and two fresh pinks as well as assorted rockfish. The kings were undersized and were released, as were the rockfish.

We will get some of this salmon smoked and canned for the trip back to Montana. Did I mention fishing is good in Alaska?

By the way, if any cruisers read this blog and are headed to the Juneau area, Auke Bay is the place to go. I’ll expound on that a little bit later.

Taku Harbor

The morning after Collin arrived we set out for Taku Harbor, about 25nm south of Juneau for an overnight stay. This harbor is quite well protected for most weather. There are two floats, one connected to shore with a ramp. We stayed at the other float. The idea was to do some fishing and set a crab trap. We did try to chase down some salmon but DUNVEGAN is just not set up for salmon. I have downriggers but they are sitting in Montana!

We were fishing along a wall that goes to about 400 feet at 75 feet from shore when Ginger snagged the wall. We worked diligently to retrieve the tackle because 1) it is expensive and 2) we had very heavy/strong line on. After working every angle and pulling as hard as possible, I took a couple dallies around the Sampson post and backed away. The bottom gave way and Ginger reeled in some Alaskan coral. It was incredibly strong but came up in one piece. Very beautiful and quite unexpected in these cold waters but here is a nice photo of it.

We managed to capture one nice dusky rockfish, big enough for a couple nice fillets.

Leaving Taku Harbor (N 58 degrees 03.736' W 134 degrees 01.225') we headed back to Juneau to get ready for our charter salmon trip on Tuesday. In Southeast, charter fishing and commercial fishing operate side by side but there is plenty of animosity as evidenced by the bumper sticker we saw in Sitka “Charter Fishing…… How Gay is That”. We did meet a commercial fisherman at the float in Taku Harbor who gave us a sockeye salmon just because he was a nice guy.

Skipped Town to Sitka.

Plans are firming up for the next portion of this cruise. We have decided that Juneau is the farthest point north we will venture. We will be in the Juneau/Sitka area for about two weeks and then head south.

Ginger’s son, Collin will fly to Juneau arriving on June 30^th at midnight and will leave on the 6^{th of} July. On the 27^th we boarded the Alaska State Ferry M/V FAIRWEATHER, a fast ferry (32kts.) and went to Sitka. Sitka was on our itinerary but with the new plan, we could not make the run in DUNVEGAN from Juneau to Sitka and return within the time allotted. Our boat would take about four days each way and the fast ferry takes 4.5 hours each way.

The fast ferry runs only on odd numbered days so that is why the wait until Wednesday to go to Sitka. While Collin is here we will do some fishing on DUNVEGAN and possibly do a charter fishing trip on one day.

We also have a charter booked for a trip to Tracy Arm for the glaciers. The Tracy Arm trip would take three to four days also. One overnight at an anchorage at the mouth of Tracy, one day to run up the inlet and then overnight in the same anchorage, plus the time to get to the area. Also, it is not advisable to go into an area with so much ice in the water without a spare propeller due to the possibility of hitting ice and causing damage.

SITKA I must say, I am quite taken with Sitka. I think it is the nicest town we have seen in Southeast. If I was considering living in Alaska (and I am considering it!) it could very well be Sitka. I saw a statistic that said there is more sport caught salmon landed in Sitka than in all other fishing ports in Southeast combined! Halibut may have similar stats.

We had great weather while in Sitka so that always serves to skew one's impressions.