Friday Funny 09/22 (Adventures in Juneau)

Yikes!

It wasn't exactly like that.

We have a good friend in Juneau, who was most gracious to let us borrow a vehicle to run errands, and grocery shop while we're here. It's twelve miles from Stattler Harbor to town, and the Fred Meyer grocery is about midway. That's too far to walk, and carry parts from the chandlery, and grocery store. 

We borrowed his Ford truck, and the passenger door had closing and locking issues, but the driver door was cooperating... all good. Our last stop was to get groceries, to keep perishables cool until we reached the boat. Everything accomplished, we walked back to the vehicle, and found the driver door was stuck in locked mode also. So we didn't lock ourselves out, the truck did it to us. We HAD the keys, and fob, and the truck refused to open.

I can imagine what it was thinking: "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that..."

John, (from Dawn Treader V, our buddy boat), and I left in a cab, with the groceries, and Bill stayed behind to help with the unlocking. 

Where's the magic Genie when you need him?

The guy with the slim jim came, and unlocked the truck. ($$) Bill and our friend delivered the truck home, and Bill back to the boat.  I suppose renting a car might have been more cost effective. Live and learn, life's little adventures....

I have no idea why I took this photo of the parking lot, but that's our buddy John.

Looking at the bright side, the day had clear blue skies and warm. That's a rare day in Juneau, and we enjoyed it.

The view from the harbor.

That's Mendenhall Glacier behind the harbor, and when the clouds lift, it's a beautiful view.

Mendenhall view from Stephens Passage, as you head towards Auke Bay.

Talk like a Pirate Day, September 19th, had us smiling at a local decoration.

Cool boat name, and passenger.

We are in Statter Harbor in Auke Bay. They have approximately 324 transient spaces for vessels, depending on how long the boats are. There aren't any slips, so everyone parallel parks on three floats, two of the floats have power and water. It's a very full marina, and if you arrive late, then you can expect to circle around looking for a spot, usually ending up out on the outer float without power. Because it's so busy, there's a rule about moving your boat every 10 days, May 1st to Oct 1st. It's kind of like boat musical chairs, you never know who'll be your next boat neighbor. It might be like us, a private cruiser, power or sail, a commercial fishing vessel, a large whale watching charter craft, or an aluminum skiff. We've only moved once, but a fellow cruiser has moved 5 times, each time, getting closer to an open power plug.

Interesting boat name.

I took the bus to town to the Alaska State Museum, I encountered free-range chickens at the bus stop.

I put most of my museum photos on facebook, Denali Rose Sailboat, so I won't repost them here, but here is one of the best things in the museum.

Shipwrecks

Whales

Weather

This is a large rotating globe, with hundreds of programs that you can request to see different topics around the world. This first globe was what someone else requested, Historic Shipwrecks. The second one is the Migration of Whales, and the third one is real-time NOAA weather. I spent the most time in this room.

I'm entering a coloring book contest, but I'm not going to tell you where or what. I don't want you to compete with me. More to come later....

Have you ever borrowed a vehicle, like visiting museums, or enjoy coloring books? Let us know your experiences.

As always, we enjoy hearing from you, either here in comments or on our Facebook Denali Rose Sailboat page.

Friday Funny 09/15 (Fall cruising)

I apologize for last weeks post. I opened up the page on my phone, and discovered that the captions were too small to see, and blurry. So that experiment is over. I thought it would be easier, and fun, but it wasn't. (At least for you anyway.)

Read the smallest line you can.....

Our first stop was St Johns Harbor, we always get a beautiful sunset there.

Lovely

The next morning, we discovered a problem, and after a call to American Diesel, fixed up a work around. Thank goodness for a cell signal, except of course, we could have used the SAT phone.

Leaky part replaced.

Morning inspection

We set off for Petersburg in the fog.

Hooray for radar!

Bill had a birthday in Petersburg. Since our oven is still not operational, I had to get creative. Voila, a stacked apple cookie cake! We also had a really good pizza from Papa Bear's, huge and delicious.

Happy Birthday to you. 🎶

Leaving Petersburg to continue north. (We're kinda going backwards to what most the summer cruisers have done. They're putting their boats away for the season, and we are just getting started.)

Comorants, and sea lions

We headed for Thomas Bay, because we wanted to see what Baird Glacier looked like. 

Disappointing

It's not much. This is as close as we can get, due to shallow water, and it's just a small lump of ice.

Le Conte Glacier

This is the view of Le Conte Glacier, (southernmost tidewater glacier), that can be seen when leaving Petersburg. That's the kind of scenery I like.

Motor-sailing

Leaving Thomas Bay, where we had anchored behind Ruth Island for the night, we encountered some wind, and lumpy waves. Bill put up the main sail, which helped scoot us along, and leveled out our ride. We started with one reef, (Reefing is the means of reducing the area of a sail, usually by folding or rolling one edge of the canvas in on itself.)  Later he went out and reefed it again, which was good since the wind picked up even more. 

By the time we turned right into Cleveland Passage to anchor, the winds were gusting to 34knots, and seas were 4-5foot. It wasn't fun (for me, Bill, as usual was in his element), when we were broadsided by wind and waves as we entered the passage. Denali Rose heeled to 30degrees at times, wheeee. I'm still getting used to, and learning to sail, time, it takes time. We stayed for two days, while waiting for more favorable weather. One night a small cruise ship joined us in the anchorage, they must not have liked the weather either. 

What's this?

Submarine

While on watch, I saw this in the distance, at first I thought it was a rock. I decided it was a submarine disguised as a large tree from the Tongass forest. You can decide which agency, and which country it belongs to.

Are we crazy for starting our journey when everyone else is done boating? Should we go back to our slip in Wrangell, and batten down the hatches? Wind, yay, or nay, after all we are a sailboat.....

As always, we enjoy hearing from you, either here in comments or on our Facebook Denali Rose Sailboat page.