Friday Funny 07-26/19 (Read 'em and Weep)

I don't normally buy paper books anymore, I love my Kindle, and I don't need to turn paper pages to be able to read. My Kindle has over a thousand books on it, all kinds, and quite a few came from Bookbub, so the cost was small, or free.  I also have the Kindle app on my phone, Ipad, and Mac, so I can view colorful pages in detail. It all works for me.

Recently though, while in Sitka, I think I spent most of my tourist dollars at the brick and mortar bookstore, "Old Harbor Books". None of the books I got were eligible for the Kindle, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Alaska Wild Plants

Since we found the sea asparagus, and the goose tongue so delicious, I thought I would expand our knowledge of what else we could eat in the wild. This book breaks the contents down by:

Sea and Sandy Shores, Gardens Lawns and Disturbed (?) Soils, Forest and Open Woods, Moist Places, Tundra and Dry Places, Grassy Meadows and Forest Openings, Marshes Ponds, and Wetlands, and the all important chapter, Poisonous Plants. I think we'll have a good time looking for more plants to try. 

Our Grandparents' Names on the Land
Names on the Chart, and how they got there.

These two books were recommended by a fellow cruiser we met over "sundowners" last week. Yes, even though we have very limited dark at night this time of year, we can still call the cocktail hour, sundowners.

Captain Vancouver, Captain Cook, and the Russians explored the Pacific Northwest, and Alaska, and they named all sorts of places after people, landmarks, and for other assorted reasons. It kind of drives me crazy, most of these places already had names, and I want to know what, and why. Both of these books have great information about what the original name was, and why it was changed. The one book I really need now, is a Tlingit pronunciation guide, I don't have much experience with the language. 

Exploring Alaska, British Columbia

This is the book I'm most excited about. (Thank you Walter for the recommendation!) It was printed in 1997, and was out of print until just recently. It was not updated, just reprinted, and the bookstore says that it just flies off the shelf, they can't keep it in stock. YAY,  two copies, and we got one of them.

Super fine print, and a lot of it!

See all that fine print, it's stories about what might have been there, what is there, why it was named, what activity happened, who landed, who was killed, what they found, what's the legend, all kinds of great information.

Here's an example, continuing on with our travels in all places with a scary name, we went through Deadman Reach, and anchored in Poison Cove.

We're anchored right on the capital P.

Looking in our Exploring book, here is the explanation.

No gathering mussels here!

Our buddy boater, Walter made a joke about how he was going to gather mussels for dinner, and we didn't get it until he showed us this entry in his Explorer book. I wondered how he knew so many stories about places where ever we went, and after he showed us the book, I had my answer.

Caves at Cornwallis Point

Get closer to see what's on the wall.

Pictograph in blood.

This is another example Walter showed us.

Cornwallis Pt. is reported to be the site of an abandoned Indian fort, and pictographs which were painted with the blood of slaves. 

And you thought I was done with the history lessons, I think I'm just getting started! 😁

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

Friday Funny 07-19/19 (Gus and Ford Lehman Make Friends)

Pets onboard.
The Owl, and the Pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat....

Gus has always been nervous every time we've started the engine on Denali Rose, but lately he's been adapting better to being underway. His usual reaction was to high-tail it for the aft cabin and either nestle into his shark bed, or curl up on the small settee.

Ready for departure.

Now Gus is actually staying in the pilothouse when we start the "growly monster", and has come up the companionway on his own to join us in the cockpit. He's done it a couple of times now, and seems to be more relaxed than nervous. 

Gus snuggled up with Bill, it was a chilly day.

We put harnesses on the cats when they come out into the cockpit while underway, they both like to try and wander out on the deck, and that is a no-no when we aren't at anchor. If they persist, then they get a leash attached, and that keeps them safely where they belong.

Elsie calm, and asleep, Gus is trying to imitate her, and he is on his leash for now.

Elsie has always been a good boat cat, she doesn't let anything faze her, except for our recent buddy boat's dog Jackie. Jackie came onboard when we rafted our boats up, and both Elsie, and Gus were having none of it!

Elsie likes to block the chartplotter, or maybe she's reading it.

Jackie the hyper-dog, as a bow ornament with Walter in his dinghy.

Once in awhile, Gus has even stolen Elsie's favorite cushion.

"What's the deal buster?"

At anchor, or the dock, here is Gus's favorite activity.

We call it "tickle toes", and Gus will leap up on the dodger, and meow until someone comes out to play.


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

Friday Funny 07-12/19 (Fish On!)

And I DID!

We left Craig and met up with a boating buddy from Wrangell who has a Nordic Tug trawler, named Sockeye. We're on our way to Sitka, but in cruiser fashion, we're lolly-gagging on the way, enjoying the journey.

We stopped for an afternoon in the Keku Islands, across from Kake, and went fishing. If you've been reading along, you might remember we've not caught anything we could keep and eat. My mantra has been, we've caught crab, halibut, flounder, and one shark, all too small, and thrown it all back in to grow up, except the shark, which we didn't want to keep anyway. Well as of now, I'm happy to report the "too small" streak has ended.

Keku Islands

It was a warm day, partly cloudy, but also it's hazy with smoke. Alaska, and BC Canada are experiencing high temperatures, and have a multitude of forest fires. It's affecting our air quality.

Here it comes!

I was reading, and I heard the reel start to move out, Zowee! I have a fish on!  While reeling it in, I had to take a moment to get a photo, and then Bill grabbed the gaff hook, and brought it onboard. I'm glad it wasn't any bigger, or we would have had more trouble dispatching it.

By the time it was over, the deck looked like a murder scene.

We were going to clean it onboard, but our buddy suggested we go ashore, and take care of it there. He has a Jack Russell terrier, and Jackie needed a trip to shore.  Jackie is a dog on hyper overdrive, I've never seen a dog with so much energy.

Jackie loves to play catch, loves sticks, and loves to swim.

So much seaweed, and stuff in the water in this bay.

We rafted up for the night, and had some wonderful snapper that Walter had caught, and cooked. We also had sea asparagus that was picked fresh in the bay. The plant's actual name is Glasswort, and it's delicious.

Steamed sea asparagus.

Anchored and rafted for the night.

A very successful day, I hope to have more of them.

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

Friday Funny 07-05/19 (Impeller, Propeller)

Since I have connectivity, I thought I'd post this early.... or late from last week, you can take your pick.

We hope you have a Happy Fourth of July celebration.

We're in Craig AK, on the southern west coast of Prince of Wales Island, and our unlimited data plan card is not finding a connection, and our cell phones that we use as hotspots are soooooo slow. I'm just trying to update crucial apps like AYE TIDES, SEAiq, and AQUA MAP, Audiobooks, stuff we use daily. Writing a blog post, becomes lower on the priority list, again, but I'm trying.

Labouchere Bay

While we were in Wrangell, Bill helped out many boat neighbors with their batteries, charging, monitors, and electrical issues, and didn't have time to do some of our maintenance before we untied, and left. He assured me that he had everything we needed to do our chores after departing the dock. We've had some issues too.

Bill changed the way Denali Rose's batteries were connected to the monitor, so the readings would be more accurate, and replaced the alternator for a new one. That system is now performing much better, and with the increase in power, as well as the solar panels he installed last summer, we are charging the batteries faster, and higher. A WIN!

We had noticed the raw water cooling for the engine, (Ford Lehman), was putting out less of a stream than normal, so Bill changed out the impeller, and used some lime-away in the heat exchanger units. He used one of the impellers from the stores of extra supplies that came with the boat when we purchased her 5 years ago. Afterwards, it didn't look like we were getting a bigger stream of water, and the engine was running just a little hotter than normal, not an issue, so we departed our anchorage for the days travel. Just as we left the protected bay, and into Sumner Strait, 15-20 knots of wind, 3ft seas, the engine started to overheat, and Bill shut it down. He left me to keep watch, making sure we didn't drift into anything dangerous, to keep an eye out for traffic, and went to check things in the engine room. Without any propulsion, Denali Rose turned broadside to rollers, waves, and wind, not fun. Bill didn't find anything obvious, suspecting the new impeller, we turned the engine back on, and motored very slowly back into the bay. He let the anchor out over the bow, and depended on the wind to pull us back and sink the anchor into the bottom mud.
Pulled out the "new" impeller, and fortunately, we had a newer spare. The rubber on the original spare had stiffened up so much it was brittle, and had destroyed itself, the new one, which was just purchased,  was still flexible.

Busted up first replacement impeller on top, and newer replacement one on bottom.

New(er) impeller installed, eureka! Great water flow from the cooling system! Another night in the bay, and we're good to go, no more over-heating issues. A LOSS, and a WIN!

We found two more spares in the Napa Store here, in Craig, so now we have 2 old spares, which we probably won't trust, due to age, and 2 new spares just in case. (If you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you'd know we're into redundancy....)

We also had a diver clean off some growth on our prop which was probably causing a slight vibration while underway, and replace 2 small anodes. The small community of Craig has been a WIN/WIN.

We're outta here, and will be back in the no wifi, no cell signal mode again. We're headed back north to rondezvous with a friend on his Nordic Tug, and buddy boat even farther north. 

Bill usually updates our "Where's the Boat" on Farkar, apparently we're north of Ireland. 

Very funny..... but if you want to see our progress, that is usually the link to check. 😀(Top Right)

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