Maybe that was true, but since we're all staying home all the time, it might not apply anymore.
Once we completed the dodger/bimini/dinghy chaps/weather cloths/cockpit cushion project, we left our slip in Wrangell, and went meandering Southeast. We cruised as far north as Sitka, with picturesque anchorages, and adventures along the way. Because we had very infrequent cell service, this blog got left behind, though some of you have followed along with our sporadic Facebook posts. Also, even with no internet, our boat, (house), is not very clean either.
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| Completed dodger/bimini |
A few highlights:
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| Sunset, just outside Rocky Pass. |
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| Meeting up with sistership Raven's Dance, and Donn. Photo courtesy of Donn, and his drone. |
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The glacier is viewable on the way into Takatz Bay, east coast side of Baranof Island.
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Gus is enjoying the ride.
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Baby Bear Bay, alas, no bears were spotted.
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Gus has taken over the Skipper's seat.
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| We had a little over a week in Sitka with beautiful weather for some of it. |
We left Sitka with the threat of hurricane force winds out in the Gulf of Alaska, and we headed for a protected bay to wait it out. It was quite the experience, as Bill set the Spade anchor well, put on a double bridle, chafe guards, and we saw 45knots of wind as the highest wind speed to rock the boat. Sitka's highest wind speed for that storm was 68knots.
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One anchor deployed, with double bridle, and chafe guard, second anchor at the ready.
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We eventually went back to Takatz Bay, it's sheltered, and has just a scrap of a cell signal, while we were there, we had an interesting visitor.
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Large landing craft with a tanker truck onboard.
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Okay, we can share the bay with you, 😀but then the show got more interesting.
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Yellow helicopter, vs yellow submarine....
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The copter landed and let two guys off, and the landing craft went over to the far shore.
About every five minutes, the helicopter would come over, pickup a full bladder of fuel, and carry it off to the destination, and then bring back an empty to be refilled. We didn't count them all, but we figured about 25-30 trips that day. Since the turn around time was so short, we thought they were refueling the nearby cell tower that is on the next mountain over.
About 4;30pm, as the tide was coming back in, the landing craft left, and the helicopter landed on the scrap of beach, picked up the men, and flew off.
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Show's over.
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Over the next couple of days, the temperatures started to get colder, and because the sun only made it over the mountains for a brief time, the bay, which is also fed from a fresh water creek, started to ice over. You could hear the ice cracking as it hit the hull of Denali Rose on it's way by in the current.
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Time to find another bay.
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Baranof Warm Springs is just a couple of hours away, and the hot springs sounded pretty good.
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A beautiful day in Chatham Strait.
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| Coming into Warm Springs, we're hoping there's room at the dock. (There was.) |
One of the attractions of Warm Springs is the bathhouse. There are 3 rooms with constant running hot water from the springs. They have constructed the rooms so that they look out over the bay, have curtains if you need them, and have a cold water spigot. When you finish your soak, you pull the pipe out of the over flow drain, let out all the water, clean your tub, put the pipe back in, and it is ready for the next occupant. Lest you worry, the water is constantly moving as the tub fills past the overflow pipe, and pours out underneath the bathhouse, this way the water in the tub is always replenishing with fresh.
It's a great place to relax. We arrived on a sunny day, but the rain found us again, and the waterfall became astounding.
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The falls the day we arrived.
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The falls in the next day or so, after a couple of torrential downpours.
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We met a lovely young couple out cruising on Steel Eagle, Will, and Cheyanne. We would love to meet up again, and see what they are up to.
We let the hot springs soak into our bones for a week, and then had a weather window to head towards Petersburg.
We don't like to do nighttime transits, too much stuff in the water, kelp beds, floating logs, with late fall, the daylight hours being shorter, and, besides, our motto, "we have no schedule, and we're sticking to it", is always in effect. We took a couple of days, and two more bays to get us to Petersburg.
Some of our animal sightings this past summer/fall.
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| Brown Bear |
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Pretty rare to see a moose.
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Land [AKA River] Otters on the dock.
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We saw whales, or whale spouts, but none close enough to photograph, and the usual cast of sea lions, seals, and jelly fish.
It hasn't been all fun, and games, however, even with waiting on good weather windows, Gus and I had several bouts of mal de mer, (seasickness). Bummer, and Bonine to the rescue, he gets 1/4 tab, and I take the other 3/4. (Vet approved)
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Gus is in one of his favorite napping spots, it's hard to type holding a cat, but I don't think Gus cares.
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As always, we enjoy hearing from you, either here in comments or on our Facebook Denali Rose Sailboat page.
