Cruising Several More Bays 09/01-2025

 Ten points for you if you guessed that Bill filled in the details on my blog post in a couple of places.

Mainly here: The next day, under investigation, Bill discovered an obscured, unused, redundant oil filler neck and elbow mounted at the top of the oil pan had fallen off. [Later to be discovered under the black oil in the bilge…] The 1 inch mounting hole is above the oil line, but would allow the crankcase pressure to vent. And since our last 30 minutes coming into this anchorage from Dixon Entrance we are rolling in the ocean swell as we traversed over the shallower shelf, it must have helped splash oil out the new hole… into the deep bilge [~3 quarts in the bilge out of 8 in the oil pan...] Otherwise, the bulk of the oil would have remained in the pan with just a loss of oil pressure…

I think he could have inserted his name "Bill here", and carried on with the explanations. I doubt any of you thought this sounded like me, my usual "oil thingy", not "obscured, unused, redundant oil filler neck and elbow". 😁

Onward to Hessa Inlet, they’re many places to anchor, we chose to go through the narrows, and anchor in the inner bay. It’a quite large, and there were many otters to watch.

You can see the currents swirling around in the narrows, we waited for slack tide in order to have an easy transit. (Slack tide: a brief period in a tidal cycle when the horizontal movement of the water, the tidal current, is at its minimum, appearing to be still. This brief pause in water movement happens around the time of high and low tides.)

Cormorants, and gulls resting on a floating log. 

We were out exploring in the dinghy, watching otters, and Denali Rose in the distance.

Next is Eureka Channel, this was not really a bay or an inlet, just a group of islands separating us from the Gulf of Alaska. Calm weather was forecasted, so it was comfortable for the time being. 

We had some beautiful sunsets.

Across to Elbow Bay. 

We’re doing short hops to keep the crew happy, and enjoy the area while we’re here. 

Otters are always curious as they pop their heads out of the water, but they keep their distance, also being wary. 

Back across to Mabel Bay, behind Mabel Island.

A pretty significant, and probably recent landslide in here. We don’t anchor near them, as there is usually quite a bit of debris in the water, mud, rocks, trees… we don’t need to foul our boat or our anchor in that. 

Another game of where’s the rocks?

Low tide

High tide

We’re anchored in front of this island, but not so close as to drift into it when the anchor chain stretches out. We had gale warnings, and prepped the boat for wind. This includes making sure nothing is lying loose, and Bill puts a backup bridle on the anchor chain, among other chores.

Even though we have a “water maker” a device that desalinates ocean water into clean clear water, we put out three tubs to collect the rain that was coming from the atmospheric river. 

Each one had about 9 inches of water in it the next day. Bill siphoned them into the water tank, fresh water with minimal effort or power.

Gus enjoys the sunsets also.

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