Another Storm 09/30-2025

 Storms in the ocean of life. 

Where we were located, on the chart.

We’re surrounded on all sides with a tree line but one, and with binoculars, through that one area between the small islands, we could see what the channel ahead of us looked like. Sometimes we could  see whitecaps and crashing surf, but they never made it into our little bay.  With the low hills, and trees, we could be relatively safe from williwas forming in our area. 

(A williwaw is a sudden blast of wind descending from a mountainous coast to the sea. Williwaw is considered a type of katabatic wind.)

Ketchikan Fire Department gives their updates with a large dose of humor, fun to read, as you look at the NOAA chart. Hopefully you have a chuckle, not a panic attack. 

We prepared for what was coming, always looking out for worst case scenario.

Strapped the table on the back deck down.

Hung a heavy chain on the stack of tub, as well as taped on the lid.

Taped down tub lid, and added a bungey to the BBQ cover.

Put all the dock lines inside an empty cooler.

We lost a tub lid in the blow in Hydaburg, and the fabric cover on the BBQ tried to depart, so now we’re being proactive. We also added extra sail ties to the main sail cover, as it had also started to flap. I see that I have a few winter reinforcement sewing projects.

Bill put an extra backup bridle on the main anchor rode, and then deployed the second anchor as a Hammerlock Moor.

Yaw: In sailing, yaw is the rotation of the boat around its vertical axis, causing the bow to swing side to side, like the boat is turning left and right from a straight course. This motion can be influenced by strong winds, currents, and waves.

We emptied the cockpit of all things, cushions, towels, non-skid pieces, and left the covers off of all of the navigational electronics, in case we had to make a swift exit, or start up the engine.

Bill left  the MFD in the pilothouse, on standby mode, so that with a single touch it would immediately be on.

MFD: Multifunction Displays are the control hub of your boat. They serve as the interface for marine electronics and other digitally-enabled equipment and bring all of that together in an easily accessed way.

Cat bed next to pilot station removed of course.

I had one follower on our Facebook Denali Rose Sailboat page ask, “Why are you there this time of year?” A legitimate question. My answer: September can be a wonderful time of year, the fall color, sun,(Indian summer), few tourists, and we like year round cruising. This year those lows from the Gulf of Alaska  have been early, and strong, and we are slowly working our way back to our slip in Wrangell. 

I actually asked Bill the same question, his answer: “It’s all part of the cruising lifestyle.” 😑

We ended up with the usual 10-20kts, with gusts 30-35kts. The hammerlock mooring worked great, we didn’t yaw back and forth, and we didn’t have any of the big wind that others did. Our discussion before the storm had us contemplating returning to Hydaburg, to tie securely to the dock, but then Bill thought he had made a good choice of the anchorage, and we’d be better off where we were. Good thinking, as Hydaburg recorded 50kts, and Craig recorded 47kts.

The morning we decided to move on to the next anchorage, it took us quite a while to get the main anchor onboard.

We’re definitely pulling something large out of the water.

Kelp, and the entire root ball, including everything attached to it, starfish, mud, barnacles, and garbage. It was wrapped around the anchor, and the chain, and Bill had to use the boat hook to yank it off one piece at a time. 

We left a large trail of mud.

This looked like it had been a plastic inflatable globe, it was in the center of the root ball.

Gus is in the cockpit supervising the preparations for the storm. He’s quite the task master.

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