Right after leaving the shelter of the breakwater that protects Ketchikan's Bar Harbor, we hoisted the sails and switched off the engine. The forecasted strong southerlies had materialized for once, and even much sooner than anounced. What followed was a long day of exciting sailing, the best of the trip, avoiding most rain and even enjoying plenty of sunshine!
We exited Tongass Narrows and crossed Behm Canal on a beam reach to continue into Clarence Strait. There we ran wing and wing in well over 20 knots of wind, surfing down waves and requiring a great deal of concentration to (successfully) avoid unplanned jibes. After a right turn into Ernest Sound a broad reach brought us close to Deer Island where the wind no longer could reach us and the motor was turned on. We had enjoyed eleven hours of sailing at nearly 6 knots average!
About to enter Seward Passage behind Deer Island, we noticed some strange splashing on the shore to our starboard. Binoculars revealed it was a whale continously splashing its tail! We went ahead and approached the show up to a few hundred meters and watched it till the end through our binoculars and camera's zoom lens. The whale would splash for a while next to the steep shore and then dive down along the rock wall for a dozen minutes, and repeated this several times. Our best guess was that it tried to scare fish away from the wall and would then try to catch them.
After this we started trawling and Laszlo tangled twice with a big beautiful silver and pink fish that managed to unhook itself and evade him. He was totally stoked nonetheless.
We spent the night at Frosty Bay where we enjoyed a great sunset:
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| Laszlo fished for bottom feeders: |
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| Jenny enjoyed the sunset: |
Wednesday 29 May
This was the morning that should be inscribed into humanity's annals. Laszlo caught his first fish on this trip!
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| Wrangell docks at low tide |
This sizable rock fish was hooked from the anchored boat and was received to lots of cheering! It was put in a bucket to keep it alive till dinner.
In narrow waterways where the wind could hardly reach us, we motored most of the way to Madan Bay at the end of Blake Channel where we spent the night.
Thursday 30 May
It was a short trip to Wrangell over Eastern Passage.
In narrow waterways where the wind could hardly reach us, we motored most of the way to Madan Bay at the end of Blake Channel where we spent the night.
Thursday 30 May
It was a short trip to Wrangell over Eastern Passage.
We refueled and ate halibut burgers, but most of all, we walked all the way to the beach that has the petroglyphs. That's why we had timed our arrival in Wrangell for low tide. Reproduction petroglyphs and "information" panels that boil down to saying we know nothing about them:
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| Searching the beach for the actual petroglyphs |
Quickly more were detected in the vicinity:
(They're 50 meters to the north of the deck if you ever go there.)
A crazy dog with slightly crossed eyes was running free on the beach and was barking furiously at us the whole time. It simply wanted to play and we started throwing sticks. It would bring them back and then bark furiously right in our faces again until we'd throw it one more time, over and over. We think it does this to all the visitors of the petroglyph beach. As soon as we left it went its own way too, expressing a lot of disappointment but clearly set in a routine.
Crazy dog:
A crazy dog with slightly crossed eyes was running free on the beach and was barking furiously at us the whole time. It simply wanted to play and we started throwing sticks. It would bring them back and then bark furiously right in our faces again until we'd throw it one more time, over and over. We think it does this to all the visitors of the petroglyph beach. As soon as we left it went its own way too, expressing a lot of disappointment but clearly set in a routine.
Crazy dog:
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