Anan Bear Observatory, near Wrangell, AK

The Forest Service manages this place on Anan Creek where salmon run thick, bears and eagles are abundant, and they built observation deck railings and a blind where a limited number of folks get permits daily to observe the bears. Spencer took us there, equipped to protect us if the need arose. 

We walked 1/2 mile in, got a briefing from a Forest Service employee, and spent 3 hours watching bears and eagles fishing, close-up but safely behind a rail or in a blind.

First bear we saw was a Grizzly swimming and fishing in the stream.

Next up was many black bears within 10 to 150 feet from where we stood. 

We always felt safe, but occasionally our guide told us to step back in case the bear took a swipe at us from the railing. 

There were 7 of us with our guide, and we all declared it a major highlight of our trips. 

Some bears were really good at catching fish, others less so. 

I have numerous 30-second videos of bears in the stream, actually catching fish, but Blogger won't let me post videos. Or maybe I just don't know how to make it do that. 

Thanks Wrangell! It's been a great stop. 

Wrangell, AK

We planned to fish Thursday, then have Happy Hour with Al and Nancy who own a cabin in Meyers Chuck, friends of our Gig Harbor buddies Bob and Debi who also did the Great Loop. Our dinghy was in the water, rods were set up to mooch for salmon, and we decided to listen to the VHF weather channel before taking off. Uh oh! Big wind and waves were now forecast to begin that night and stay for a couple days. So we stowed the rods and dinghy, and took off for Wrangell instead, having a non-negotiable commitment there Saturday. Goodbye to Meyers Chuck; we'll return southbound.

The 58-mile "back route" to Wrangell transits The Narrows which sounded tricky in the write-up, but wasn't. Despite narrow, winding, shallow rocky segments with a 90-degree turn, the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway prepared us well. We throttled down and had no trouble. 

We're tied at the end of a dock adjacent to the fish cleaning station. Saturday morning Cathryn approached two fellows cutting up salmon there, seeking local knowledge about nearby fishing spots. Wes and Pat regaled her with Alaskan fishing and bear encounters, all hilarious or terrifying. Bob joined eventually, and Wes and Pat encouraged us to try halibut fishing. But our light-weight rods aren't suitable for halibut, so Pat handed us one of his halibut rods, Wes rigged it properly while showing Cathryn how, and they told us where to find them to return their gear in the evening. Really? To strangers? Below are Wes and Pat, headed out for a day of long-line halibut fishing with 250 hooks to set.

We dropped the dinghy, pulled bait out of our freezer, and off we went with Pat's halibut rod to the suggested location. Sadly, 3 hours later we'd only caught some debris on the bottom, and it was beginning to drizzle, so that was the end of our halibut attempt. But we had fun and learned some things!

Meyers Chuck

We have 3 sets of boating friends who have been to tiny Meyers Chuck, and all loved it, so we had to include a stop-over. There are 12 year-round residents, a couple dozen more who own cabins and come for the summer, and a small community dock with no electricity or other amenities which is free for tie-up by cruisers passing through. 

The 48' Nordhavn docked in front of us has 4 folks from Seattle aboard. Two other boats on the dock are inhabited by folks from the Port Orchard Yacht Club. Small world, we keep finding. 

We wandered the trails in the woods of Meyers Chuck which take you to a beach and past each cabin, offering surprises in the form of whimsical art installed by residents. A heron caught a fish (with Phoenix in the background on dock).

A spider web with a crab at its' center instead of a spider. 

The community art gallery was open briefly, and we picked up a unique "Christmas tree" decoration formed by wood turning, made from rough wood with bark intact. 

Sweet dreams, til tomorrow, Meyers Chuck!

S.W. Basin near Yes Bay Lodge

This is our last stop as part of the Misty Fjord National Monument tour. We could easily spend a week instead of 3-4 days, but we have other places we want to see too. So many coves, so little time!

Today we covered 64 miles, ran the watermaker (a mini de-salinization plant Captain Bob Smith installed in March) to re-fill the water tanks, and performed monthly cleaning of the shower sump. It was cloudy and misty (be-fitting the name) early in the day, sunny later in the day. 

We only saw two small sailboats all day until nearing the anchorage, close to the Yes Bay Fishing Lodge and only a one-day cruise from Ketchikan. We won't return to Ketchikan now unless we develop a boat problem we can't handle on our own.

After 7 hours of travel we dropped the anchor in Southwest Basin at 3:00, not another boat in sight.

Relaxing in the cockpit, an eagle watched over us from a nearby tree. A seal circled around Phoenix several times. Five loons warbled nearby. All we need is a bear or two to complete this picture. We dropped a crab pot off the side of the boat, tied to the mid-ship cleat. Maybe we'll have crab for dinner tomorrow night?

Following a common pattern, the morning was misty, then cloudy, and the afternoon turned to sunshine, weather suitable for sitting outside in bare feet and short sleeves. We remain happy and well.

Punch Bowl Cove, Misty Fjord National Monument

There's a shallow bar to cross to get out of the anchorage at Winstanley, so we got an early start at ebbing mid-tide. As usual, it was cloudy but mild, no rain, no wind, no sun, and flat water. 

We towed the dinghy for the first time, and the bridle worked well.

We don't know the geological reason New Eddystone Rock exists. In 600' feet of water, suddenly there's a "beach" containing a rocky promontory 200' tall with trees. Glacier carved or erosion? Beautiful! 

The plan was to drop a lunch hook at Punchbowl Cove 13 miles away because the anchorage is reported to be rocky and difficult to set, in up to 75' of water at high tide. We have only 225' of chain rode on this new-to-us boat, and aren't comfortable anchoring with less than 3:1 scope even in settled weather, so thought we'd come in to see this iconic Misty Fjords National Monumet view and move on to a better overnight anchorage.

The 3000' tall cliffs were encased in clouds. "Flight-seeing" seaplanes flew low so Ketchikan cruise ship patrons could catch the view. But our boat was the only one on the water, and the single mooring ball was empty, so we caught it and decided to stay. About 40 seaplanes came through, but fewer than a dozen landed for 15 minutes each, and none came within 2 miles of us. 

When we bought "Phoenix", her dinghy was too small to carry crab pots, fishing gear, or 4 people. So Bob picked out a new dinghy at the Seattle Boat Show in January. Hoping Cathryn would feel comfortable exploring on her own (to satisfy some of her insatiable "what's around the next corner?" quest), he made sure it had an electric start, as well as electric button to raise and lower the motor. So Cathryn explored Punchbowl Cove alone for 90 minutes, felt comfortable and pronounced it a blast! 

We took the dinghy to shore and hiked a steep, muddy, slippery trail, talking loudly and clapping our hands as this is bear country, to a gorgeous waterfall.

And finally, while enjoying a glass of wine in the cockpit, the clouds lifted and the 3000' cliffs that towered above were fully visible.

Winstanley Island

Saturday morning we departed Ketchikan and fueled up again, happily at U.S. prices instead of Canadian prices, and headed for the Misty Fjords National Monument.

We stumbled upon the spot at Point Alava where a group of the fishing fleet hangs out to await the noon opening of the next season.

It was finally sunny, and so warm (73) Cathryn pulled out capris and a tank top while Bob switched to short sleeves.

48 miles later Winstanley Island off the Behm Canal provided anchorage for the night. We dropped the dinghy to do some exploring.

A sailboat came into the anchorage shortly, a woman sailing alone. We stopped to chat on the way back to our boat. She solo sailed that boat (perhaps 32 feet?) from Victoria to Haida Gwaii last summer, left it there and flew home for the winter, then returned in May to continue sailing north to Glacier Bay. Wow! She's now southbound. She's a family physician, looks to be in her 60s, and does two-week assignments at rural hospitals or clinics. Her next assignment in August is at the Bella Bella hospital where we spent a night last summer. She knows the doc who treated Bob there.

This is a quiet anchorage which supposedly sees bears, moose, mink and marten, but none showed their faces for us. But this is Bob's happy place.

And very still. 

Bob cooked dinner on the grill, and we ate in the cockpit. 

Goodnight, Moon!

Radar

Jeff returned to the boat at 5pm to begin installation of the new radar we bought yesterday. At 5:30 Matt called to say the longer cable had arrived on the Alaska Airlines flight, and Cathryn walked up to the street to meet him. 

Bob played "Assistant" for the next five hours, finding tools and other supplies Jeff needed, and helping remove the refrigerator to pull the cable down the wall from the radar mast through the flying bridge to the lower helm.

Jeff squirmed under the lower helm and completely disappeared from view, pulling cable.

Finally at 10 pm the installation was complete and voila: the radar works! Jeff is amazing: he can do anything! 

And so tomorrow morning we pull out of Ketchikan and take a 4-day journey around the Misty Fjords National Monument loop. We're pretty sure we won't have a cell signal that whole time, so we'll post photos when we're back online. 

Goodnight, Ketchikan! It's been great.

Ketchikan

This city of 8,000 residents is all about fish. Or fishing. 4 marinas cater almost exclusively to the fishing fleet, though they assign slips temporarily to RVs (recreational vessels like us) when slips are empty because the working boats are out fishing. Except for the many restaurants and shops that cater to the thousands of cruise ship passengers who unload here every day in summer, everything else supports the commercial fishermen and women.

Thursday we spent the day arranging purchase and installation of a new radar, as our 15-year-old radar died the day we rounded Cape Caution in thick fog. Fortunately we were with a buddy boat that had functioning radar; we followed them closely until the fog cleared.

We're traveling on our own now, and it's not safe without radar. Getting run over by a ferry or cruise ship in fog would ruin our day.

Pacific Pride sold us a radar. A customer overheard us inquiring about finding an installer immediately available and chimed in to say "Call my cousin Jeff. Here's his number. He's been doing this stuff since he was a kid." These Alaskans are amazing, and know how to do everything!

So Jeff showed up to do the installation, only to discover the cable connecting the monitor at the lower helm wasn't long enough to reach the dome mounted on the mast. Guess who got a ticket to fly Alaska Airlines from Seattle to Ketchikan today? That's right: our new, longer cable! 

Bob awoke at 4:13 a.m. to pounding on our hull, to find a 16-year-old crew member pointing at the 70-foot fishing boat idling 15 feet away and saying "Captain says to tell you we're back from fishing, you're in our slip, so you have to move. Now." 

This is called "hot berthing", in which slips are temporarily assigned to traveling recreational vessels like ours when the commercial fishermen who rent the slip year-round are out at sea. So we stumbled out of bed, moved out of the slip and idled nearby to call the Harbormaster on the VHF and phone for instructions on where to go next. All 4 marinas here are full of commercial vessels and managed by a single Harbormaster. Getting no response, we traveled to the next marina and tied up at an empty spot. An hour later we were told we couldn't stay there either, so the Harbormaster moved us to our third marina and slip of the morning. Whew! Harbormaster told us the fishermen aren't supposed to do that in the middle of the night, but some ignore the rules.

Meanwhile, we stocked up on groceries, took a nap, and watched the hard-working people on adjacent boats repair their nets, load gear and prepare to leave again. That's the view from our window.

Alaska!

Milestone day! In 2009 we spent two weeks as guests aboard "Gold Rush", a 60-foot pilothouse trawler, traveling from Port Angeles, WA to Ketchikan, AK with owners Greg and Terry. We were in awe of the fun, the scenery, and the vast amount of knowledge and skill Greg and Terry had in order to safely make this trip. We were blogging at the time and wrote that we "could never imagine being able to make such a trip ourselves". 

But unknown to them, Greg and Terry sparked a fire in our brains that led us to take 5 courses from the Power Squadron: Cathryn had to take the engine mechanics course twice :-(  !  And we bought a bigger boat, went on lots of trips including the Great Loop in 2012-13, made a lot of mistakes, learned from them, and tried to make it to Alaska on our own in 2015. And didn't make it (read July 2015 posts if you don't know this story). 

So today we woke at 4:30, cast off our lines, and began a 95-mile trip to try to complete this quest.

Early morning light, calm on Chatham Strait.

The NOAA forecast called for light winds 5-15 knots with six-foot seas crossing Dixon Entrance, the last open-to-the-Pacific Ocean segment with a long crossing, posing risk of weather and rough seas. Instead we found calm seas with ripples!

After so much time in remote territory, it was a shock to come into a developed town with a busy harbor, dodging the commercial fishing fleet that mostly occupies this city, Ketchikan.

So mid-afternoon we pulled into Ketchikan, cleared U.S. Customs by telephone (thank you, NEXUS cards!) and tied up to the dock where cruise ships and eagles are about equal in number.

Thank you Greg and Terry for introducing us to this form of travel, and for sparking our interest. While we'll never have the full range of skills and experience you two have acquired over the years, we managed to do this trip and have loved it!

Prince Rupert

As has become the pattern, we woke early and traveled 94 miles in 9.5 hours from Hartley Bay to Prince Rupert, the last Canadian outpost before heading north to Alaska. A side trip into Lowe Inlet and the noisy waterfall was in hopes of seeing bears, as we did here in 2009, but no such luck this time.

This deep, steep stretch had us sometimes traveling only 50-60 feet from the rocky shore in 400 or more feet of water.

Sunny, warm Prince Rupert gave us a chance to walk to the chandlery for a few items and have a terrific dinner at Cow Bay Cafe, Linguine Pescatore, as the halibut was sold out.