May 31, 2006

Tracy Arm Cove, Alaska

As I sit in Tracy Arm Cove, Alaska on this last day of May watching ice bergs float by the anchorage while the fog lifts, I’m amazed at the wonders of the natural world that we’ve seen since I wrote our last log!

After our enjoyable stay in Prince Rupert, BC, we headed to Khutzeymateen Inlet to hopefully see grizzly bears. Forty-three miles later we dropped the hook in Tsamspanaknok (I have no idea how to pronounce that!) Bay and saw our first bear within 20 minutes! Along the way we were treated to the sight of more than 40 eagles circling a fishing boat near Tugwell Island and Pacific White-sided dolphins in our bow wave…just a few of the joys of being underway! (I just realized that almost every sentence so far has ended in an ! mark…that’s what life has been like lately!!!) Gary was able to get a few shots of the bear before he "lost the light." The next morning we were going to take the boat further up the inlet into the Khutzeymateen Bear Sanctuary hoping to see more bears; but the departure was delayed for 1½ hours when we spotted another bear on shore by the anchorage that needed to be photographed. The trip up the inlet was pleasant but we didn’t see any bears either on the trip in or out, but within minutes of anchoring in our same spot there were two bears on shore! Given the presence of bears here, Gary got up early the next morning hoping for more photos, only to be rewarded with eagles and black-tailed deer. He has decided that putting the tripod on the pilothouse works pretty well and gives him many options for shooting.

We spent one more night in BC at Wales Harbor, Wales Island before heading across the international border to ALASKA! The trip to Ketchikan to clear US Customs is too long for one day and most boats make a stop overnight at Foggy Bay after crossing the border before continuing on to Ketchikan. We were no exception; at 10:30 a.m. PDT on May 14 th, we crossed that magic line that put us in ALASKA! The clock was promptly reset to Alaska Daylight Time as we gained another hour in our day and the “Q” flag was run up the mast. Rounding Cape Fox we came upon a feeding frenzy of sea gulls and eagles, as there must have been great schools of fish in the area. Quickly slowing down and adjusting speed we spent the next hour watching and photographing this cacophony of sounds and feathers. It was Mother’s Day but we didn’t have cell phone coverage yet; it was emotionally difficult not being able to call our moms and Kate, but I survived and we did talk to everyone upon our arrival in Ketchikan on Monday.

The Ketchikan harbormaster assigned us a slip in Thomas Basin, which is downtown near the cruise ships docks. The wind was blowing at 25 knots as we rounded the breakwater and headed down the fairway to locate the slip at the far end of the dock; only to find the slip occupied and the wind making it very difficult to turn around in the limited space. Gary did an excellent job as I contacted the harbormaster for another slip assignment; this one was on the other side of the dock…so we headed down that fairway only to find that slip occupied TOO! Needless to say, things were getting a little tense as the wind continued to build. Backing up we saw two empty slips so we just pulled into one and notified the harbor master where we were. I think it was lucky that I was the one on the radio and not Gary as he might have had a few choice words for the man on the other end. Customs was notified that we had arrived and a Customs Officer was out in an hour to clear us back into the States.

Ketchikan is a stop for all the HUGE cruise ships that ply the waters of the Inside Passage and the entire downtown area caters to that trade. The shops and many restaurants are only open when the ships are in town during the day (none spend the night). We were amazed that it looked like some of the ports we’d seen in the Caribbean…same jewelry and fashion stores with a little local art and a lumberjack show thrown in for color. There were also many floatplanes taking passengers on an hour flight to Misty Fjords National Park at $100 per person adding to the noise level of the canned laughter from the lumberjack show. Needless to say, it wasn’t one of our favorite stops.

However, there were a couple of bright spots to our stay in town. My daughter, Kate, discovered that there was a live web-cam aimed at the Thomas Basin area and after we talking to her, we agreed to see if we could locate the camera and wave to her the next day. By walking and talking on the cell phone, we determined when we were in the line of sight of the camera and waved to her back in Michigan. She did a screen capture on her computer and then emailed us the picture - pretty cool technology!

Ketchikan has an area known as Creek Street that was the working girls’ district during the Gold Rush Days and all the buildings are on stilts over the creek. One of the best-known “ladies” was named Dolly (which happened to be my nickname as a child) and her house is now a museum (?) to the trade and her life. We thought it was appropriate to take my picture in front of her house because of the name connection…not for any other reason. May 16th is the anniversary of when Gary & I met and we celebrated with a delicious dinner at the WestCoast Cape Fox Lodge, reached by riding a funicular up the steep slope. There’s also a great bookstore - Parnassus Books - that was very helpful as we were looking for a new Coast Pilot and even though they didn’t have it, they called another store in town and tracked it down for us.

Chores take up part of one’s time in any port and Ketchikan was no exception. We discovered Thomas Wash Basin, run by John Wellard, which is a laundromat, coffee shop, wireless Internet connection, and has showers. It is one of the cleanest laundromats I’ve ever been in, plus I enjoyed a great latte while I did laundry and talked to the folks in Michigan. We did think the wi-fi connection at $7.00/hour was a little pricey, though. A trip to the post office to pick up mail and a run to the grocery store finished our land-based chores as we prepared to leave Ketchikan the next day. A stop at the fuel dock to take on 214 gallons of diesel fuel completed our visit and we were glad to be moving on.

Our route north toward Glacier Bay took us through Clarence Strait to Sumner Strait on our way to Wrangell Narrows and Petersburg. Wrangell Narrows is another one of those spots that cruisers talk about as being someplace to be reckoned with; we did our homework figuring out the currents (the tide comes in both from the north & south of the narrows, meeting at Green Point.) The plan was to ride the flood tide in, arrive at Green Point as it slacked and then ride the ebb out to Petersburg. Wrangell Narrows is also known as Christmas Tree Lane with over 50 red & green navigational markers. The harbor in Petersburg at the other end is also famous for its current which can make docking a little tricky; so needless to say, the day was approached with a little trepidation. We traversed the narrows and were tied up at the dock in Petersburg in less than 4 hours, scratching our heads and wondering what the big deal was? Within minutes of being in Petersburg we ran into Chris from MV Penguin and he gave us a great suggestion for lunch – beer battered halibut bits at Coastal Cold Storage- definitely a winner (in fact, Gary had lunch there two days in a row.) We stayed in Petersburg long enough for me to call Kate & wish her Happy Birthday on the 24th and continued north. We saw our first glacier, the LeConte Glacier, after leaving Petersburg. In Thomas Bay we observed the unusual way glacial runoff and saltwater meet before mixing as shown in this photo.

We had our reservation for Glacier Bay National Park for June 16-22 so we now had a schedule to meet. One of our “unspoken goals” had been to be in Glacier Bay for the Summer Solstice and we were glad to be able to arrange it.

May 25 th was a “knock your socks off” day as we sighted our first humpback whales near Storm Island on the way to Foot Island. The water was glassy, the skies were blue, there was no wind when we saw our first spout! A little later we saw what we thought was a log, only to see a fluke next to the boat a few minutes later…it had been a whale. Eventually we continued on to Foot Island, which was a small, pretty and protected anchorage. The next morning we awoke to fog & thought it would be a lay day. As the day progressed, the fog lifted, we started hearing whales blowing just around the point from where we were anchored and decided to go back to Storm Island to see if we could locate more whales. Luck was with us as we spent the next 3 hours with our engine off or in neutral watching the humpies blow several times, fluke us, then dive down for 5 minutes and do it all over again! Gary was like a kid in the candy store! I was also making bread so at the end of the day when we anchored in Sanborn Canal off Port Houghton we enjoyed fresh bread in a beautiful anchorage and looked at all the wonderful photos we’d taken of the whales….what a day!

The next day was rainy, so we didn’t go exploring to the head of the canal as planned. Late in the afternoon we had a pleasant surprise as two sailboats entered the anchorage that we’d had to ourselves. Gary thought one of the boats looked familiar as it approached and it was SV Yohelah owned by Rob & Teresa who we'd met at Point Hudson Marina in Port Townsend, WA this past winter. It was wonderful to hear a familiar voice on the VHF when we hailed them. They were also heading to Glacier Bay with Cindy & Tim on SV Masquerade. Shortly after they anchored we made arrangements to rendezvous on our boat to hear each other’s adventures. The next evening we learned how to play Mexican Train Dominoes and had a delightful time with old and new friends. They were planning on stopping at Tracy Arm on their way to Glacier Bay as we were, so we all moved to Tracy Arm Cove at the same time. Along the way we saw several humpback whales and our first iceberg as we approached the entrance to Tracy Arm.

Tracy Arm Cove is a protected anchorage just inside Tracy Arm; it was a little strange having icebergs and bergie bits floating around the boat while at anchor -luckily none hit the boat! When the tide went out some of the ice ended up on shore as beautiful ice sculptures.
The birds also used them as resting places. Rob & Teresa invited us to go up the Arm to the glacier on their boat with Cindy & Tim the next day and we quickly accepted the invitation. There are two tidewater glaciers (meaning that the ice calves and fall directly into the water) - North and South Sawyer Glacier - at the end of Tracy Arm with icebergs and bergie bits floating in the water leading to them.

It worked out great that there were six of us on SV Yohelah as one person could be at the helm and the rest of us used a pike and boat hooks to push the pieces of ice out of the way of the bow. This made it possible to go farther up the arm, navigating through the ice and getting closer to the glacier.

Tracy Arm is an incredible area and the scenery is stunning as you can tell from what Gary captured through the camera’s lens. It’s very deep with steep granite walls and waterfalls everywhere. We had a delightful day that ended with a delicious lasagna dinner on SV Yohelah. Both boats left the next day as they had earlier reservations for Glacier Bay than we did and we decided to go part of the way up the Arm again for more photo opportunities, but that’s a story for the next log.

May you enjoy a small miracle of nature every day!

Dorothy, Gary & Murray the Cat

© Copyright 2006
Last updated on May 23, 2007