Month: August 2020

Our last anchorage; I do not look like a tadpole

Port Chatham, AK, 27-AUG-2020 — This is the last time we will anchor on this trip. Everything is mixed: Melancholia at having this long adventure end, and impatience to move on.

The day before yesterday and the day before that stick in the mind as embodying so much of an Alaska cruiser’s life. We motored and motored around a point from one anchorage to another: four hours, some of it dodging rocks and kelp. Much with no wind and some with wind that would have required beating to windward. Continue reading “Our last anchorage; I do not look like a tadpole”

Books

Phoenix Bay, Alaska, 23-aug-2020 — Bill Buckley and I parted company with me having a much lessened opinion of the man, not that it was too wonderful to begin with.

Bill, in all his interviews and promotion for the book, including his article for the New Yorker, which I read almost forty years ago and still remember, fails to mention other people on the boat: the professional captain, the cook and the stewart. Then there is the video camera man, the audio person and the producer. Somewhere in the book another man appears as mechanical maintenance crew. Continue reading “Books”

Kodiak and the home stretch

Kitoi Bay, Alaska, 23-aug-2020 — We spent almost a week at the dock in Kodiak. Like all time at a dock, it is maintenance and repairs interspersed with tourism and socializing. I never complete all the repairs and never do as much tourism as I would like.

The day before we came to Kodiak the gear shift lever refused to engage the gears. After forty-five years, it owed no one anything. After calls here and there we found that the Volvo Penta dealer in Seward, Alaska Industrial Power, could have the part drop shipped to the harbor master’s office in Kodiak. Complete with shipping, the cost was under two hundred dollars. Continue reading “Kodiak and the home stretch”

Something had to break

Three hours south of Hidden Harbor, Mainland, Alaska, 145-AUG-2020 — It had to happen, something of some consequence had to give. The workaround was thirty seconds and I realized that the moment I saw the problem, but I wasted 90 minutes second guessing myself.

Hidden Harbor is beautiful place and quite hidden. Fishing boats do not come in. It is probably the province of passing pleasure boats.The entrance is invisible after a turn. Anchorage and holding are good, though the bottom icomes up alarmingly fast. The mountains are again covered in ash. Continue reading “Something had to break”

Shape in the Land

Shilikof Strait, 40 nm west of Big Alinchak Bay, AK, 10-Aug-2020 — Jennifer sees things in the geology that I cannot. Generally, she sees how the land was formed, its history and future. The land around us is generally volcanic, shaped by erosion and glaciers, often by earthquakes and continental drift.

Some the land is a puzzle: how did these two type of earth end up next to each other or intermixed?

We’re in a part of the world where currents have never been studied, where coves and inlets have never been charted. There are places further west that few people, beyond those on fishing boats and the dozen or so cruising boats, will ever see.

Continue reading “Shape in the Land”

Cottonwool days and many levels of backup

Just outside of Herring Lagoon on Mitrofania Island, AK, USA, 4-AUG-2020 11.45 am ADT — The sun today reminds us that in the Aleutians and now South Central Alaska we live in a cotton wool world of low clouds and fog.

King Cove was followed by Captain Harbor and then an overnighter to Delarof Harbor on Unga Island, the site of an abandoned town. *

Ola and Michal on Crystal were there: anchored the night before. We dropped our anchor about 7 am and at 8.30 sent a text message that we were along side and they should come over for an American breakfast.

Continue reading “Cottonwool days and many levels of backup”

A letter to Ray

I’ve never published correspondence before. This letter to Ray Penson discusses things that are interesting to two sailors.

Ray, as you may know, holds a Type One captain’s license: any boat any ocean. He is a master seaman in the sense that the term conjures. You can search for Ray in the blog.

We met Ray in Secret Cove, a small cove in BC. The island defining one side of the cove was rumored to have been given to Marilyn Monroe by a secret lover.

Ray’s and our paths crossed throughout the summer culminating in a collision course heading into Prince Rupert after not seeing each other for weeks.

Ray, like Erwin, has been one of our guardian angels, watching over us and giving us advice. Continue reading “A letter to Ray”

People, Lies, Rewards and Wind

Captain Cove, Alaska Peninsula, Alaska, 31-JUL-2020 — ”Charles will give you the WiFi password when he comes in. We all have it. People bring their laptops and do work,” said the fisherman I had been speaking with. Jennifer was still asleep. I walked over from the small boat harbor in King Cove where we were anchored with Robusta across the finger pier from us.

We hadn’t known Charles’ name when we first spoke to us as we approached King Cove. We had motored the entire way from East Anchor Cove on Unimak Island. That was the deal between Jennifer and me: We’d motor more in a straight line to where were going and sail less, unless we sailed faster also in a straight line, except when I really wanted to sail.

We’d anchored with Robusta after an overnighter. We’d stayed a second night and not gone ashore that day because Jennifer has migraine. We left early in the morning to have time in King Cove, even though we knew that wind would rise later in the day. Robusta followed a few hours later as the breeze started.

Continue reading “People, Lies, Rewards and Wind”