Cruising Caro Babbo – Page 8

Cloudy Mornings, Glorious Afternoons

We’re anchored in front of Reid Glacier this morning. The Inlet is large, much more than a mile long, which gives scale to things. A small dot in the distance is a 60-foot boat, which we learned was there on AIS.

We’ll dinghy over to the glacier later this morning and walk around.

Each morning has been overcast, but has burned off in the afternoon. For the cruise and tourist boats this hasn’t been the best. They arrive in the early morning and leave around noon. Yesterday, Eurodam, told us they saw neither of the two big glaciers because they were fogged in.

By the time we arrived at Johns Hopkins Glacier, around two pm, it was bright and sunny, but the two miles in front of the glacier were choked with small ice.
We have our trip track from 2016 loaded into OpenCPN on my laptop. We see that we were able to travel more than a mile and a half closer that year. The ice, then, was larger with more discrete pieces that we could thread our way through.
Continue reading “Cloudy Mornings, Glorious Afternoons”

Glacier Bay

South Bight of North Fingers Bay, Glacier Bay, AK, 30-JUL-2018 — We’re in Glacier Bay! With good weather no less.

The Glacier Bay web information says that e-mails are given precedence over phone calls when trying to get a short notice reservation. On the advice of Megan, who works in the Glacier Bay Office, we sent an email and called. When Emily answered the phone, she told me that she didn’t have our email, unless my name was Brian, but why didn’t she just process a permit for us. Seven days would be fine.

The NOAA weather said 20 knots and three-foot seas. The PredictWind grib doesn’t give inside waters weather. A second grib said ten knots and a third said five knots. Five knots was the winner, more or less. We motored.

The weather has not been the Alaska we know. It has been sunny and warm with highs climbing into the 70s. There is a drought.
Continue reading “Glacier Bay”

Leaving Juneau

At 5 am, after I had showered and returned the key fob to the marina office, Jennifer and I cast off from the dock at Juneau’s Harris Harbor.

Caro Babbo had been on the dock 16 days, while Jennifer and I went off to Atlanta to get work started on some properties there. We are currently hands-on investors and are trying hard to transition to hands-off by selling our real estate investments there and giving the money to Roy who handles the rest of our money.

We arrived Juneau Sunday evening, shopped for groceries Monday, and cleaned house Tuesday before Erwin and Laura arrived. This is the third of four years that Erwin and Laura have joined us. Last year we didn’t feel we could have guests while we were dealing with Hilary’s needs.

We hit the gift shops yesterday and were treated like cruise boat tourists. It is a very different way to be treated. The sales people quickly qualify a prospect, deciding whether there might be a sale. Jennifer and I were in the way of people making their living.

Continue reading “Leaving Juneau”

Leaving Juneau

At 5 am, after I had showered and returned the key fob to the marina office, Jennifer and I cast off from the dock at Juneau’s Harris Harbor.

Caro Babbo had been on the dock 16 days, while Jennifer and I went off to Atlanta to get work started on some properties there. We are currently hands-on investors and are trying hard to transition to hands-off by selling our real estate investmemts there and giving the money to a Roy who handles the rest of our money.

Continue reading “Leaving Juneau”

Sorry to be out of touch.

Decatur, GA 14-JUL-2018 – Everyone, I’m sorry we’ve been out of touch.

We went a few weeks with no internet, except for the Iridium, which does terrible internet. I did not write posts to be posted when we received internet and still haven’t set up the facility to post by email. I don’t feel like a slug, but apparently have been.

It has been a busy time, divided amongst sailing, motoring, and surprisingly, engaging in social activities with people we’ve met before and people we’ve met for the first time. Continue reading “Sorry to be out of touch.”

Hecate Strait: Advance Class in Feeding The Fishes

An unnamed cove west of Welcome Harbour, BC, 13-JUN-2018 – We’ve crossed Hecate Strait twice now. Jennifer says it’s not too bad this second time. In the past she is thought of this as the worst possible thing that could happen. Now, she tells me you just vomit and get it over with, again and again and again. No pictures in this post, the waves are never as impressive in pictures as they are on the water, and the rest of the activities we engaged in are not pleasant to watch.

Hecate Strait, we were told by more than one person, is the fifth most dangerous body of water in the world. It is quite shallow, generally less than 80 feet, winds of 50 knots are not uncommon nor are four meter waves.

You pick your weather carefully.
Continue reading “Hecate Strait: Advance Class in Feeding The Fishes”

Water where it’s not supposed to be

Bag Harbour, Haida Gwaii, 6-JUN-2018 – It’s been raining in Haida Gwaii. As far as I can tell that’s all it does. The wind is variable: it might be good sailing wind, or 40-50 knots, which sends us and every other boat to find a safe harbor and hunker down. While in the safe harbor we use the dinghy when there are breaks in the wind.

When we first bought Caro Babbo I hadn’t considered a water maker. All the books and long-distance sailors I’d read talked about two things: a mister for rinsing after washing in salt water (everyone washed in their cockpits after stripping off their shorts or bathing suits – they don’t sail the waters we sail in*), and collecting rain water.

Continue reading “Water where it’s not supposed to be”

Gwaii Haanas National Park and Cultural Sites

Rose Harbour, Hadia Gwaii, BC, Canada, 3-JUN-2018 – We’ve been in Haida Gwaii for twelve days. Six of those days have been spent waiting for weather to pass. The two days before we crossed Hecate Strait we spent waiting for weather, so by my count, eight of the last fifteen days have been spent waiting for suitable weather to travel.

Some anchorages are more protected than others.

Some days waiting for weather have been on board in a harbor, or inlet, or sometimes little more than a dimple in a coast line out of the wind and waves, waiting. Waiting isn’t too bad. I get to spend it with Jennifer. We read, I cook, I do maintenance, but I haven’t been writing a lot – only one published piece in Three Sheets Northwest, which I haven’t seen yet. Continue reading

Part 3: Threads reweave, one ends

At the fuel transfer station office, Wendy sat at her desk speaking to a deep-voiced man who I could not see. When I asked her where he was, he stepped out of a door. He was tall, craggy faced, muscular and handsome.

When he learned I wanted some kerosene, he told me I must be a sailor, which I confessed I was. He introduced himself as Lyle, and told me about the sailing courses he had taken, and how he would quit his job right now to join us. Wendy told him, oh no he wouldn’t. I countered he could join us for a short while if he would like, and he told me he was very interested. Continue reading “Part 3: Threads reweave, one ends”

Threads reweave, one ends

Port Hardy, BC Canada, 6-MAY-2018 – I spent a good part of Friday at the top of our mast reinstalling our antenna and the cable that leads from it through the mast through the engine compartment through the bilge and into the basement where the cable connects to a signal splitter.

I spent enough time at the top of the mast that another boat owner spoke with Jennifer and offered to pay me to go to the top of his mast. I was flattered, but not tempted.

In Friday Harbor, we had bought and installed an 8 foot whip antenna as a temporary solution for our failed masthead antenna. We started showing up again on AIS. The harbor master in Port Hardy, where I sat atop the mast like a Christmas Angel, spoke to us through our VHF. Continue reading “Threads reweave, one ends”