Maxi 95 and Our Adventures
Abra Cove, Aialik Glacial Basin AK, 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday 7-AUG-2021 — Jennifer sleeps. We’ll spend the day here. An audio book plays in Flora’s cabin. Sleep comes to Flora with great difficulty and only for short periods of time.
Across the sound, giants grumble in the glacier. The rumbles, which must be down around 40 Hertz, seem to be something we should feel in our ribs instead it is the rumble of distance thunder, of dinosaurs, of giants.
Shelter Cove, Beauty Bay, West Arm of Nuka Sound, Alaska, 5-Aug-2021 — Yesterday was overcast and a mild day. But there was some wind. We motored some 10 or 12 nmi to a lagoon that we wanted to see.
Technically, looking up the definition of a lagoon in the dictionary, it was not a lagoon. By definition one cannot sail into a lagoon because it is blocked off from the ocean by a barrier, typically a natural wall or beach.
Continue reading “Yesterday we sailed, thrice upon a time, and me and MF”
Tonsina Bay, AK, 2-AUG-2021 — It is midday at anchor in a bifurcated cove, alone, the three of us on Caro Babbo. It is an unusual time for Jennifer and I to be anchored in a cove anywhere. We spend most mornings and middays moving from one place to another whenever we are traveling in British Columbia or Alaska. These few days following our departure from Homer have been full days, long days, which like many days here at 59 degrees north in the summer, feel like multiple days, both in their duration and the amount that we experience.
Flora has been, in the months leading to our departure, eager, ambivalent and decidedly against making the trip. In the end, rather than come for a small time she has decided to join us for the entire adventure: 5 weeks. A small trip for us, 1/4 its normal length, and a long time to be on a small boat with your mother and her partner.
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”
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”
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.
A few posts may out of order because we lost cellular service before I could post.
East Anchor Cove, Unimak Island, the Aleutians, AK, US, 27-JUL-2020 — Jennifer is down with a Migraine today. Her CPAP has been giving her issues. We we think it might be mold. Not using it resulted in the migraine. If she is able to be up later, we’ll try to get that taken care of.
This morning we are in East Anchor Cove, which is a place fishing boats come to offload and to sleep.
The smaller fishing boats are worked by two people.
Last evening, a first boat worked by two men stopped by to ask us where we had come from. Cruising boats are pretty rare here. The opening sentence from the man driving, who was probably my age, was that Caro Babbo was an attractive boat. Continue reading “East Anchor Cove, A dead whale, overnight passage and a migraine”
Dutch Harbor, AK, USA, 20-JUL-2020 — Just a quick note to tell everyone we are safe and sound.
The rest of the trip into Dutch Harbor was uneventful, with no wind: we motored all the way.
I completely over estimated the amount of fuel we have used. We arrived with, we think, in excess of 12 gallons. We didn’t think the fuel dock was open when we arrived, so we did not fuel up on our way in, as we norm Continue reading “We’re in Dutch Harbor”
Inanudak Bay, Umnak Island, The Aleutians, Alaska, US, 16-JUL-2020 — It is Hilary’s birthday today. It is really the first birthday without her. It is fitting that we are in Alaska, in an empty bay, not surrounded by mountains, as we normally are, but by volcanoes. The original Hilary would have reveled, as would have the later, dementia-suffering woman.
The night before last it blew forty knots through our anchorage. Jennifer analyzed the other coves and decided this was still the best place to stay given the anchor holding ability of the bottom, the room to drag and that she could perceive no difference in the wind that would come through the valleys for the other coves. Continue reading “Thoughts on Adventuring”
Inanudak Bay, Umnak Island, The Aleutians, Alaska, US, 14-JUL-2020 10:13 HST — Umnak Island has the distinction of the being the limit of the range of a type of kelp called Bull Kelp. And yep, as we arrived we saw bull kelp. The first we’ve seen since leaving Southern California last fall.
Bull kelp doesn’t, generally, wrap around propellers, so it is not much of a worry. The outer limit of the range of dragon kelp is the Aleutian Islands in general, at a maximum length of 150 ft, it does wrap around props and we have seen it here and we do worry about it.*
We arrived here in the bay at 2:30 am the night before last after motoring for about 16 hours. It was not what we had planned. Well, we had planned on eight hours of motoring. Wind and waves were calm, and, while it was our first time anchoring in the dark, we have anchored several hundred times, it went very smoothly. Continue reading “Sailing into the Bering Sea and anchoring at night”
