The log of S/V Lacuna, spring and summer 2005
Chapter 6
June 3-12, 2005. Petersburg to Juneau.
6/5/05. After a couple of days in Petersburg, I rented a car. Before meeting Miles and Dmitri at the Petersburg airport, I had some time to kill so I drove south on the road on the east side of Mitkof Island. There were occasional views of Le Conte Bay, but for the most part the road was surrounded by forest so the views were limited. Much of the low-lying land around the city is covered with muskeg—marshy land with stunted pines, low shrubs, and moss. I’m surprised that there are so few bugs around given how much breeding ground there is.
After I picked up the travelers, we drove back to Lacuna, off-loaded their luggage, and went for a drive down the west side of the island. We explored the boardwalk at Blind Slough, gave Dmitri (and us adults) some exercise, bought groceries, and picked up Jill at the airport late in the afternoon.
Dmitri Todd and Petersburg totem pole (click here for a larger image)
Hazel B on the Petersburg tidal grid (click here for a larger image)
Petersburg is home to many old wooden fish boats. We were docked near the Osprey, a double-ended troller whose keel was laid in 1918, according to the owners. They bought it from men who had rescued it from the beach and rebuilt it. When asked which parts of the boat were original, the woman said the keel and deckhouse roof. Another well-maintained double ender, the Hazel B, was up on the grid for a couple of tides. It was nicely painted top and bottom. It was built in 1937, originally as a sailing troller. The owner had had it for 33 years. He said that he had rebuilt and enlarged the deck house and removed the mast, and although it has been well maintained, he said he could easily spend $40K on stuff you can’t see from the outside.
Wrangell Narrows, north end (click here for a larger image)
6/6/05. We got started a bit later than I had planned—I couldn’t bring myself to roust the sleepers early enough, and there were several last-minute trips to the store for towels, food, a pillow for Jill, and underwear for Dima. By the time we got to the gas dock, the flood current into Wrangell Narrows was almost 3 knots. I had to power into the dock to keep from being swept downstream. After I filled the tank (no spills!), we powered up and fought the current out of the Narrows.
Once we got into Frederick Sound, the passage was easy. There was a small headwind but not enough to raise serious chop. I had chosen a rather short passage for the day, knowing that we’d probably get a late start and need some time to settle into the boat once we anchored. In mid-afternoon, we entered Thomas Bay, motored up to the shallows at the Baird glacier delta to look at the ice, then headed for the little cove south of Ruth Island. There were already three good-sized motor yachts here, but we anchored quite a ways away in the shallows where they can’t go. It’s a beautiful place at the delta of the river coming off Patterson Glacier. There are snow-capped 4000’ mountains to the east and north. There are also lots of no-see-ums, which has put a damper on activity outside the cabin.
There are more no-see-ums here than any place I’ve anchored yet. Jill and I went paddling in Bratwurst and they were still bugging us half a mile from shore. Every time we toss the bug net aside from the companionway and emerge into the cockpit we’re swarmed by the little biters.
avalanche tracks in Frederick Sound (click here for a larger image)
Frederick Sound (click here for a larger image)
6/7/05. It’s 6:45 in the morning. Miles, Dima, and Jill are still trying to sleep despite my making noise brewing coffee and moving stuff around. I’ve got to roust the crew and get underway soon so we can catch a favorable current north—we have a long passage (55 n.m.) ahead of us today.
Evening entry: We weighed anchor at 8:20. The no-see-ums disappeared around 8:00, replaced by the day shift: deer flies. They bite, but they’re big, slow, and much less numerous than the no-see-ums, so they’re not as bothersome. We should have left an hour earlier, before the turn to flood, because we faced a contrary current flowing into the bay, which is a much larger body of water than “bay” might imply.
Once we left the glacier breeze in the bay, the weather became warmer; a high overcast allows enough sun to make strong shadows. Around noon, the mirror-like water was taken over by a solid front of ripples that marked the sudden onset of a headwind. It raised a chop that was uncomfortable for Jill, who was trying to sleep in the vee-berth. The bow was plunging over crests and dropping into troughs, sometimes slamming down with enough force to throw spray twenty feet to each side and over the bow. She joined me in the cockpit, a brave trooper, while Miles and Dmitri slept through it all in their midships bunks.
The headwind and late start made me decide to cut short the day’s voyage—and the anchorage I had planned to use was almost landlocked, implying that there would be bugs aplenty. Cleveland Passage, several miles closer and more open to the breeze, looked like an attractive option.
After two hours of bucking the chop, as we neared Cape Fanshaw the breeze dropped to nothing, allowing us to turn off the motor and listen to the breathing of three or four humpback whales. For half an hour we drifted, watching them surface, spout, and plunge, their mighty flukes raised high in the air as they dove. After they disappeared, we began motoring again, attracting Dall’s porpoises. We’d see them in the distance, coming toward us at high speed to use Lacuna as a toy.
Sometimes eight or ten would swarm around us, and in the clear water we could see their underwater antics. They are incredibly fast and agile, though they look stubby and fat. We watched them make high-speed 180-degree turns, rolls, spins, and dodges underwater. Sometimes one would put on a burst of speed just under the surface, a wave rolling over his back, his dorsal fin out of the water. The books say they can make 30 miles per hour, and I believe it. Sometimes two would do acrobatics side-by-side. We felt the hull thump as they slapped it. They’d stay with us until we reached some boundary invisible to us, and all would immediately race away astern. Then, some minutes later, another pod would join us. It was a spectacular show. I feel blessed.
Frederick Sound
After the anchor was set in Cleveland Passage, near the SE end of Whitney Island, Miles and Dmitri went ashore in Bratwurst to do some exploring. The abandoned Indian village of Fanshaw on the mainland shore was marked by a shell beach, decaying pilings, and an old boiler. Dmitri enjoyed bashing pieces off the boiler, which was so rusted through that it fell apart at a touch.
We three adults took baths, and while Jill was doing dishes, we ran out of water, so Miles and I twice took Bratwurst to the beach and filled a five-gallon jug and 1-gallon bucket with fresh water from a stream. In our absence, Jill rigged the no-see-um net over the companionway. Good thing, too, because by the time we were done with the water, the no-see-ums were swarming all over. We were hoping that a more open anchorage, farther from shore, would reduce the number of no-see-ums. Our hopes were in vain. As the evening wore on, the deerflies left and the no-see-ums showed up. This morning, they’re still there. When I first began boating, naïve as I was, I thought one of the advantages of traveling by boat was that you didn’t have to deal with bugs. Not so in Alaskan waters, unfortunately, unless you’re far offshore.
6/8/05. Before everyone else arose, I took Bratwurst to the creek and filtered three gallons of drinking water so we don’t have to drink the plastic- and bleach-flavored water in the pressure water system.
In Stephens Passage, again we were treated to a show by Dall’s porpoises. Jill’s note in the ship’s log reads, “Toward the end of the show, it was kind of like a fireworks display. We’d think they were done, and then they’d start up again. What joie de vivre!”
As we approached Holkham Bay, we saw big icebergs aground on the bar, and when we anchored in the shoals of the little cove just north of the Tracy Arm bar, we were next to an iceberg bigger than Lacuna. Jill and I paddled Bratwurst around it, petted it, and admired it as closely as we dared. It was soon after high slack, and it was obvious that the berg was grounded but not yet in danger of toppling over (which it did about an hour later as the tide dropped).
Lacuna and iceberg share an anchorage in Tracy Arm (click here for a larger image)
Jill pets an iceberg
After we completed our circumnavigation of the cove and the iceberg had toppled over in the falling tide, Miles and Dmitri paddled to it. Miles broke off a piece and paddled quickly back to Lacuna as Dmitri held up the icy lump proudly. We put it in a pan as they resumed their exploration of the berg and the shore—later we drank the water that melted from it--pure water from an age before modern human pollution.
Miles and Dmitri explore the iceberg
Bergy bit special delivery
Jill tastes a bergy bit
I was disappointed to see a huge cruise ship enter Tracy Arm an hour or two before we got there. I had read that the big ships didn’t go in, but the contrary evidence was before my eyes. I don’t know how they did it—most of the Arm is as narrow as that ship was long, and there are some dog-leg turns that would be hard to negotiate. I don’t think that they could turn around until almost the head of the inlet, where the channel branches to South and North Sawyer glaciers. They must have gone up quite a ways, because the ship didn’t emerge for several hours.
A giant cruise ship exits from Tracy Arm
Tracy Arm (click here for larger image)
6/9/05. What a day! We motored almost to the head of Tracy Arm, within half a mile or less of the face of South Sawyer Glacier. To get there, we had to weave and bump our way through icebergs and bergy bits, The proximity of big bergs and the crunching of bits against the hull were unnerving but worth the effort for the view of the face of the glacier.
Tracy Arm (click here for a larger image)
This morning, as we motored up the 22-mile-long inlet, the scenery became ever more amazing as the bergs and bits became more numerous: sheer rock walls with shrubs growing in the cracks and crevices, waterfalls by the dozen, thin cascades falling thousands of feet from cliff top snow fields, domes and cirques, and far up the U-shaped valleys, more mountains and glaciers. Icebergs with fantastic shapes surrounded us. We saw bergs that looked like the starship Enterprise, dragon boats, ducks, frogs, Swiss cheese, and dozens of other shapes. Some bits were so glassy that they looked just like hardened mounds of water. Others looked as if they were covered with snow. Some were shades of blue that surpassed the sky’s color range.
Tracy Arm waterfall (click here for a larger image)
Tracy Arm (click here for a larger image)
Small cruise ship in Tracy Arm (click here for a larger image)
Tracy Arm (click here for a larger image)
Tracy Arm (click here for a larger image)
When we neared the glacier, we realized we’d come across a seal nursery. There were many mom-and-pup pairs sunning themselves on the ice. As we neared, the mother would slip into the water first. The pups would stay on the floe watching us until we got nearer. Sometimes it looked as if the mothers were having to persuade the pups to jump in.
South Sawyer Glacier (click here for a larger image)
Jill, Dennis, and South Sawyer Glacier.
6/10/05. Our pet iceberg has dwindled away to almost nothing. A day and a half ago, it was bigger than our boat. It's now a cube about a meter on a side, stranded high in the intertidal zone. Judging by the speed of the melt, the bergs lying just outside the anchorage must have been monsters when they calved off the glacier.
We left our anchorage at Tracy Arm a bit earlier than we had planned (for a change). The lowest tide was coming on, and the shallow alarm on the depth sounder, which I’d set for 6 feet, beeped as we swung over rocks. It was motivation to pull the anchor and get underway. As we motored north, we saw scattered icebergs for miles. After a 25 n.m. passage, we arrived at Taku Harbor, where we tied Lacuna up to the public float.
Taku Harbor (click here for larger image)
On a point near the float, the remains of a large cannery are marked by a forest of pilings, rusty machinery, and piles of bricks. There is a broken-down boardwalk along the shore, linking a number of abandoned shacks being taken over by the brush.
It's so wet at Taku Harbor that conifers grow on the ruined deck of an abandoned cannery.
Taku Harbor cannery remnants
6/11/05. After an uneventful passage, Lacuna is docked at Harris Harbor in Juneau, where we arrived mid-afternoon yesterday. The traffic in Gastineau Channel wasn’t bad—there were float planes flying overhead and small boats buzzing around, but the big two cruise ships stayed tied to their dock and there was little commercial traffic.
Juneau (click here for larger image)
The docks are undergoing reconstruction, so there were many empty slips in Harris Harbor because the resident boats are being shuffled to the other harbors in town. There’s no electricity on the dock (the cables have all been cut). I hope I can arrange for moorage while we’re in Oregon.
Juneau from Gastineau Channel (click here for a larger image)
Cruise ships at Juneau
6/12/05. We rented a motel suite, took long hot showers, stretched, slept in big, non-rocking beds, and didn't get up until late this morning. After a leisurely breakfast, we visited the state museum, a marvelous repository of northwest Indian and Eskimo artifacts and art, and walked downtown. Four giant cruise ships were docked, and downtown was swarming with people. Like Ketchikan, the cruise ship dock area includes shops selling luxury goods and tourist trinkets. There was little to interest us, so we strolled uphill to see the governor's mansion and hillside homes before returning to the motel. Tomorrow Miles and Dmitri will fly back to San Diego. Jill and I will retrace our passage through Gastineau Channel and head toward Glacier Bay.
--Dennis Todd
