July 18, 2009 Petersburg to Tracy Arm

I just bought a new position/condition reporting device that enables me to report Arcadia1’s position on a Google Earth shared website via satellite. It’s a pretty neat little device called “Spot”, you can check it out at findmespot.com.

You should be able to look at “tacks” in the map as I move around by selecting this web address: http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0E5ilbEqkJDipgqG8ctzZlWJqEgXqesdZ I’ll try to send a position report each noon and each evening that we travel. Right now, the map should show you that we’re OK and located at Auke Bay, just North of Juneau.

To quickly update all:

On the 16th, Paul and I left Petersburg mid-morning. We sorta dawdled around, trolling a bit and sightseeing a lot more. By about 5 pm, we were across Stephens Passage from Holkham Bay. I had heard that there were too many bergy bits floating around to attempt crossing the bar into Tracy Arm, but we thought we’d look for ourselves. When we got there, there were about a half-dozen boats anchored at a little bay just inside the bar and, while there was quite a lot of ice floating around, it wasn’t difficult to dodge among them. We crossed the bar and went up to the “elbow”, where Tracy Arm turns sharply to the East. By that time, there was only the occasional bergy bit. We could have kept going, but we didn’t want to have to come back down in the dark. (We do have FLIR, Forward Looking InfraRed, that makes ice look very visible in the dark, but I thought we should wait for another day. We’ll probably do that next week, while Zach and Stephanie are here.

We made a late mooring in Taku Harbor, (the first time, so far that we’ve anchored in the same place twice), so we could troll our way by Point Hilda on the way back to Auke Bay marina.

On the 17th, we caught 5 king salmon. Three of them were somewhat less than the requisite 28” length. The first was at the mouth of Taku Inlet. The other four were exactly where we caught the 33” one a few days earlier, (between Hilda Point and Middle Point on Douglas Island). We’re pretty sure we could have filled the boat with them, but we had plenty so we went on to Auke Bay.

On the 18th, Paul caught his 6:15 am flight home. (His picture, above). I did laundry and shopping. Tonight, at 9:49 pm, my son Zach and his wife Stephanie will arrive and we’ll continue the adventure with some new eyes to behold God’s creation with me.