July 26, 2009 Tracy Arm

As I left off the last update, on the 18th, my brother, Paul, had just left and my son Zach and daughter-in-law, Stephanie were on the way.


On the 19th, under cloudy skies and a bit of rain, we left Auke Bay for some fishing along the west coast of Douglas Island. We fished along right where Paul and I caught several king salmon the day before, but had no such luck this time. Puttered along in likely spots at 2 kts on the wing engine, (we can’t go quite slow enough to troll for salmon on the main engine), We did see several whales and some orca, at great distances, to Stephanie’s delight. We finished the day relatively early at Taku Horbor and I cooked up some of the salmon that Paul caught the day before. As usual, it was a big hit.

On the 20th, we made directly for Tracy Arm. It was foggy as we crossed the bar, but visibility improved after we got to the “elbow”. For most of the way, there was somewhat fewer “bergy bits”, but more substantive icebergs than last time.

This time we got almost to the glacier face before the icebergs and bergy bits got dense enough that I thought it was prudent to make our way out of there. We followed a mid-size cruise ship after it passed us at the “elbow”. As you can see, it kept going when I gave up. I wasn’t worried about the hull being damaged, but even the small pieces of ice are hard and sharp enough to do damage to the paint. We could see the glacier pretty well at that point and fog was beginning to form behind us.

Even so, for part of the passage back to the bar, Zach was bundled up in the bow, peering through the fog, and I was watching the FLIR for black things on the screen, (ice shows up black). We did make it out without incident, but it was later than I’d planned by the time we reached Stephens Passage and turned south. We made a late anchorage in Gambier Bay.

On the 21st, we left Gambier Bay for the next good anchorage to the South, Pybus Bay. (That’s where I had intended to stay the night before). On the way in, we fished a while for halibut, (no luck), trolled for salmon, (Zach got one undersized king), and set the crab and shrimp pots, (using some really foul bait that we’d collected).

The view where we anchored was spectacular, rain and fog notwithstanding. We saw another humpback lazing around just before we anchored.

On the 22nd, the weather turned even windier, wetter and colder. The weather report called for worsening conditions for the next couple of days, with the next good weather not due until next weekend. As we left Pybus Bay, headed South, we were facing 25-30 knot winds, (true), over the bow. Zach and I set the paravanes, so the ride was actually pretty good. Nonetheless, I haven’t had anyone get seasick, so far, so I decided to push on to Petersburg, rather than go all the way back to Juneau. Staying where we were would have been another option, except that Stephanie’s flight home is on Saturday and both Thursday and Friday promised even worse weather. By the time we got to Petersburg, we were glad to be in a quiet harbor, although no one was seasick.

On the 23rd, we lazed around Petersburg, seeing the sights on foot. I talked to my kind of mechanic about the fact that I’m dripping out of the rear seal on the transmission. The oil quantity isn’t very much, (it just leaks down to the level of the seal and stops), but it’s making a real mess of the bilge. Fixing the seal means pulling the transmission. His advice, after learning that we rarely run at full throttle, was to put less oil in. I’m going to try that for a while. In the meantime, I built a diaper under the seal to divert the leakage into the pan under the engine, rather than the bilge. That way, I can catch it and dispose of it in waste oil tanks that all the harbors here seem to have.

On the 24th, Zach and Stephanie caught the fast ferry back to Juneau so Stephanie can catch her flight early Saturday morning. Zach’s going to take the slow ferry back, through Sitka for a 24 hour boat ride that should bring him back to Petersburg on Monday.

On the 25th while doing laundry, I met a nice couple from New Zealand and invited them to dinner. Nice dinner, decent wine and good conversation. Overall, a pretty nice day.

The 26th, I did a bit of reading and several small “to-dos”. The boat’s ready to go when Zach gets back tomorrow. First thing, we’ll go back to Pybus Bay to pick up the crab and shrimp pots. After that . . .?