Chronicle VI

Windwalker Chronicle VI
July 22, 2007

We are in Alaska. All of us. Windwalker. Ratty. Teddy bears. Jean and Doug. All of us. You probably thought that we had forgotten where we were headed.

We crossed Dixon Entrance on Tuesday, July 17th, spending the night in Foggy Bay just like we told the US Customs Officials we would, clearing Customs in Ketchikan on Wednesday. But, of course, we didn’t just appear here from of outer space. We had had Explores, Minor Adventures, Minor Repairs, and Time to Do Nothing along the way.

After Namu and Ocean Falls, we still had one more fally-down site to visit in BC. Butedale, (#010 and 042) with its magnificent waterfall, is the site of a huge fish cannery that was shut down in the ‘60’s. Various attempts to make it into a viable vacation community/marina have failed and it is now owned by “some rich guy in California”. Lou, the (unpaid) caretaker who lives here year-round, has used skills learned from working on the Alaska pipeline to keep a few critical parts from falling into total disrepair. He is the walking definition of resourcefulness and tenacity. The power generation system is an example of his ingenuity. #033

Lou’s teenage granddaughter is staying with him for her second summer, so he had a little company. The day we were there, we were their only visitor, but they usually have one or two boats each day. We enjoyed his stories of the history of this entrancing, decaying place. (#012)

One of our two cruising guides is Wagoner, updated yearly by Robert and Marilynn Hale after they visit the places listed in the guide. (They have correspondents to help them out. What a chore that must be.) We have been a day or two behind the Hales since we got to Dawson’s Landing and preceded us to Ocean Falls and Butedale. We’d love to meet them; Doug is sure that they are both wearing rose-colored glasses. They NEVER have anything negative to say when sharing their passionate love for the people, the coast and its history. I do think we need to learn their language. The dock,s that have been a little rough in the past, are being replaced means that one dock has been replaced. The facility is a capturing of coastal history, right before your eyes means that no maintenance has been done since 1955. But, like the Hales, we appreciate the places and the people who are trying to keep them viable.

FAST-FORWARD!!! I had planned to logically relate our journey north from Butedale, but we have just returned to Windwalker from a (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime experience. Everyone has heard or has a story to tell about Alaska and her bears. For many cruising boaters, just spotting a bear can often be the highlight of the trip. Exploring Southeast Alaska, p. 153.

‘Wanna hear our story? We had planned to go the US Forest Service Anan Wildlife (Bear!) Observatory on our way to Wrangle, but after reading about the tenuous anchorage, decided to take a tour of the area after we got to Wrangell. As we cruised by Anan Bay, we pointed Windwalker’s nose in to take a boo. She thought that she could stay in the bay for a while by herself, so we anchored (in 125 feet!). Our spiffy red spinnaker halyard hoisted Ratty off the foredeck, we settled Mr. Tohatsu on the stern, and set out to see the bears.

The observatory has a half-mile boardwalk and then a muddy path that leads to an observation platform with a lower photo blind above a waterfall. One gazillion and thirty-six salmon were franticly heading home to have sex, and several black bears were wandering down the riverbank to snack.

From the photo blind, we watched a black bear munching on his salmon three feet from us. He/she decimated that fish and swept a big paw into the water for another, right under our screened-off feet, then disappeared into a nook in the wall to eat in private. More bears came down the hill across the river, scooped up their treats, and ambled back up to enjoy the yummy parts. We took pictures, marveled at Mother Nature, and then headed back to find out if Windwalker was still pirouetting where we left her. (170, 168)

One of the rangers had started out ahead of us, and Doug asked another rangers if we could accompany her. As we hurried to catch up with her, she motioned for us to come ahead. Well, I thought, do we have to run? No, we just have to keep walking, because there is a black bear right behind Doug. The bear wandered down to the river, and we continued with our rifle-toting guardian to a spot where three bridges cross a ravine. On the other side of the bridges was a seven-to-eight year old Grizzly the rangers have named Sea Biscuit. Sea Biscuit is a rebellious adolescent: he recently destroyed an inflatable (we were told the rangers could not be responsible for Ratty), has held people hostage in the outhouse, and has bluff-charged two people in the last week. (HOW do you know it is a bluff charge???)

We stopped, and when he advanced across the bridge, we turned and headed back toward the observation platform, about a quarter mile away, with Sea Biscuit following us. (His stride was considerably longer than mine.) As we neared the falls, he decided salmon were more fun than people, and went fishing. We stayed on the platform a few minutes and thought about Windwalker twirling around on the incoming tide.

When the rangers decided it was safe to travel, we once again set out behind this young woman, with her pepper spray and rifle (which we hoped she knew how to use). She told us that pepper spray is only effective if it gets in the bear’s eyes and nose. Just how far does it spray? I’m buying the kind with the 50 yard range.

Windwalker was in the general vicinity of where we left her, but it took considerable time to haul the 400 feet of anchor rode back on board. Mr. Windlass was very tired and we were very wet as we set out (past Blake Island!) for Berg Bay, our planned anchorage for the night. Since there two other boats in Berg Bay when we arrived, and since we had the tide with us for The Narrows, and since Wrangle was only fifteen miles away we headed for Wangle.

Did you know that fifteen miles is not a finite number? It becomes an infinite number when a small boat encounters RainRAINrain. By the time we got to Wrangle Harbor, it was almost dark and the rain had increased, something we thought was not possible. We rafted up next to an elegant Nordhaven 40. I’m sure the skipper and crew thought that the hill people had arrived.

( 020, 035, 055) NOW I remember why we do this. We’re sitting in the cockpit under overcast skies with beer, potato chips, and dip, looking out at the workboats in Wrangle Harbor (less sophisticated than other historic Southeast towns, with the feel of the Alaska frontier.). We’ve just completed our explore of Wrangle, with its totem pole sites, shops catering to the locals (cruise ships don’t stop here) and friendly people. A new museum does an excellent job of depicting the history of this area, under the rule of the Tlinglits, the Russians, the British, and finally the US. Wrangle does not have a genteel past; Wyatt Erp declined to be it’s sheriff, but agreed to serve for ten days, during which time he arrested a man he had arrested twenty years previously in the southwest. Things have changed since then.

I still haven’t told you about The Fog Incident, Prince Rupert, crossing the Dixon Entrance, Ketchikan, or Meyers Chuck. I’ll try to be succinct. Good luck with that. OH! And Hartley Bay. And Grenville Channel. Be patient. Go get a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, or come back when you have more time….

After Butedale, we stopped for fuel and a sleepover at Hartley Bay, a tidy First People’s community with no store or other facilities, except for moorage, and very friendly people. (For some reason, my camera elected to stay on the boat when we went for our explore.) As we walked past a small house with toys and tables and chairs in the front yard, Doug noticed people at one of the tables ordering food. A restaurant! We ordered fish and chips and Cokes (Hartley Bay is a dry community.). The husband and wife took turns cooking, watching their kids, and kibitzing. Kids and families and dogs were out walking, enjoying the warm summer evening and the black flies; the home/café was the community’s gathering place. People shared the tables and talked back and forth. They were interested in where we were from and where we were going. The absence of cell phones and ipods left space. Of course, the weather and calamari helped.


We left in the almost-dark the next morning for Grenville Channel, The Ditch, which is a wide, 45 mile long highway that most of the cruise ships use. We saw the Coast Guard and numerous tugs and barges, but no big ships. Since we had the current with us, we motored almost to the end, anchoring in a lovely bay in a very unlovely eighty feet. Usually if you anchor in that depth, the advice is to take a line ashore, but shore was far away because of a shelf that dropped from about fifteen feet to our precarious depth. We had to connect our 200 feet of line to our 200 feet of chain. It worked, but it was ugly. In Prince Rupert, we found a talented man at the chain store (no, not K-Mart) who spliced the line to the chain. It woks better, but Mr. Windlass gets confused talking line and chain. He can do it, but it taxes his brain.

Heading to Prince Rupert the next day, we motored into The Fog. The Radar was employed, our little air horn saw the light of day, and I stationed myself on the foredeck to watch for alligators (big logs) and boats. The Radar lives and works in his very permanent home above the chart table. The chart table is located some distance from both the helm and the foredeck; we took turns running down to see what The Radar was seeing. We could hear an engine. Big engine. We could hear a ship’s horn. We could hear our horn. We could see nothing. AFTER the BC Ferry went by, (their wakes are much larger than the cruise ships, so we knew who it was) I scampered below to watch him on the radar. He was less than a quarter mile from us and had graciously altered course to avoid a collision. Judging from the size of his wake, how quickly it reached us, and the speed with which the blip on the radar screen moved, he was not moving at a speed that will allow you to stop in half the distance you can see. More grateful prayers. This cruising business can be a religious experience. (076, 083)

Back on the foredeck. What is THAT? Doug put the engine in neutral as we watched a form materialize out of the fog. A rock? A ghost ship? A tree? A TREE??? ‘Twas huge and had been at sea for some time, judging from the amount of bird poop on it. We were in awe. More prayers of thanks. (#VI 076 & 093)

The fog departed. Windwalker and her grateful crew proceeded to The Prince Rupert Rowing and Yachting Club, which is the only place for pleasure craft to tie up in Prince Rupert, due to all the fishing boats at the two public docks. An Eagle Harbor Yacht Club burgee greeted us from the railing.

Due to a glitch in licensing agreements, there is no cell phone reception in Prince Rupert for US customers, regardless of roaming, wandering, straying, etc. We were using the phone at the head of the pier one evening, when another yachtie stopped to talk to Doug. Look, there is an eagle sitting on your mast. That happened to me last year. ‘Broke my VHF antenna. Well, good. Welcome to Mother Nature and the Ancient Law of Tonnage wrecking havoc on our technology-laden lives. Our dock-neighbor, a skipper from Switzerland on a chartered boat with a crew of five women, had told us earlier that an eagle had broken his wind-direction indicator in Port Hardy. In our minds, the majestic bird was transformed into a rude, potentially dangerous and repair-causing piece of meat. I trotted down to Windwalker and loosened the spinnaker halyard, working it back and forth until Eagle got tired of the unreliable perch and slowly soared away in search of something more stable. All the little pieces of equipment that call the masthead their home seem to have survived the visit.

After three days in Prince Rupert (the laundry attendant and his facility are a story that I will skip), we again headed north with a favorable weather prediction to CROSS THE DIXON ENTRANCE. We’ve been listening to Dixon Entrance weather reports for years; we felt like this was a rite of passage. It was a long day, and we had beam seas in the Dixon Entrance itself, but no harrowing experiences. We were happy to anchor in beautiful, very-difficult-to-enter Foggy Bay where we were surprised to find four large yachts from the Seattle area.

Ketchikan the next day, where we cleared Customs, did laundry, encountered and cured a problem with the hot water faucet in the galley, and avoided the 9,000 (That is an actual count, not my invented number.) cruise ship visitors. We saw some of the sights, but saved most for the trip back. It did seem to us that Creek Street, which was once the red-light district and is now full of shops selling items to the 9000 cruise ship patrons, served a better purpose in its former days. (#VI 103)

(142, 143) Next stop: Meyers Chuck, a very secure bay with a public wharf and more than its share of picturesque Southeast cabins and fally-down buildings. Meyers Chuck is one of the places that Michael, the skipper of Duen way-back at Musgrave Landing, recommend to us. We thank him. Moored across the dock from us was Provider, a handsome fish and crab boat that works in Alaska in the summer and in the San Francisco area during the winter. The skipper had approximately 732 (my number) very large Dungeness crabs and a smaller number of salmon. When we returned from our explore, Morrie, the skipper of the boat behind us, was cooking two of the crab, explaining that Provider’s skipper had given them to him, and one was intended for us. Yum.

We shared wine and stories with Morrie and Catherine on board Phoebe while the crab cooked. Since they were headed south, they gave us their Important Copy of the Alaska Marine Highway 2007 Official Summer Schedule, which we didn’t even know we needed. It is more than a little useful when transiting Wrangell Narrows to Petersburg; you want to know when to expect those big blue ships.

The following day was our Bear Story at Anan Bay and the too-long transit to Wrangell.

More will follow. We’re still headed north.