Misty Fiords

 I did a little trip over to Rudyerd Bay, because I've always wanted to see what is up this one little river, and it was a nice trip.  On the way over I found some Red-Necked Phalaropes...   And also some Orcas, but I was trying to shoot video and didn't get any still pictures.  I passed by this volcanic plug, called New Eddystone Rock.  I pass this all the time with uncruise, but this time I had more time to look and think about what it would be like to climb it.

 I went past Punchbowl Cove, and the cliffs above punchbowl looked down on me with some snow on their brow. 

 As I got towards God's Pocket, I began to see Brown Bears in all the grassy meadows.  This one was a biggie...

 I went for a paddle and found some Common Mergansers

 And then for a short walk amongst the Nootka Lupine.  Unless these are not Nootka Lupine, maybe Abe will comment with a correction here.  The meadows are beginning to flower and full of green and lush leaves.  I wanted to lie down and nap in them, but it was rainy and there were bears all around.

 Like this one.  This bear was eating grass (as they do a lot) and never noticed me arrive, but I still kept my distance.  Its a big difference to be alone with a bear than to have friends along. 

 There was another bear that sauntered out but it retreated again.  The tide was dropping and I took this picture of Layla out at the edge of the tide flat.  It goes from 400 ft deep to about 5 ft deep very quickly and its hard to find the right spot to anchor in where you don't go aground at low tide, but you aren't too deep. 

 I paddled up the river at high tide later on and found this little spotted sandpiper

 Here's another Layla shot.  I set up a tarp as a rain shelter and it works great

 I moved to another location and found some more bears, and a wolverine which ran away before I could get a picture of it, and also some mating river otters. 

I'm back in Ketchikan now and trying to fix all the things that have broken since I started out, and the list seems to keep growing, but I also working it down.  Its a differential equation, actually, it is being added to and depleted from at the same time and at rates that depend on each other...  Since fixing the rudder up, I added some more support for the pulleys that are used to turn the rudder when using the wheel (you can also use a tiller on this one so if the wheel breaks it is a backup).  This was a very difficult job because of the access, but I managed to get it done.  I'm quite happy with it now.  The engine had a few leaks in it and I have patched them up as well, so that feels great, but the inverter, which turns the solar panel power and battery power into 120 volt power that I use to charge my cameras and computer, that has broken.  The heater is also finicky, and it was just working pretty well a few moments ago, but it likes to "pulse" and then go out a lot, so I think I need a new fuel pump for it.  But when it works, the world is so much nicer.
I made a rain collection system for filling the fresh water tank, and filled the ice box with snow from an avalanche chute, so hopefully I can only need to get fuel and food from towns.

North, to Alaska!

I've made it to Ketchikan. It was a great trip north, with lots of sunshine and no rain, and at times, quite hot, but fun and tiring. I'm glad to be stopped now for a little while.

Before I left, I took Mom and David out sailing, and I did a lot of testing the boat out to see how it sailed and anchored and motored. I learned a lot, but I learned more on the trip north, so there is projects to work on still.

 My Crew:

I had some friends from Uncruise join me, Shane

and Ted

And of course me.

As we headed north we passed through Seymore Narrows, and I went through at a pretty high flow time and hit 15.1 knots according to the GPS. That's pretty quick. As we passed through Johnstone Strait we saw an Elephant Seal resting at the surface. I tried to get a look, but it dove before I could get closer. If you click on the picture you can zoom in on the seal. They look so funny.

Crossing Queen Charlotte Sound was good, we had some wind behind us for a while and I ran the spinnaker and also flew the kite for some pictures.

There are lots of very close channels and we saw a black bear pretty close on Princess Royal Island

And some nice lichens in the trees with the sun beaming though...

As we crossed Dixon Entrance, we passed by a lighthouse that I took a picture of from Altair when I passed by 11 years ago. It was good to see it again, and this time with calmer seas.

And our arrival in Ketchikan. Here is the city from the water.

I also hit a log on the way up and wanted to have a look. I hauled out on the "grid" to fix it, and that took about 2 hours, so I cleaned the bottom and put a new "knot meter" propeller in as well. Its a pretty neat system, just uses the tide to expose the bottom of the boat, but most people don't put sailboats on there, so a lot of folks were coming by to ask me how I did it. The grid spacing is not very wide and you need a long enough keel to sit on two beams, and Layla has a long enough keel, but only just. I did a lot of adjusting as the tide was dropping to make sure the keel lined up just right.

I dropped off my crew and now I'll spend a few days here before heading out into the wilderness for a bit.