Boy howdy was that cold a doozy, I’m still recovering. We rented a car for the last day my sister was here. We had a fantastic day. We saw several bears and a cub! at Herring Cove. The best time to go is in the evening. We ended our day by driving up to the Eagle’s Nest for pizza.
One last check at Herring Cove in the morning for the bears, a little souvenir shopping and we dropped our guests off at the airport and they were on their way. We walked back to the bus stop and caught the free shuttle back to Thomas Basin.
We’re ready to blow this pop top. We have spent A LOT of time in Ketchikan. We don’t like to leave in the afternoon, the winds usually pick up in the afternoons. 5-foot seas are forecast for Thursday, so we decided to spend all of Wednesday and head to Wrangell. What a fantastic decision that was. The sea state was so smooth and calm all the way and it seemed like we had the current with us the majority of the time. It should have been 12 hours and the current shaved one hour off that! Nice.
Not so nice – our autopilot went out, so we had to hand-steer the entire trip. We took half-hour shifts, it made the day go super fast. I got all the fixings ready for fish tacos for dinner during the trip. Jim researched the issue and hopefully will be able to fix it. It’s always something on a boat!
We saw a pod of orcas, 2 humpbacks, and a sea lion on our trip. The orcas were a rare treat. We took Zimovia Strait – I’m glad we had our tracks from last time, even though we were following our Navionics route, it still seemed confusing.
We were greeted by our neighbor upon arrival in Wrangell. He was very concerned that we were taking someone else’s spot. He also warned us that our slip mate is a gigantic boat – he made it all sound rather ominous and threatening. If it is an issue, we’ll have to get on a list for a slip elsewhere. I think we got the last one. Drama aside, we’re tucked in and had a relaxing evening. I made some bread, it will be ready to bake in the morning.
We need to go pick up a form at the harbormaster’s office this morning and take it to city hall to hook up our utilities. We are in no hurry, it is pouring rain and not supposed to let up until after 11 am.
We have been the only pleasure boaters out and about for a while now, it has been quite eerie. The only folks we see are fishing. I suggested a mini rendezvous and some responded with “it is way too late in mid-September, we’re already putting our boats up“. What? We aren’t familiar with the weather here and will take it day by day. We have a haul-out planned for October 1st to inspect the bottom of the boat, pressure wash it, and change the zincs. If push comes to shove, we will hire a diver to clean the bottom, change the zincs, and reschedule the haul out for the spring.
Since somehow beyond our comprehension, our AIS is tied into our autopilot – we do have another way for you to check our location – if you are interested, let me know and I’ll get you the link.
Talk Soon.
An adventure in technology and weather. Good luck!