We were surprised to wake up to a wall of fog. We thought we were in for a few days of sunshine. We went over to the Salty Pantry for breakfast and then over to the grocery store to provision. Stocked back up, nothing to do now but wait. Here is the magic sauce for Wrangell Narrows. This is for my own benefit more than yours when I am trying to figure it out next year. Leave on a flood tide – time your arrival for slack at Papke’s landing – then ride the ebb to your destination. It works both ways. Oh, and it didn’t hurt that we could follow our breadcrumbs from our previous trip. Sometimes it looked a little confusing as to which way to go. There is an entire section in the Douglas Guide on how to navigate if it is your first time.
We only met larger fishing boats, no tugs, barges, or small cruise ships. The fog had burned off by 10:30 and we had a glorious sunny cruise to Wrangell. We saw a sea lion on our way out of Petersburg. We heard on the radio that a humpback is entangled in a fishing net out by Cleveland Passage 🙁 That is one of the first areas we saw 6 of them together. It only got better from there. There is a whale entanglement response team from NOAA. Hope they can help him out.
We have decided to stay in Wrangell for a few days. We were going to head straight to Ketchikan to see Rocky and Tracy one last time but they are waiting on a weather window and could leave at a moment’s notice. And, we don’t relish the idea of spending an entire week in Ketchikan. Don’t get me wrong, Ketchikan is nice but it is a cruise ship town and up to 20k people flood into it daily. We didn’t go into Wrangell the last time we were here, so we’re going to stay a few nights and explore the area.
A fellow boater offered to catch lines when we got here, boy she looked familiar. She is from Anacortes, but they kept their boat on the hard. Hm. Then it dawned on me that I met her at Christ the King church in Anacortes! We talked at length before the service. They were going on a vacation and we were checking out all the churches in the area, so our paths never crossed again. What are the odds that we would see each other again in Alaska! They have been waiting here for weeks for a part they paid to have shipped in two days.
We had some leftovers that we heated for dinner and enjoyed the evening on the flybridge. The wind kicked up just in time to watch the primetime Olympics. Then off to bed.
Talk Soon.