Leaving Craig for the beautiful El Capitan Passage and its ancient Caves

Ginny and I have been happily married for 50 years , have 2 sons and 6 grandchildren. We have been avid boaters since the mid 1970's. We have sailed in various parts of the world making 'bareboat' charter trips in the Washington and Canadian San Juans and Gulf Islands, Maine,the British Virgins, South Pacific's Moorea and Tuamoto's and New Zealand. We owned and raced a J-24, Laser, and cruised a Newport 30 before buying a long range trawler in 2003 and cruising the waters of the Pacific Northwest and the 'Inside Passage' of British Columbia to SE Alaska for the last 10 years. After first owning a 2000 Selene 47, and 2002 Selene 50 (both named 'Ina Marie', we now, in the 'bell lap' of our boating days, own, operate and thoroughly enjoy 'Ginny C' , our 2007 Selene 42.

Thursday, August 1, 2013, Craig to Sarker Cove    To see our locations click on this text

Weather continues to be beautiful as we leave Craig this morning on our 43km cruise to Sarker Cove in anticipation of our trip through El Capitan Passage and Narrows. It is hard to believe that it has been  a week since we left Ketchikan.

Our early morning departure brings us into fog after we exit San Cristobal passage.  For about 1.5 to 2 hours we run in fog on Radar with visibility ranging from 1.5 to less than 1/4 mile visibility.  Very few targets encountered except for a few fishing boats. 

The fog totally burned off about 3 miles before entering Karheen Narrows and entering the 1.5 miles of rock piles crossing Tuxekan Bay  and heading up Tuxekan  Passage on into  Sarker Cove for the night.  This beautiful cove was a wonderful place to stay. 

Luxury class El Capitan fishing lodge sits midway in and is a beautiful spot. 

Fish are literally swarming in the bay jumping everywhere.  Huge schools are congregating at the mouth of the river for spawning.  There has been no rain anywhere near here for weeks so the spawning streams every where are almost running dry giving no room for fish movement. As we take a dingy and kayak run up to the river entrance fish are jumping so close to us that they almost splash us. We can see them in swarms everywhere but they won’t hit our lures.

As we return to Ginny C we realize the water is quite warm.  It reads s 73.8 on my fishfinder. This is totally unbelievable!!---- Warmer than Desolation Sound’s Prideaux Haven Cove.  Needles to say, Dave D and I took a swim and bathed.  Also the water here is brackish with a big fresh water layer on top of the salt water.  As soon as we dive in we discover that the 73+ water is a layer only about three feet down---feet freezing cold but toasty warm on the surface layer.  But after lathering up we did not even need a fresh water rinse because this warm top layer was almost totally freshwater 

Our Whale citing for the day has been four , one as we left Craig and three after we came through Tuxekan Narrows.

August 2, and August 3, 2013 El Capitan Passage and El Capitan Caves

Friday, August 2, 2013                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

It is a  short 12,8 km run north and then west into beautiful EL Capitan Passage.  We leave at 7:45 and arrive at the USFS cove and dock about 9:45 am.  It is another clear day.  We thought we would be anchoring off the dock and taking the tender in, but as we approach a young USFS employee on the dock tells us there is over 20 feet at the dock and we are welcome to tie up.  Ginny makes a great pancake brunch for us and Dan who it turns out will be our guide for our noon tour of El Capitan Cave.  I do Rocky Pass Chart work until noon and we meet Dan and Nichol, our guides  for the tour at Noon.  This huge cave requires us to go up 370 steps to reach its entrance. It is up and up through beautiful second growth and virgin forest.

Our tour lasts 2 hours and we go 600 feet into the cave during the tour.  The temp inside is 40 so we bundle up.  Our route is horizontal for the most part.  The cave has several miles and several levels of passages.  When we return to the boat, the wind is cool and brisk so upon request we are allowed to stay on the dock overnight.  We had planned to head off another three km down EC passage to ‘Dry Pass Anchorage’ for the night.

The rest of the afternoon is spent relaxing and reading, gunkholing on the beach, and pulling and organizing charts for the next several days.

Saturday, August 3, 2013    To see our locations click on this text

 It is hard to believe that it has been over a week since we left Ketchikan. 

Our cruise plan for the day is to traverse the rest of El Capitan Passage into Shankan Passage and Bay and then on out into Sumner Straight and into Hole in the Wall Cove for the night, before tackling 24 miles of ‘Rocky Pass’ and Keku Straight the next two days.  The final seven to eight miles of El Cap. are narrow and beyond spectacular!!!  We wished we had stayed in ‘Dry Pass’ as planned, about 3 km further in.

Fish continue to jump all around us.  It is a relatively short 19nm day with a planned arrival at Hole in the Wall cove at noon so we slow down and fish for an hour plus but have no success. This is frustrating as literally hundreds of fish are jumping all around us. A huge whale greets us as we exit Shakan Passage.

Hole in the Wall looks like the perfect all weather anchorage up here near the North west end of Prince of Wales Island but we soon discover that this is not where we want to settle in for the night.  As we enter its extremely narrow slot about 300 yards long and prepare to anchor we cannot find a proper depth which is not too close to shore for my comfort and the bottom is very soft mud thru which we might drag if  SW wind picks up through the entrance. 

So, we go to plan B and exit heading to either Port Protection and Wooden Wheel Cove or Port Baker, a small community at the north end of Prince Of Wales Island.  After squeezing in to the local Store/Processing Plant dock in Port Protection we see that the state float ‘next door’ is wide open on one side so we tie up there, have lunch, and drop Dave and Steph off at the store/process plant dock to visit with the local fisherman while we do some bottom fishing for a couple of hours.  Fishing boats are coming in to drop off their catches at the plant.  It is interesting to watch the action.  Our fishing effort produces only two small rock fish which will be used for bait.