Our 24nm run today to Petersburg, will bring closure to the second leg, 9 days, of our three leg Alaska piece of our cruise .(The last 10 days or so will take to Wrangell, and on through Misty Fjords National and on into Prince Rupert, BC).
It is another day in a black, gray, and white day until we dock in this interesting town almost totally supported by fishing. It is known as Alaska’s ‘Little Norway’ located on Mitokof Island at the head of Wrangell Narrows, a 17nm navigation channel going south from here with interesting navigation and current challenges which we will undertake two days from now when we make our 40 plus nm run to Wrangell for another two days, also a smaller a fishing/logging town which will be the last town we will visit in Alaska.
Frederic Sound is known for being full of whales so like yesterday we are on the lookout. Just when we conclude that they are not around today one surfaces and rolls over right next to the boat, not 30 feet away from us.He/She is bigger than we are!!
Nothing like this has ever happened to us. For those of you who have helped us ‘whale watch’ in BC, we are normally gazing for far off spouts. Needless to say, we are startled and it scared the ‘bejezzuz’ out of us. We slowed and watched and this one continued to stay very close. I even backed up to get away thinking maybe we were provoking it. We continued on after spending several minutes in awe and Ginny snapping pics as fast as she could with both of our cameras. Five minutes later we had the same experience with another one. I was ‘chicken’ to stay as close as it seemed willing to get to us, but what a sight to behold!!!
We came on into town about an hour later. Currents were running over 5 knots off the docks. Slack was over an hour away. But then I saw a big back eddy and we came on in to our assigned slip without the difficulty I was fearing. After describing the experience with local fishermen on the docks a few hours later, I learned ther was nothing to fear as were watching their feeding methods.
As soon as we were tied up the drizzle stopped, the sun came out, and we ate a bite and spent the rest of the afternoon scoping out this town of about 3,000. It has its own charm and sits in its own beautiful setting with the mainland mountains and the huge Le Conte Glacier in its background, but lacks the sophistication of Sitka. It is the Halibut capital of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean and the entire town is nothing but a huge fishing fleet and huge processing plants. No ‘fine dinning’ anywhere, but lots of bars and pizza and informal places to eat, interspersed with a couple of good bakeries/coffee houses.
In closing, this may be the last posting for a couple of weeks- maybe when back in the Broughtons at Port McNeil, as there is little if any internet even here. As of today we have travelled 1,850 km since leaving Olympia on June 17, just two months ago. What a trip so far!
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.
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