Sailing with Dummies (Alaska to Seattle Edition)

Saturday, August 16, 2008

by Mike

Saturday began with rain. It was light rain, but steady rain. The wind was light and the waves were small. We motored with the solent up occasionally. But often we had a light wind directly against us.

Fullerton started cleaning metal parts in the bathrooms, showers, and kitchen last night. He took them off and spent solo time one each of them. When he was done, they were shiny. Just like when they were new! Maybe he’ll teach Bob how to do that.

Mid-afternoon the rain stopped. In late afternoon, the sun poked through the clouds a bit. And by early evening it was sunny. It got up to 75 degrees inside with the sun shining through the windows. It was nice. Fullerton thought he was going to have a heat stroke.

We ended the day watching a 007 movie.

Daily Cuisine:

Bacon, eggs, biscuits. That’s a good way to start any day. After that we ate leftovers and junk food throughout the day.

Photos from the Minnow, in living color.

An alleged halibut -- 46 lbs!




Friday was Fullerton's Birthday!

Sailing with Dummies (Alaska to Seattle Edition)

Friday, August 15, 2008

by Mike

The rain continued all night. We took off mid-morning after checking the weather. The rain gets tiresome after a few days. But the part of the weather we cared about was the wind, and therefore the waves.

A storm just passed south of the area a day ago, bringing gale-force winds to the area, which cause uncomfortably big waves. By Sunday night another storm should be coming through, doing the same thing. We took off this morning (in the rain). We’re headed across the Gulf of Alaska to Glacier Bay. It’s a 380-mile trip that should get us there in two days on Sunday afternoon.

Much more important than that was the fact that Fullerton turned 64 today! It rained his entire birthday. But that didn’t stop him from getting a happy-birthday cake.

We did all the birthday celebrating early in the day since it was going to get bumpy when we got to the Gulf of Alaska. To top off the festivities, we enjoyed cigars outside (in the rain) as we rounded the corner directly into 25-knot winds (and rain) directly against us and waves crashing into the bow.

It was rough. Welcome to the Gulf of Alaska!

Daily Cuisine:

Along with his strawberry happy-birthday cake we had chef salad, chicken, rice, and banana bread (yes, Serge, we have too many bananas again).

Sailing with Dummies (Alaska to Seattle Edition)

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

by Mike

We spent the night anchored near Bligh Island. That’s near where the Exxon Valdez crashed. Everything seems normal there now. Lots of sea otters, birds, fish, etc. seem to be doing fine. The wind and waves outside Prince William Sound were big and rough so we decided to head generally toward Cordova to have a look. Everyone says Cordova is a nice place to see.

We stopped to fish along the way. We anchored the boat in 110 feet of water. It was raining so we fished mainly from inside – we dropped our halibut lines to the bottom, and went inside the boat to stay dry. Halibut fishing is like catfishing. Drop a line and wait. Commercial halibut fishermen drop a long, 1500-foot line with hooks and bait every 18 feet. Then they leave it on a buoy and come back later to bring the fish in.

After a couple of hours one of the poles was bent a little bit. Figuring it to be hung up on bottom I started pulling on it. I decided to reel it in to check the bait. To get the dead fish heads to the bottom we use a 3-pound weight. Reeling in that the bait plus the weight bends the pole a lot anyway. It seemed a little heavier than normal so I was hopeful we might have something.

It takes awhile to reel in 110 feet of line with weight on it. Eventually we noticed a big fish coming up through the water. It looked like it might be dead, until it hit the surface. I remembered reading that halibut start thrashing when they hit the surface and that was certainly the case here.

When we finally got the thing on the boat (tied around a tail with a sailing rope and winched up the stairs) we let it die for a long time. Then we weighed it and cleaned it. It weighed 47 pounds and the filets from it weighed 15 pounds.

We fished a couple of more hours with no more bites and then motored to Simpson Bay for the night. It rained all the way there. It rained more when we got there.

Fishing Report:

See above.

 

Daily Cuisine:

We ate halibut!

Sailing with Dummies (Alaska to Seattle Edition)

Thursday, August 14, 2008

by Mike

It was raining this morning when we pulled in the anchor and headed to Cordova.

It rained all the way to Cordova.

When we got to Cordova it was still raining.

We docked at the Cordova marina in the rain. After we docked and got the boat tied up good, we went inside and dried off.

The rain continued.

By early afternoon the rain had picked up a bit. Fullerton and I gathered and bagged dirty laundry, put on wet rain gear, and hiked (in the rain) in search of a laundr-o-mat. We ate out, watched an NFL preseason game, did the laundry, and stopped by the library for internet and email.

It was still raining at midnight.

Fishing Report:

Are you serious? It rained too much to be outside fishing!

 

Daily Cuisine:

We ate at a local Japanese restaurant. I ate a halibut sandwich and Fullerton had Chinese cashew chicken.

Sailing with Dummies (Alaska to Seattle Edition)

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

by Mike

The weather was perfect when I got to the Prince William Sound area yesterday. It was sunny and clear and I could see mountains, glaciers, islands, icebergs, boats, and other airplanes. I flew around the area awhile, sightseeing before I landed in Valdez. Fullerton and Bob showed up at the marina a few hours later.

This morning the clouds were forming. A low passing south of the area is bringing a few days of rain and high winds. Bob took off this morning in the plane, before the bad weather set in. Fullerton and I took off this morning in the boat, in search of shelter and fish.

Since we are “marking time” in Prince William Sound for a couple days to avoid the rougher weather outside the sound (winds up to 40 knots and 13-foot waves) we decided to go fishing. It rained most of the afternoon and evening. Visibility was limited and being outside was wet.

Fishing Report:

We caught lots of cod, rockfish and other oddballs by jigging on the bottom. We cleaned the good ones and used their remains for bait and chum. We had halibut rigs on the bottom most of the time, but caught no halibut.

Daily Cuisine:

After a local breakfast (including reindeer sausage, which was horrible) we were relegated to “boat food.” Lunch was a pretty darned good salad, if I do say so myself. For supper we had grilled rockfish, bell peppers, and onions along with baked potatoes. “Boat food” is tough.

Herring Bay, Columbia Glacier, Valdez, Spokane, 8/11/08, by Bob

In Herring Bay we took the dinghy over to something that looked like a ladder going up a creek. It turned out to be a metal fish tunnel that looked like a ladder from a distance. The salmon can swim up the tunnel to spawn in the Solf Lake above.

We took of toward Columbia Glacier. There were icebergs! We managed to miss the big ones and got as close as I was willing to go. Then we went to Valdez where we found a wayward but inept fisherman, Mike.

The next morning, I took the plane and headed nonstop to Spokane. It was warm there. Mike Webster and Mike Fullerton headed out to the deep blue sea, or at least to Prince William Sound, where they allegedly caught a big halibut.

Mike, Cathy, Melinda, Josh, and I took off from Oahu on June 12. Cathy bailed out at Midway. Mike left at Adak. Mike Fullerton hopped on at Dutch Harbor. Melinda and Josh took off at Cold Bay. Mike returned at Valdez, where I finally left the Minnow. For a while.

From Hawaii to Midway to Attu to Valdez, I covered about 6,084 statute miles, 5,287 nautical miles, 48,670 furlongs, or 97,920,000,000,000,000 angstroms. I have spent two nights on dry land after 60 days on the boat, and have come to realize that an airplane goes faster than a sailboat.

Auk Bay, Bainbridge Glacier, Ice Bay, Herring Bay, August 10, 2008, by Bob

This morning I kayaked and Fullerton took out the dinghy. He spotted a black bear and her cub on the beach. I spotted a sea gull.

We took off and found Bainbridge Glacier. It looked like it was just behind a small sand dune, so we anchored and took the dinghy to shore to see the glacier.

We started to anchor near the river that runs into the ocean, but the depth finder kept jumping from 150 to 30 to 139 to 27, etc. I think the real depth was over 100 feet, but the depth finder was picking up a layer between the fresh glacier water with lots of silt and the cleaner ocean water of a different temperature. But if it was rocks, it might not be a good place to anchor. So we moved up the shoreline a bit.

The glacier turned out to be a few hundred yards back from the shoreline, not a few dozen feet like I expected. Things are larger than they appear. We went to the ice and looked around a bit. There's a pretty strong river coming out from underneath the glacier.
Glaciers are fun.

We decided that someone should be able to find gold or emeralds or diamonds in the newly unearthed earth of receding glaciers. After all, this land is newly exposed. Nobody has even picked up the multitude of large gold nuggets laying around.

After Bainbridge Glacier we went through the narrow, scenic Bainbridge Passage and headed for Icy Bay and a couple of glaciers there that calve icebergs into the ocean. There was a lot of ice in the bay. Maybe that's why it has its name. We threaded our way through big chunks of ice until we could see some glaciers, but I chickened out 2 or 3 miles short of the glaciers when the ice got thicker. There were a few icebergs larger than the boat. A lot of the ice chunks were not really icebergs, but were big enough to do some damage if we hit them very fast.

I hand-steered, zig-zagging through the ice for about an hour in and an hour out. I was pretty cold going in, and toasty warm by the time we left Icy Bay. It was well worth it.

We are now anchored in the back of Herring Bay. It's a really pretty place. I had planned to dive here, but there are tons of unfriendly jellyfish. I took out the kayak this evening.

It is 11:25 pm. Water temperature is 55 degrees (we're near a waterfall). Air temperature is 52. Indoors it's 62. Wind is light and variable. Water is calm with occasional ripples. Sky is dark.

Northwestern Fiord, Auk Bay, Saturday, August 10, 2008, by Bob

We got up bright and early this morning after a GPS alarm went off about 6:00 am. We took off for Northwestern Fiord.

In Harris Bay, the entrance, there were several fishing boats, probably out of Seward. We used the binoculars to watch someone catch
a fish, and it was a salmon. So we stopped and Fullerton caught a couple of big salmon. We let them go because we were too lazy to
clean them. I caught none.

We went through a gap in a glacial moraine to enter Northwestern Fiord. There were scattered small pieces of ice. For about six
miles, there were more and more ice pieces until we came to a mass of ice packed in front of a couple of glaciers. I don't know what
these are named, but they're on the way to Northwestern Glacier.

We motored very slowly in the ice, because I get nervous when hard things bang against the hull of the boat. Most of the ice was 3
feet in diameter or smaller. We got close to the packed ice, but stopped because I was chicken. We probably could have motored on
through it, but I was worried about propeller damage and blocked engine cooling and sea monsters.

There was a current flowing downstream. The packed is was not moving with the current, which explains how it got packed.

So I broke out a kayak and headed across the ice. It was thin enough that it would sink under the kayak when I went across it. There
was a trail through the ice behind the kayak, just like an icebreaker. It was pretty hard to turn to avoid the big pieces, and
occasionally I'd run into a piece of ice that didn't budge under the mass of me and a kayak.

As I approached the glaciers, I realized something that Chrysler has been telling for years: "Things are larger then they appear."
Those two smaller glaciers are huge! They're pretty noisy, too. I really enjoyed watching pieces of ice fall off, some larger than
the Minnow.

When I got close to the glacier, I remember the rule Doug Fesler mentioned, to keep a distance of three times the height of the
glacier. I was doing some mental ciphering trying to figure out what angle has a tangent of 3 or 1/3 so I could tell when to stop. I
guessed 20 degrees (it's really 18.5), when a piece of ice broke off the glacier and sent a small wave my direction. Actually, the
wave went every direction, but my direction was the one I was concerned with. I took it as a hint and didn't get any closer.

We probably could have continued three miles to Northwestern Glacier, but I was chicken because of all the ice. So we turned around.
There had been no other boats inside Northwestern Fiord, which was really cool. On our way out we met three boats coming in, a
fishing boat, a pleasure boat, and possibly a small tour boat.

We came to Beehive Island. We took a slow drift around the island. Fullerton fished (caught a cod) and I looked at the island. There
were a lot of seagulls and a few other birds. We accumulated a lot of flies. I mentioned that we should try to keep them outside.

Next, we had several-hour trip to the mouth of Prince William Sound. At least I think it's the mouth. I'm not sure where the sound
starts. While Fullerton slept, I mounted a tactical offensive on the flies. When Fullerton regained consciousness, he was astounded
at the carnage -- dozens of fly carcasses and pieces of fly swatter scattered all over the cockpit. I thought I showed considerable
restraint by not using the shotgun.

We pulled into the back of Auk Bay to anchor. I went kayaking and followed a black bear strolling around the bay.

Shuyak, Kenai Peninsula, 8/8/2008 10:30 PM, by Bob

I went kayaking this morning in Big Bay and wandered around on an island. Surprisingly, Fullerton didn't take off in the boat and
dump me. I must have returned sooner than he expected.

We threaded our way out of Big Bay, headed northeast, passed the Barren Islands to the Kenai Peninsula. We sailed until the wind
died.

On the way to the Barren Islands we started seeing some humpback whales. Then, in the distance, there were a whole bunch of whale
spouts. We eventually caught up with them. About 15 or 20 humpack whales were just goofing off, barely moving. When we got close, I
slowed down. Then I put the engines in idle. Then I put the engines in reverse. The whales weren't moving -- they were just floating
around, probably sunbathing. We were right there with them for quite a while, close enough that their spouting put some spray on my
camera lens.

Fullerton, the world renown technological genius, videoed the whales. But it was only later that he figured out that the red light
meant it was recording, not stopped. So we got some cool video of the boat deck. I took some whale pictures. Fullerton vowed to
enter the 21st century.

On the Kenai Peninsula there are glaciers, mountains, a lot of birds (including some new ones for the trip), and a couple of really
cool narrow passes.

We are now anchored off Ragged Island in Morning Cove, Kenai Fjords National Park. There are lots of birds here in the back of the
cove -- sea gulls, puffins, and some small diving birds of some sort. We're anchored deeper and closer to shore than I'd prefer, but
there's not supposed to be any wind.

I got an email today from Cheryl from the Alaska Volcano Observatory about using some of our photos. She mentioned that Kasatochi
erupted yesterday, complete with a 40,000' ash plume. Melinda, Josh, and I climbed to the rim of that volcano three weeks ago.