September 3, 2007
Before making the 30-mile run to Ketchikan, We tended our traps.
The crab trap felt very heavy coming up, it produced 14 large crabs, the non-resident limit is just 5. We hadn’t emptied the trap before two local young men who were actually out deer hunting in a skiff motored into the cove. George waved them over and gave 9 of our over limit catch to them. They gave us some of their smoked Sockeye Salmon, which was quite a treat.
Our prawn trap also produced 14 prawns. Which is not much meat by comparison. We are not sure what’s going on, it might be the lead weights we added earlier in the year to make the trap sink faster.
After crossing Clarence Strait we had a warm sunny afternoon of fishing around Vallenar Rock on our way to Ketchikan.
We picked up a couple good-sized Coho, 8-10 lbs each, and arrived at the Ketchikan Yacht Club docks late in the day.
September 4, 2007
We took the bus to the Yamaha Dealer and made an appointment for them to come to the boat and pick up the motor to do some overdue maintenance before we head out for winter.
That night we enjoyed the Potluck dinner at the Club prior to the regular meeting where they also voted us in as members. Now we have an Alaska address. Thomas Basin, Float 2, Ketchikan, AK 99901. Alaska has the highest-numbered zip code in the US (as our daughter pointed out, She does all the Internet research stuff).
September 5 – 13, 2007
We were blessed with great weather, sunshine every day to clean and dry out the boat for winter storage. We met with Greg from Latitude 50 Canvas to discuss the upholstery and canvas work we want for next year. The folks at Alaska Outboard Motors the Yamaha Dealer weren’t able to complete the work on our motor before we left for home, so they are storing the motor for us until spring.
Our last night at the yacht club, Teka, who lives on her Freedom 30, and is keeping an eye on Teal this winter, planned and prepared a delightful farewell dinner for us with John at the club.
We closed up the boat late afternoon on September 13 and were picked up by the Motel 8 Shuttle and taken to the motel for the night. We had dinner at Ocean View – introduced to us by friends of our neighbor Pete Haynes, Lallette and Don in our initiation tour of Ketchikan. It was a lovely night and as a good a dinner as we had the first time.
September 14, 2007
We awoke early to catch the 6:15am ferry to the airport, which is on Gravina Island. We arrived at the Airport – in the FOG. The price we paid for all those great sunshiny days while closing up our boat.
Our Alaska flight was to leave at 8:50am and we kept hoping the fog would lift by then, but it was not to be. We listened as our plane – coming in from the north pass over us – too foggy to land. We heard that sound two more times. That last time the plane flew over, they headed to Sitka to refuel. And two rebookings later, we finally left the “Fly Over Airport” as the locals call it, about 2:00 and arrived in Seattle around 4:00, with a departing flight via Horizon Air Lines to Bellingham at 10:35pm.
Since we had enough hanging out at airports, we tried to get an earlier flight. Alaska told us “No way. You have to stay with your checked luggage. It’s the law.” So Jo figured, that was it, but George insisted we check with Horizon and see if they would put us on an earlier flight. And they did. They put us on standby for the 6:30 flight, which was actually scheduled to leave at 7pm now. Overbooked though it was, we took it. They knew about the luggage having been checked in, but said if it wasn’t too inconvenient for us to pick it up the next day, there was no problem.
We didn’t learn until we boarded the flight (which wasn’t even full, let along overbooked) that Horizon had had most of their flights grounded over the last few days for some safety issue. We really lucked out… in more ways than one.
I made reservations at the Rodeway Inn in Bellingham while George was visiting with a gentlemen in the waiting area. He offered to take us to our motel when we got into Bellingham and so he did. Interestingly enough, his luggage didn’t show up and that was on the plane he was supposed to be on. Guess there’s no law against that!
Our motel was nice, we slept well, had breakfast, taxi’d to our car in storage, and drove to the airport for our luggage. There it was waiting for us, with name tags affixed to each one. They brought it out, thanked us, and off we went on our way to Klamath River.
Summary of the trip:
It was a spectacular cruise, totaling 1797.3 nautical miles. We burned 196 gallons of gas during 372 engine hours, we paid as much as $5.85 per gallon at Poet’s Cove in Barkley Sound and as least as $2.88 per gallon at Ketchikan. We anchored in 36 of the worlds best anchorages, moored at 21 different public docks and or moorings, and 8 different marinas. We fished a total of 47 hours, caught at least four dozen bottom fish, a 20 and 50-pound halibut, a dozen Coho salmon, our fill of crab, and about 8 dozen prawns. We saw numerous bear, whales, dolphin, eagles, otter, and a few deer. We met a host of new cruising friends, and crossed tracks with several cruising boats we had met before.
It was a pleasure to share our cruise with you.
George & JoAnne
The 28 mile passage through Sumner Strait to Port Protection was glassy smooth with fair currents.
After dodging commercial salmon fishing boats trolling their lures right through the harbor,
we tied to the visitors float 56° 19.363’ N / 133° 36.686’ W at 3:15 PM
After getting squared away, we rowed over to check out the store. Port Protection services the local fishing fleet. There is a fish buyer and a small store, a liquor store, marine supplies, a laundramat, and shower of sorts.
