July 1 – July 3
Petersburg, Kashevarof Passage, Whale Pass off of Thorne Islan,
Ketchikan. In route to Prince Rupert
We headed out of
Petersburg on July 1 for our passage thru Wrangell Narrows, Sumner Sound and
into Kashevarof Passage. This is a beautiful passage filled with many islands
and rocks. Our plan was to anchor in Whale Pass and explore Blashke Islands via
the dinghy today. The first thing about
boating is keep your plans flexible. We
got to Whale Pass but our first attempt at setting anchor did not work and
after about an hour we decided that we needed to move as our anchor was not
holding due to a very rocky bottom. We
went almost to the south entrance and set our anchor in a nice bay that had
fish jumping so we decided we would fish rather than explore by dinghy. It was a fun afternoon followed by halibut
fish tacos and a black bear on shore to watch. We decided to leave early the
next morning as the weather is changing and we plan to cross over to Canadian
waters on Wednesday before the next storm arrives. Got up at 7 and tried to raise the
anchor. No luck – the solenoid switch
has failed so we decide that we need to raise the anchor manually –It started
off slow but steady and then it was backbreaking for Steve. When we finally got the anchor to the surface
we found the reason – we had snagged a very old logging cable. What are the odds of the switch failing and
having to raise the anchor manually only to snag a cable. In all our years of
boating we have only snagged a cable one other time in Port Ludlow. After 3 hours we were underway for Ketchikan
and started calling to find the switch we need to repair the windless. Steve found the part at Fisheries in Seattle
and we are hoping we got it ordered in time to be on the Alaska Airlines flight
coming into Ketchikan tonight at 7:30.
Well the part came at 7:30am, Steve has installed it and it
is working again so we are off to Prince Rupert across the Dixon entrance – the
weather is good for today. the crossing was once again amazing - calm seas, no wind.
More to come later.
Here is a picture of the cable we caught with the anchor- it was about 2
inches thick – we got another line on it to remove and had to use bolt cutters
to cut thru the threads of the cable that were stuck. Not a fun morning!
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