Alaska 2021 - June 25 - June 27

 

Alaska 2021 – June 25-27

We left Gut Bay headed for Baranof Warm Springs.  It was another cold, grey day.

Baranof Warm Springs is a community built on a boardwalk next to the waterfall coming out of Baranof Lake. There is a boardwalk that takes you to a set of Hotsprings that are right by the outflow from Baranof Lake which is a beautiful lake.

We spent a great night at anchorage in Warm Springs Bay with a fantastic Salmon Dinner!

 

We left Warm Springs with much better weather.  It is 65 degrees which makes us feel guilty since we are hearing about 100 degrees in Seattle. Ugh! We stopped at a bay called Hidden Falls which is a private Not for Profit Fish Hatchery that we also stopped at in 2016. No tours available this year due to Covid but we got the chance to talk to a few of the workers about the facility.  There are always Grizzlies there this time of year waiting for the Salmon to return.  They have seen a few Kings and Coho so the Grizzly Bears are back each day looking for dinner! It is early in the season so they just got the first batch of Coho salmon from the Hatchery to the outdoor pens where they will stay for the next year growing until they are released to the sea. They had about 1 million are in the pen that is in the picture. They have about a 90% success rate of releasing them to the sea and about only 2-3% make it back to spawn.

From Warm Springs we headed over to Appleton Cove which will be our anchorage for the evening. It was full of Horseflies which are not fun but we did catch crab – only 1 keeper but Steve caught a bunch of small king crabs which we have never caught before and of course as non residents we can’t keep them anyhow but they were fun to see.

We left Appleton Cove headed to Kalinen Bay which is on the North side of Kruzof Island. To get there we went thru Peril Strait and Sergius Narrows.  We had to delay our departer from Appleton because the Narrows would have been running against us at 7 knots if we would have left before 10am. As it was we dropped from 10.1 knots to 5.6 during our transit thru the narrows and that was running at much higher rpm than of our normal 1250-1350. It was a beautiful day today.

Kalinen Bay had quite a few boats in it but was a nice overnight anchorage for us to be able to get John to Sitka for his 12:00 flight.  Steve, John and Tom went out fishing for a few hours and came back with a Ling Cod and several huge black Rockfish but no Salmon this time.  Glen, Liz, Jane and I went for a hike to a Lake above the bay and we saw a Grizzly bear and two cubs on the flats across from us. We decided Fish Tacos were a perfect choice for our last evening with John before we head to Sitka.

Alaska 2021 - June 19 - June 24

 

Alaska 2021 – June 19 – 23

Steve and I just got back from home today. We flew from Seattle to Ketchikan with our friend John Lindseth on Alaska then grabbed Taquan Air for our float plane flight to Craig. It is a beautiful sunny day and the float plane flight was fantastic.  We were on a Beaver which was built in 1956 – Steve, John and I had to cram into the back bench seat that I think was designed for 2  people  but it was a spectacular flight over to Craig.  We grabbed a few groceries and left Craig to meet up with the others at bay across from Klawock just North of Craig.  We will not be back at a store until around June 30^th when we get to Sitka.

We had a group dinner at the Fireweed Lodge which is always fun. Seafood combo with Halibut, Salmon and Shrimp is always great and someone else to do all the cleanup and dishes! John Lindseth has joined us on our boat for 10 days and Tom Miner has joined Glen and Liz on their boat so we now have 8 people. 

On Fathers Day we headed over to Warren Island which is west of Kosciusko Islands. I don’t recommend this anchorage at all – too much rocking and rolling all night and the crossing over to here was terrible since there we big rollers coming off the Gulf. We did have a fun beach walk and also a great whale show from a Humpback that was feeding in the bay.  

 From there we went to Port Malmesbury and on to Bay of Pillars. We have done some fishing and the fishermen have caught several Kings, Pinks, small halibut, Black Rockfish and Ling Cod so we have been having fish for dinner which is great. Unfortunately John lost his New (5 days old) IPhone 12 overboard when we were coming back to the boat after fishing.  It is 42 feet deep and no way to retrieve it but lucky for him he purchased the insurance for Loss!

June 23 we headed to Gut Bay on Baranof Island for two nights. We did more fishing and also tucking out of the bad weather and winds that are projected for the new few days. We caught another Salmon and many Black Rockfish.  This bay is one of the most spectacular, scenic bays we have ever seen.  High rock hills, snow and many waterfalls! A beautiful place to stop.