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.

Alaska 2021 - June 10 - 15

Alaska 2021 – June 10-June 15

 

We left Craig this morning headed for Port Real Marina which is between Baker Island and Lulu Island.  It was an overcast day when we woke up but not rain!  Pictures of Craig as we are leaving the area.

We have stayed in Port Real Marina on past trips to Alaska and have always seen a lot of Whale activity here. It is the same this year! The channel is full of Kelp beds and the whales love it here. In 2016 we daily saw a whale we named Barnacle Bill and if it is not him it must be a relative this year as he also has a lot of barnacles on him! This one we named Zipper because he has a very large scar on his side that looks like he had a close encounter with a boat prop that you can see in the picture below.

In addition to the whale show Zipper provided we also had a family of 5 Orcas go cruising past the front of the boats! It looks like a Dad, Mom and a couple of toddlers and baby. In the photo you can count the 5 fins. Dad brings up the rear and Mom is out front

We went fishing out around Noyes Island. Fishing is slow and we only saw 1 fish being pulled in over several days but there were local guide boats fishing the area so we expect the Salmon will arrive soon! We heard several fishermen in Craig talking about it being early still.   We did catch several Black Rockfish and we kept catching Halibuts that are called Chicken Halibut because they are small including two halibuts at one time! Glen had a Lingcod that got away at the boat.

The water was a little rough and I now understand why the big bay on Noyes is called Roller Bay! We got a lot of whale shows but I could not get many pictures due to the rolling boat! We had a breech but I only caught a part of it and the resolution is poor but it was fun to see!

We went fishing again the next day with a similar result! Several Rock Fish, 1 Ling Cod that got away from Glen at the boat and another Chicken Halibut that Glen caught that we kept so we can have halibut for dinner tonight with the one we brought in yesterday. We fished a spot off of Baker Island and again there were several boats fishing around us again but like yesterday, we did not see anything being pulled in. We only had a few nibbles and lost bait. We heard the fishermen talking about it being about a week early.  We did see a lot of bait balls on the surface in the area so there is food here for them! Despite the slow start to fishing it was another glorious day on the water! Much smoother than yesterday.

We headed out this morning for a different anchorage for the next two days – same area as Steve and I fly home from Craig on Tuesday for 3 days then come back with our friend John Lindseth who is coming to fish with us for a week. The fishing and weather should be better when we get back! Both of the pictures show the snow covered mountains on our cruise.  The ones that are far off in the distance are completely covered in snow – at first I thought it was clouds! I think they are on Baranof Island. Our Anchorage tonight is in the Maurelle Islands by San Lorenzo Island.

We left on June 14th to get closer to Craig since we are flying out tomorrow - we went over to a new bay we have not stayed at before about 7 miles from Craig and had halibut on the Nelsea for dinner.  We celebrated Glen's birthday since it is tomorrow the 15th and we will be leaving for Craig tomorrow morning to dock the boat for a few days while we go home! Happy Birthday Glen!

Alaska 2021 - June 8-10

 

Alaska 2021 – June 8-10

We woke up to a beautiful day for cruising over to Craig. The sun is out and the water is calm.

 

We went to the fuel dock first and added fuel to both the Nelsea and the Grady.  We have used about 300 gallons of diesel and 50 gallons of unleaded since we last fueled in Ketchikan so we are full and ready to continue the adventures! We went grocery shopping which we have not done since May 19 when we were in Ketchikan. We all had to catch up on Emails, phone calls and other business while we had internet and cell service available so it was a busy two days by town.

 We anchored off an island called Fish Egg Island (a normal spot for us) which is across the water from Craig.

  The fishing boats are still in Craig so even if we wanted to stay in town there is no space at the docks right now for the 3 boats.  We usually stay at Fish Egg Island and just take the small boats to town. We had dinner last night at Dockside Café as the Fireweed Lodge in Klawock was full! The owners of the Fireweed were at the Dockside and we told them we are coming back next week and hope to eat at their place on our next trip to town! 

We will head to Port Real Marina which is West of Craig between Lulu and Baker Island.  We have stayed here before and fished the area and Noyes Island.  The fisherman in Craig were saying that its about a week early but the fish are starting to arrive. They opened the area South of Craig to the commercial fishermen on Tuesday the 8th and we saw about 8 boats on the way over to Craig long line fishing the area off of Prince of Wales Island.