Alaska 2014 - East Side of Baranof Island to Wrangell

July 27, 2014

Underway at 0745 in fog and rain, we followed “Salty Dawg” south along the shoreline of Baranof Island, passing Warm Springs Bay.  Just north of Red Bluff Bay we stopped to fish, since Salty Dawg had stopped and already landed a Coho salmon.  In just a few minutes we had also landed a nice Coho.  The action slowed down, so we continued south to Patterson Bay.  The visibility deteriorated and we entered dense fog, with only a few hundred yards visibility.  As we rounded Patterson Point we picked up “Maximo” on AIS, and then as the fog lifted we could see them deep in Patterson Bay.  Proceeding up the 6 mile long bay we could see the remnants of a huge landslide, which was new since our last visit in 2012.

Landslide in Patterson Bay

Looking up Patterson Bay

Fog rolling in along Baranof Island

We anchored near the head of Patterson Bay in 100 feet of water, in the lee of a small point which protected us from the SE wind blowing up the inlet.  Naturally, the rain returned in intensity as we anchored.

July 28, 2014

We pulled the anchor at 0800 to hit low slack tide at a possible halibut fishing location.  Anchoring in 200 feet of water we put down the lines, but only got a few nibbles, so we headed back up the east side of Baranof Island towards Gut Bay, a new location for us.  We saw Salty Dawg headed south and they told us that the Coho were thick in an unnamed cove south of Gut Bay.  We stopped and within 90 minutes had 8 Coho salmon in the cooler.  We stopped only because we were running out of freezer space.

Heading into Gut Bay we found out how bad the charts are.  None of our electronic charts had the correct land contours or correct depths.  We were glad that Maximo was familiar with Gut Bay and guided us into an anchorage that was in the uncharted section on Jeppeson C-Map and on dry land on the Navionics charts.  We ended up anchoring in 125 feet of water near the stream at the head of the bay a few hundred feet from Maximo at 1415.

Processing the 8 fish took several hours, and we finished just in time to have dinner on Maximo.  While eating dinner, Steve Oberto’s rod hooked up a halibut from the anchored boat.  Suspending dinner briefly and landing the halibut was a team effort; it was a 60 pound fish from 140 feet of water.  Steve said they have caught halibut at anchor in Gut Bay on numerous occasions.

Gut Bay anchorage, the rain quit for awhile

July 29, 2014

Sometime overnight the rain ceased and we could see most of the hills surrounding Gut Bay.  This is definitely a place to return to on future trips.  Moving our anchor location west would put us on a mud bottom, more to a halibut’s taste, rather than the rocky bottom where we were anchored.

At 0715 we departed Gut Bay.  It takes 45 minutes at our speed to reach the entrance where we were greeted by light fog and calm seas as we headed diagonally across Chatham Strait to the entrance of Frederick Sound.

The low visibility was replaced by heavy rain as we headed to another possible halibut location.  Arriving, we anchored in 210 feet of water and after about 30 minutes hooked a small 14 pound halibut.  That fish totally filled the freezer, so we will be looking for an additional small freezer when we get to Petersburg.  After several more nibbles, but no takers, we headed across Frederick Sound to Portage Bay on Kupreanof Island where we anchored at 1750 for the night.  The entrance appears to be shallower than indicated on the charts, so we will have to watch low tide in the morning.  We have now covered 236 nautical miles since leaving Sitka.

July 30, 2014

The wind calmed overnight and the rain finally stopped.  We are getting less enchanted with Portage Bay, even though the scenery is good.  The current, even deep in the bay runs at several knots, and with the rocky bottom in much of the bay the noise of the chain dragging is annoying.  The entrance depths are definitely less than charted.  We pulled the anchor at 0515 to minimize the ebb tide currents in the entrance, as did several other boats.  With the tide at zero feet, there is actually only 10 feet minimum at the entrance rather than 21!

Our alternate halibut location had too swift a current due to the minus tide later in the morning, so we slowly motored the 21 miles to Petersburg, docking at 1000 in the midst of many vessels unloading fish at the fish companies.  The smell was indescribable, but according to the local people it is the smell of money when lots of fish are coming in.

As we docked, it became apparent that all the anchoring has taken its toll in the forward battery bank.  Load testing showed one of the two batteries is failing, so we will judiciously use the pathmakers when docking to increase the battery capability until we can replace the batteries in the fall after we return.  We have a fallback solution when we get to Ketchikan if the one weak battery totally fails in the next week.

Across the dock was 49 foot Nordic Tug, “Scarlet Lady”, which moors right next us to at Anacortes Marina.  That now makes four boats from “A” dock which we have met up with in SE Alaska this season.  We also talked to the Millers on the Selene 60 “Hathor”, who we met for the first time, even though our vessels were delivered close to the same time in 2009.

July 31, 2014

The sun returned, finally after a period of fog that lifted by 0800.  After some last minute grocery shopping we got underway from Petersburg for the final time in 2014 at 1330 and headed south through Wrangell Narrows into Sumner Strait and eastward to Wrangell.  We managed to time the currents so that we had an adverse current from the middle of Wrangell Narrows to Vank Island, where we once again had favorable currents.  As we approached Vank Island, the water color changed to milky gray/green from the outflow of the Stikine River.  Arriving at 2000 in Heritage Basin we enjoyed the last of the sun as we barbequed flank steak on the flybridge without having to wear raingear.

We moored just behind Doug and Kaen Dance on “Peregrine”, who were also enjoying an al fresco dinner with guests on their flybridge.  Also in Heritage basin were “Seeker” and “Tranquility”, two more Selenes.  Wrangell seems to be a gathering place for Selene Trawlers.  In past years there have been as many as seven here at one time.

Later that evening we were surprised that a porcupine joined us on the dock.  What will we see next?

Porcupine on the dock in Wrangell

Our strategy for managing bow thruster and windlass battery power appears to be working, but there are still a lot of days to anchor before we return to Anacortes.