Around Baranof Island in Five Days

June 10, 2011

Under partly sunny skies we cast off the mooring lines at 0810 AM and headed out the north breakwater entrance to exit Sitka via the Western Channel. As we headed out into Sitka Sound, the northwest swell increased to 3-4 feet, but with no wind, it was just a smooth up and down ride across Biorka Sound and into Hot Springs Bay. We decided, even though the swell was no problem, to take the scenic inside route south as far as possible. The first challenge was Dorothy Narrows, where the water depth was only 4 feet below the keel. We transited at dead slow speed with Miriam on the bow looking for rocks.

Safely exiting Dorothy Narrows we headed down Windy Passage and then through First and Second Narrows. Second Narrows was tricky due to lots of rocks, but plenty deep. A fishing boat was not so lucky, being hard aground, high and dry just outside Second Narrows. This was as far as we could go on the inside route, so we headed down Middle Channel and Cameron Pass to the open ocean. We stayed about 2 miles offshore and headed for North Cape. The NW swell was on our stern quarter, so the stabilizers worked hard all day.

From North Cape to Cape Ommaney you are really on your own, so we decided to find an anchorage for the evening. We chose Still Harbor on the south side of Whale Bay and after picking our way into the entrance anchored at 1330 PM in 25 feet of water at the head of the bay. There were numerous sea otters and seals in the outer bay. The cruising guides were correct in that there are uncharted rocks in the anchorage, but they are visible at mid-tide.

The inner basin of Still Harbor is essentially landlocked and we had a quiet evening watching the sunset, which implied we would have good weather in the morning. The only wild life we saw were some black tailed deer.

Today's run was just 42 nautical miles, of which 20 were in the North Pacific and the rest in the protected inner passages.

June 11, 2011

The night was peaceful, although you could hear the surf pounding on the rocks at the harbor entrance. Even a three foot swell makes a racket. Today is predicted to be the longest day of the circumnavigation, so we departed shortly after 0600 under partly cloudy skies and winds, with the same swell pattern as the day before. Two hours later we diverted from our offshore course and explored an unnamed cove that the Douglass cruising guide called "Reanne's Relief" and "White Cliff Cove". The cove is protected by an entrance island with two entrances, both deep. Inside the cove was exactly as described and looked like a great place to return to. It was perfectly protected and calm, with good depths for anchoring.

We continued down the coastline, past Sea Lion Rocks and at 1030 rounded Cape Ommaney, the southernmost tip of Baranof Island. Turning north nearly 180 degrees, we started up Chatham Strait, passing by Port Alexander, which appeared full of fishing boats.

A few miles ahead, we could see an AIS target, a fellow Selene owner on "Z-Worthy", Ron and Bonnie Zuckerman. They were fishing for king salmon at Point Armstrong and having good luck, so we stopped and joined them. As luck would have it, it was raining, but the cockpit remained dry while fishing. The new downrigger installation worked great. Within 20 minutes we had landed a nice bright king salmon, our limit for the day. Zuckerman's landedtwo nice kings, one of which turned out to be a white king salmon, due to feeding on anchovies rather than shrimp and krill.

We were both headed to Patterson Bay on Baranof Island, where "Maximo", owned by Kim and Steve Oberto, also members of Roche Harbor Yacht Club, was already anchored. This bay reminds us of Norwegian fjords, with steep cliffs and snowfields. After anchoring both Selenes in a little cove at the head of the bay where we were held in position by the current flowing out of the river at the head of the inlet, the prawn pots went down, and by later that evening we had a nice haul of spot prawns. The evening was spent chatting as we all gathered on Maximo for raspberry sorbet and drinks while swapping stories about fishing, crabbing and prawning locations.

June 12, 2011

We were rudely awakened by a navigation alarm which we thought was the anchor alarm, but turned out to be a GPS "loss of fix", caused, we suspect by our proximity to the high sheer cliffs. Pulling the prawn pots (in light rain at times) resulted in another nice haul and after processing them we reluctantly pulled the anchor and headed towards our next destination, Warm Springs Bay. As we continued up Chatham Strait, the weather continues to improve and we can see blue sky ahead.

About 18 miles south of our destination we passed by Red Bluff Bay, which refers to the curious, out of context red stone which is in stark contrast to the uniformly gray, black and white stone which the rest of the landscape consists of.

The scale of Chatham Strait is immense. While Baranof Island is approximately 90 nautical miles long, Chatham Strait stretches even further, about 120 nautical miles from the southern entrance to the junction with Icy Strait and the Lynn Canal. Chatham Strait averages more than six miles in width. This body of water is far larger than Puget Sound from Port Townsend to Olympia, but is just a fraction of the coastline of SE Alaska.

We entered Warm Springs Bay and put the anchor down in the south cove. This cove has a hard rocky bottom and we were not satisfied with the way the anchor set, so we moved to the public dock. After launching the tender, Patrick went halibut fishing, but only landed one Pacific Cod, and lost lots of bait. We grilled some of the king salmon for dinner and it was delicious.

June 13, 2011

The current can run very strong along the dock at Warm Springs Bay except at low slack water, due to the volume of water coming over the waterfall. We got up early and left in the rain at 0645 in ideal slack tide conditions, stopping to fish for halibut on the way to our next destination. No luck, except to feed the fish our herring. The halibut are smart enough to avoid the hooks while getting the herring, even though we had tied the herring to the hook. We will just keep trying.

We decided to investigate Saook Bay and possibly anchor there for the evening. The bay was deep except for a 100+ foot deep area right at the head of the bay next to a steep shelf and shallows leading into the river delta. We anchored anyway and threw the halibut jig over and instantly had a small halibut on the line, about 30 inches overall. We will get a few good meals from it. However, the wind came up fairly strong from the north and we felt uncomfortable with the lee shore, being so shallow, so we pulled the anchor and headed further up Peril Strait to Deep Bay, which is well protected and has Dungeness crab.

Arriving in Deep Bay at 1640 we anchored and put out two crab pots before filleting the halibut from Saook Bay. A check of the pots at dark showed only lots of females and small Tanner crabs, so we moved the pots to a new location.

June 14, 2011

Although it rained overnight, there was almost no wind, so it was a quiet night. Checking the crab pots, we found 4 legal and nice Dungeness crab, which were quickly cooked before we pulled the anchor at 0918 for the transit through Sergius Narrows. The rain continued off and on, mostly on, the rest of the way to Sitka where we docked at 1325 PM, completing our 246 nautical mile circumnavigation and rejoining Sea Jay.