Back in Alaska

June 25

Had a great flight back to Seattle - whole row of seats to myself! Spent the night and got on the plane to Ketchikan in the morning.
While we were gone the Aspen crew enjoyed cruising the Alaskan wilderness with various guests aboard.  Read about their adventures at www.aspenpowercatermarans.com.
While the Aspen crew had the boat, they experienced a failure of the high-output alternator just as we had.  A new one is on the way and we hope to have it installed as soon as possible. However, we are not sitting in Ketchikan waiting for it's arrival. Using the boats generator and the small alternator on the Volvo Penta we are able to keep the batteries charged and get out of town.

June 26

We left Ketchikan at 11:45 and tied up to a mooring ball in Helm bay at 1:45, a quick trip of 21.7 NM.



This is a Forest Service Cabin that can be rented if you really want to get away from it all.  It really shows the types of tides that are here.  Pretty dramatic.

We were able to catch our first Dungeness crabs while in Helm Bay. Huge and delicious!

Notice the crab cracker and picks. The Admiral thinks of everything!

What is that light between the mountains!

June 27

We decide to do a quick tour around Prince of Wales Island.
Off we go to Port Protection on the northern end of the island, 7 hours and 96 miles later, we arrive.

Met the captain of this vessel, an Alaskan fisherman for 38 years. He gave me some tips to catch "brother salmon and brother halibut". Very cool guy! This old wooden schooner was to be his retirement boat.

Gumbo with fresh dungeness crab!

June 28

We cast off at 7:00 and head south with Craig as our destination.  To get there we have to pass through El Capitan Narrows on a negative tide.

Not the way we want to end up.

We made it through without any problems and our next stop was the El Capitan Caves.

This is at the top of 367 wooden steps up the hill

The lock on the gate about 200 feet into the cave

We made it to Craig and had dinner at the Dockside Cafe. There is cell service so we contacted Tom, our favorite electrician in Ketchikan, found out he was available to install alternator on Friday, so the next morning- off we go to Ketchikan, 120.3 NM away.

June 30

And here we are Ketchikan and Tom is working on the installation.

Meet Tom

We have decided to head south, back to British Columbia today (depending on alternator) or tomorrow.

Till next time.....