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Just For the Halibut
Leaving Glacier Bay in route to Hoonah, we have a group of about twelve humpback whales out feeding in Icy Strait. They are all cooperatively feeding and we are hoping to see a bubble net show. They continually dive in synchronization but never bubble net. It’s always amazing to see them all working together.
The cruise ships haven’t arrived to Hoonah yet and the two cruise ship docks sit empty. Reports say the mega ships have started leaving Seattle and should be up to Alaska in the next week. The town is quite.
At the carving station the Veterans totem pole that the carvers were working on last year looks to be finished. The raising ceremony will be next week.
After saying goodbye to our nephew Storm, we push away from the docks with a destination of Juneau. Excursion Inlet is our home for the evening. On our way we deploy the Scotty and troll for a few hours. We manage to catch a few pink salmon and one really nice Coho. It’s good to see that the Coho are starting to arrive.
This is our first time into Sawmill Bay and cruising reports say to be careful of an uncharted rock in the anchorage. We anchor well away of where the rock is reported to be and sure enough at low tide a huge rocky outcrop appears about 200 feet off our port side. That is one of the dangers of cruising in Alaska. The charts are not always accurate. Excursion Inlet is actually part of Glacier Bay but you don’t need a permit here. The snow capped mountain peaks which surround the anchorage make for a delightful evening.
The next day finds us working our way up the Lynn Canal and into Stephens Passage. As we cruise up the Gastineau Channel the whale statue along downtown Juneau’s waterfront greats us.
Aurora Harbor is our home for the next several days. We are here to have a survey of Idyll Time done as well as a fire extinguisher inspection. Our insurance is requiring us to have a survey in order to continuing overwintering in Alaska. We are very pleased to get an excellent report from the surveyor. He rated the condition of Idyll Time as Bristol (outstanding) and said she was one of the best kept boats he has surveyed during his 30 year career. Surprisingly we have no recommendations for changes or repairs to the boat. This should make our insurance Company happy, if that is possible.
Leaving Juneau, we stop for the evening at Taku Harbor where there is a free float for boaters to use. It’s the site of an old cannery and being just 25 miles from Juneau it is a convenient stop for the evening. This was also the site of a Hudson Bay trading post in the 1900’s.
We always leave our VHF radios on during the night. At about one AM, a PAN PAN warning is broadcast from the Coast Guard. It is a Tsunami warning due to an 8.4 magnitude earthquake just off of Homer, Alaska. This is a first for us. Our area was only predicted to see a one foot rise and luckily we never felt any thing at all.
We spend the next few days searching for halibut in Frederick Sound. We have a favorite spot which we call “Pinky Swear” and it comes thru once again. We can’t seem to find any halibut of great size but we do manage to collect six 10-15 pound “chickens”. These small guys are actually better tasting than the big ones.
While fishing out in Frederick Sound we see a large cruise ship in the distance. After a years absence due to Covid they are now back.
We’re off to Pack Creek Bear Preserve tomorrow where we are also meeting up with several other Krogen owners for a mini rendezvous. Thanks for following along.
