A beautifully day with cloudless blue skies made for a spectacular view of the PNW mountains as we flew up the coast from Seattle to Juneau. It was fun to look down and see many of the anchorages that we have cruised to from thousands of feet above.
We were very relieved to find Idyll Time just as we had left her. Seven months is a long time to be away from the boat. Even though we have someone come aboard every week, we are always worried about her when we are away.
With no rain in the forecast for the next two days, our first task is to remove the cover while it is still dry. It’s a six hour job to get the cover off and packed up for storage. The next week is spent getting all the systems up and running, provisioning, and giving the boat a good cleaning. Our only casualty this winter was the wind direction and speed indicator which seems to have died after 15 years. Wouldn’t you know this model is no longer available so we will have to search for something to replace it. It really isn’t a critical piece of navigation so we put this on the back burner for now. Our week of hard work is rewarded with Idyll Time looking bright and shiny and ready for another summer of cruising in South East Alaska.
Thanks to Knut, a fellow Krogen owner here in the harbor, our free time is spent learning to catch herring off the docks to use as bait. In the past we have always bought the frozen herring. Catching them is a lot more fun and also a lot better on the bank account . At certain times of day, the herring school under the docks in huge numbers. Using our herring jigs, we soon have a freezer full of bait.
We have seen a slew of pleasure boats stream through the harbor during our busy week of work. Canada is allowing boats to travel up from Washington this year. They require boats to go thru as quickly as possible with no stopping except for anchoring overnight or for bad weather. You are not allowed to come ashore or visit with other boats while in Canada. After being prevented from coming up last year, boats down south are very eager to come up this year. It looks like the anchorages and waterways will be very busy.
Now its time for us to head out and test all of our systems or as Jeff says “ try to break something”. We will head to an anchorage just a few miles out of town tomorrow and throw out our first crabs traps of the season.
Yay, so glad you’re back aboard and everything was in order (except for the wind direction/speed indicator)! Good luck crabbing and we’ll be following along vicariously.