DE is center of photo along the outside the the long floating dock...
Wrangell's got a fairly rough history - great museum by the way - and is still a bit rough today; but I like the place. Lots of interesting boats and interesting boat people. Besides the many fish boats, both large and small; there are a variety of cruisers in sailboats, trawlers and even canoes. Yesterday a Nordhavn 55 came in, which has come from Florida, through the Panama Canal, out to Hawaii and back here to Alaska and this morning a Nordhavn 46 came in. I don't know it's history, but the home port is listed as Newfoundland. We're out of here tomorrow morning 15 Aug. We have permits for Anan Bay, where the US Forest Service has a Bear & Wildlife Observatory. The literature on the place says one can bring their own weapons with them for protection?!
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08/12/2009, Wrangell Narrows
12 August 2009, enroute Wrangell from Petersburg
Two nights and one day in Petersburg - some grocery shopping; some bits and pieces; some financial chores made easy as there was a Wells Fargo bank in town. I got parts to put the deck wash plumbing back together (which was taken apart to have the raw water pump supply the water-maker, replacing the water-maker boost pump which had broken). After spending all afternoon putting the plumbing back together, I found that it leaked from almost every join... pulled it all apart again, and put back the bypass to the water-maker; we'll use the buckets on deck to dip water when we wash down Rusty's deposits.
Petersburg was interesting; the folks there helpful and friendly.
0400 this morning we got up to catch the proper sequence of tidal currents down through Wrangell Narrows. We exited North Harbor at 0425 with the Alaska Ferry coming off the ferry terminal just ahead us. Thank goodness it was ahead of us rather than behind. Wrangell Narrows runs 22 miles from Frederick Sound to Sumner Strait and is quite narrow in parts with competing tidal currents from both ends. On advice from our friend Wade, we left Petersburg about one hour plus, at the end of the Frederick Sound flood, into the slack then picked up the Sumner Strait ebb for the remainder of the trip down the Narrows. For the first third (still dark) we had pretty good vis; the middle third just so-so with fog and the last third was pea soup which is not so much fun with such a narrow channel, other traffic, and sometimes confusing markers. OK after being through once, but for the first time through, it would have been less tense to have been able to see where we were going.
We entered Sumner Strait in thick fog and passed several on-coming vessels at less than one-quarter mile and saw nothing but their wake after passing. The Alaska State Ferries and the various cruise ships are quite diligent about announcing (on the VHF radio) their entry into narrow channels, and communicating with other vessels.
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Nice viz.... IFR for sure!
I've been following your journey and loving it. Congratulations. I'm building 44 steel trawler boat in my barn conallsboatbuild.blogspot.com, and I noticed your hatch covers. Can you give me any info on those covers or where I could get two.
Best regards, Conall
You know regards fairing, just my opinion at this point, but if I were doing it again, I'd probably forego the fairing. It make a beautiful hull for sure, and Seahorse did a great job of it, but every little ding or scratch -- and living in Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter in Hong Kong produced plenty of hull scratches from passing dinghys, sampans and unavoidable steel mooring balls in tight mooring rows
As for the hatches: the hatches and ports are commercial standard used on local Chinese boats. Check with Bill Kimley at Seahorse Marine www.seahorseyachts.com zhyachts@mthtrains.com they're aluminum, and after 3 years we've developed some paint issues I'm assuming due to electrolysis between the steel hull, aluminum hatches and stainless bolts
The is the first we've had real, sustained connectivity and I just noticed our google earth position on sailblogs was still showing DE 2/3 the way across the Gulf of AK! That's where we got our butt seriously kicked, and a snapped para-vane pole to prove it. That's not a place I want to be hanging out long term either in reality or memory, so I've updated us to our current location.
We'll take today off from the whale-o-rama and get some boat and other chores done here in Petersburg. Likely tomorrow we'll continue down the Wrangel Narrows to Wrangel and then Ketchican.
Including a photo of Dorothy (bundled up against the cold, this is after all Alaska) and Rusty at the bow of DE in Red Bluff Bay.
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