Day 25-Taku Harbor to Oliver Inlet

Originally I had planned to arrive in Auke Bay (basically Juneau) a day before Ben’s flight out and go hiking somewhere.  But when I looked through the guidebook, I noticed Oliver Inlet.  The entrance is complicated, since it is shallow, narrow, uncharted, and strong currents run through it.  But it sounded like an interesting spot and only 16 nm away from Taku Harbor.  The guidebook said bears frequent the area, making it even more intriguing.  So we decided to check it out.

High water slack was predicted around 6:00 pm, so that’s about the time we wanted to arrive.  It was still windy at Taku Harbor, and I thought that might slow our progress, so we pulled out around 2:30.  We ended up getting a nice boost from the current, and it was apparent that we were going to arrive way too early to get into Oliver Inlet.  To kill time I ran a bit on the kicker to keep it exercised.  It ran fine, but it does make a lot of noise and isn’t the most pleasant thing to be around.  So we ended up shutting down both engines and drifting for 45 minutes or so.  I figured we could go in around 5:00 pm and be fine, and headed in around then.

The current was still running about 3 knots, but the boat was easily controllable and the depths were more than adequate.  I saw a minimum depth of about 6 feet.  The entrance channel is about a mile long, then it opens up a bit with depths greater than 20 feet.  We made our way to the head of the inlet and dropped the anchor off the beach where a trail leads to a USFS cabin.  While the guidebook said the inlet was incredibly well protected from wind, we found about 20 knots of wind inside, although the fetch is minimal and the water was mostly calm.

We decided it was worth checking out the trail to the USFS cabin.  It’s a mile long and follows a boardwalk/train track that people use to portage kayaks and small boats across a peninsula (otherwise you have to take a 60 nm detour up Stephens Passage) or move their gear to the cabin.  Admiralty Island has a high concentration brown bears and we both carried bear spray and flare guns in case we had an unwanted encounter.  People up here tell me that a .44 or larger is ideal for brown bears…hopefully we won’t find out.

The walk was actually pretty interesting.  Most of it was through a kind of scenic swampland, with vegetation I haven’t seen before.  We got to the empty cabin, checked it out a bit, and then returned to the boat.  No bears.

The boardwalk/train track

View from the USFS cabin

The "train"

We’ll need to leave early tomorrow to make the roughly 6:00 morning high slack water out of here. 

17.2 nm today and 1,134.2 total

Day 24-Ford's Terror to Taku Harbor

Despite the beauty of Ford’s Terror, we had to move on today.  So we pulled anchor around 6:30 to ride the ebb out of Endicott Arm and then catch the flood up Stephen’s Passage.  On a boat related note, the windlass (the electric thing that pulls the anchor up) has performed well, but the rode seems to get more and more twisted every time the anchor is used.  This results in the windlass binding up and stopping, and requires me to go up to the windlass and unwind the chain or rope.  I’ll need to look into an anchor swivel…

The trip out Endicott Arm was similar to the trip in yesterday.  Glassy water, sunny skies.  The entrances to Tracy Arm and Endicott Arm are usually called bars, since they are narrow and shallow.  They resemble the bars that people run to get in and out of rivers.  But in reality they are terminal morraines, which means they are the furthest place that the glaciers once reached.  A strong current runs through these areas at times, and we timed it to make it through near slack.

I like this!

Soon after emerging from Endicott Arm, we spotted a humpback whale.  And then another.  And then several more.  We turned off the engine and drifted for an hour or so, watching the humpbacks swim leisurely.  We also saw a bunch of seals and sea lions frolicking around.

I've seen lots of Orcas and these Humpbacks are huge in comparison

Around 10:30 the breeze was starting to pick up and I decided we better head towards Taku Harbor before the weather turned worse.  We ended up having an uneventful trip to Taku Harbor, although the winds did pick up to 20 knots with three foot following seas by the time we pulled in.  Later on, the wind further increased, and there were plenty of gusts above 30 knots at the dock we tied up to.

Taku Harbor is the site of a former cannery, and there’s evidence of it all over.  Tons of rusted metal (they made their own cans, and left the raw material), pilings where the pier used to be, boilers, concrete slabs.  It was fun to walk through the abandoned area and imagine what it was once like.

I think this is an old washing machine...I didn't try to use it

Pilings left over from the pier

A crumbling building, and a bathtub 

Who knows what all this stuff is

The city of Juneau built a very nice, large dock at Taku Harbor that is free to use.  No water or power, but the docks are modern, safe, and clean.  There was only one other boat there when we arrived, and the gentleman aboard happened to be the lighthouse keeper at the Five Fingers Light, near Fanshaw Bay where we spent the night a few days ago.  He was on his way to Juneau for supplies but ducked into Taku Harbor to wait for better weather.

In the evening a large tour boat, the St. Peter, pulled onto the dock.  I talked with the crew for a bit, and they were spending the night at Taku to save some distance tomorrow.  That way they could sleep in until 7 instead of 5, and still meet the cruise ship they needed to pick up passengers from in time for their trip up Tracy Arm.

By the evening thick clouds had replaced the sun of the previous few days.  Oh well, this is Alaska, and I can’t expect sun and temperatures in the 70’s or 80’s every day!

43.2 nm today and 1117 total

Day 23-Tracy Arm Cove to Ford's Terror

Even though the inside of Ford’s Terror was apparently dangerous because of rockslides, the outer area is supposed to be scenic and easily accessible.  So today we decided to make the roughly 20 nm trip up Endicott Arm.  Dawes Glacier, 12 nm past Ford’s Terror, was apparently quite clogged with ice preventing boats from getting close to its’ face, so we opted to have a relaxing day at Ford’s Terror rather than a longer day trekking up to the glacier and back.

The trip up Endicott Arm was easy and we saw no other boat traffic.  The water was glassy, the wind nonexistent.  While the scenery was not as dramatic is Tracy Arm, it was nonetheless beautiful.  As with Tracy Arm, we had to fight a bit of current on our way into Endicott Arm, even entering on a flood.

Glassy

This bald eagle was perched on an iceberg near the entrance to Endicott Arm

When we pulled into Ford’s Terror, a small cruise ship (less than 200 feet) was pulling anchor.  I called them on the VHF and they confirmed recent rock fall inside the rapids.  With this information confirmed, we proceeded to find a suitable spot for anchoring overnight.

Anchoring in the outer basin of Ford’s Terror wasn’t easy.  The walls plunge nearly vertically into the water, making most areas too deep or too shallow.  Additionally, a strong current rips through a reversing tidal rapid and a drying shoal sits right where anchoring would make the most sense.  After a few attempts at anchoring, though, we got the hook set in an appropriate spot and ran a stern tie to shore to keep us from swinging out towards deeper water and dragging anchor.

The weather was perfect and I quickly got out in the kayak.  Sunny and temperatures in the 80’s!  The outer basin is spectacularly beautiful, similar to Princess Louisa Inlet and Misty Fjords National Monument.  Lots of waterfalls, streams, etc.

Summer in Alaska

The rock walls are immense

Many waterfalls around the inlet 

This stream emptied right near our anchorage

An hour or so after we arrived a seaplane landed in the cove and taxied around for a while.  I couldn’t figure out why.  After another hour or so, a 70+ foot Viking yacht pulled in and anchored and the seaplane taxied to its swimstep.  I paddled over and talked to the captain of the yacht for a few minutes, and it turns out the owners are avid pilots who use the boat as a base for seaplane flights.  And I thought the Mokai was a cool toy!  They also had kayaks, a big inflatable dinghy, and a seadoo.

After dinner they dinghied over to us and invited us over for drinks.  There were 8 or 9 people aboard, all pilots except for the hired captain of the boat, up from California for just a few days.  Tomorrow some of the family is taking the boat to Juneau, others are taking the seaplane to Ketchikan where they’ll switch to another of their planes, fly to Juneau to pick up the rest of the family, and then fly to southern California.  They’ll repeat this shuffle several more times throughout the summer.  Certainly a unique way to travel!  The owner said he would have given us rides over the glaciers yesterday in the seaplane, but his wife had burned all the fuel in the morning and he spent the afternoon flying to Juneau to fill up the tanks instead.  Oh well.

Sunset on the mountains

22.2 nm today and 1,073.8 total