Day 409 Ratz!

We were up early this morning to prepare for our trip Northwest from Ketchikan. We pulled in the dock lines and were on our way by 0555 this morning. The Sun now comes up at 0405--yeah, that's right--405AM!!! It doesn't set till after 2130!! That's over 17 hours of sunshine, or at least daylight every day and it's still getting longer. Soon, it will be light 24 hours a day up here.

As we left Ketchikan, we were greeted by Holland America Amsterdam as she came South in the channel. We of course were heading North. We just slowed down and let her pass(like there was a choice). We continued motoring(wind the wrong way again) out the Tongass Narrows into the Clarence Strait and continuing Northwest.

As I said last post, I got our AIS(Automatic Identification System) up and running finally yesterday so we fired up the computer and there were lots of ships on the screen, each sending out a signal as to who they were and where they were going. It also tells me their radio call sign if I need to contact them. It's a handy piece of equipment if you are cruising in waters with lots of big boats. You can see them 20+ miles away, long before they show up visually. Once in the Clarence Straits, we "saw" two more cruise liners coming South for Ketchikan on our AIS long before we could actually see them. We stayed well away from them giving them a wide berth. The Crystal Princess and another whose name I have forgotten. The radio stations in town make announcements as to who is coming in each day and how many people to expect. Today was five ships and over 8600 people!! The town swells for a few hours and then returns to its normal size of a nice sleepy town. It would have been interesting to see Ketchikan before the ships started coming in here. I'll bet she was a much different town.

A few hours out, the winds shifted and allowed us to hoist the sails and sail for a few hours. They only amounted to between 8 to 10 knots of wind but they were behind us and that was just fine. Up went the main and out came the Genoa. With the wind behind us, we tried to "wing and wing" the sails. This is when you have the main sail out one side and the genoa out the opposite side. This way, all the wind will hit the backs of both sails and drive your down the channel. The wind that hits the mainsail flows off and over onto the Genoa. Even in only 6 knots of wind, we were doing 4.5 up the channel. I lowered the DuoGen (makes electricity) into the water and let her rip. The winds got a bit flooky, so I finally pulled out the new spinnaker pole and hooked it to the end of the Genoa sheets(lines that control the sail)and the sail was set so it could no longer collapse if the winds shifted or lessened. It works just great. We had one made for us out of carbon fiber to keep the weight down. At 22 feet long, an aluminum pole would weigh in at well over 45 pounds. Ours comes in at just over 20 and while long, is much easier to handle. The pole fits in a fitting on the mast and then attaches to the sail. With the sails set, we pressed on--really quietly for a change.

We kept going downwind until the winds finally died to less than 2 knots and that is when we took it all down and restarted the engine for the rest of the trip. We'd planned on staying the night at Tolstoi Bay on Prince of Wales Island, but we were there before noon and it didn't feel right to stop so early so we pressed on. About an hour later, we saw what looked(through binoculars at least) to be a boat that had floundered. We changed course and headed over. It ended up being a refrigerator with its door open just floating down the channel. We recorded the longitude and latitude and I called it into the Coast Guard so they could send out a warning to mariners and perhaps send someone out to get it our of the shipping channels. It was a full size refrigerator. Probably fell(or was pushed) off some fishing boat. With all the foam insulation in it, there was no way it was going to sink.

At 1500, we dropped anchor in Ratz Harbor(55 53.230N 132 36.030W) on Prince of Wales Island.
A nice bay but with little protection from the North winds and that's exactly what we ended up having after we got the anchor down. They have been blowing anywhere from 8 to 15 knots. With the tide up, there is little protection from the winds. Once it goes out, we were finally enjoying a much less rolly anchorage.

I turned on the computer to see what the tides and currents will be doing tomorrow morning so we can plan our departure. The smartest time to leave is about 0900 but we we will probaly leave before then to get a jump on the next leg. We will face some current--1.5 knots-- for a while but then gain a flood tide later in the trip to help push us along. Hopefully, the wind will not be against us. The forecast is for a 40% chance of rain but not much wind. I guess we will see tomorrow.

We covered 48.6 miles today in 9 hours so we made pretty good time considering we sailed for 3 hours of it. Each day, we get closer to Juneau. At this rate, we should be there in just over a week.

Time for some shuteye. Morning comes early here anymore.