Alaskan Sea-Duction: Chapter 24 Petersburg to Tracy Arm

This is an 83 mile run. But first we had to get off the dock. We were docked at the first slip all the way down to the head dock. On a normal day no issues. Back out crank the wheel and off we go. Not here! Kay and I walked the boat back and I pushed the bow out and I was going to hop on the swim platform and away we go, right? WRONG! As soon as I pushed the bow out it would quickly snap back to the dock! Crap. I was told the current was bad here and they were right. After about 4 attempts we gave up with pushing the bow out. I would have to power out and back all the way down the dock. Something I have never done. I was able to get the stern out but I scrapped the bow against the dock. Oh well another spot I would have to buff out.

We were on our way down Fredrick Sound. Awesome views of mountains and glaciers. About half way down the sound, we ran into a fog bank. That lasted about 30 minutes, so it wasn't too bad. We turned north up Stephen Passage and we could see a bunch of whales about 5 miles off. Then right off the bow a whale came out of the water! Slapped it's flipper hard on the water and then made a loud sound! Wow! As we go closer, it appeared there were two whales. Mom and baby. She was warning us she and her young was there. We stopped and they made their way past or bow, one more spout and a softer noise as if to say thank you and both disappeared.

Then as we were approaching 5-fingers a whale blew to the surface in a frantic. Scared the crap out of us. Was an Orca chasing it? No it was 2 seals harassing it, biting the whale on the tail! The whale was slapping its tail to get rid of these harassers. We backed off the throttles and went to neutral. Then the seals were shooting out of the water doing summer salts and having fun! Harassing this whale seemed to be entertainment for them. Then the seals saw us and headed straight to the boat. The whale surfaced took a breath and mad a load sound as if to say "thank you!" The seals hung around for a bit as I talked to them, then off they went jumping out of the water just having fun.

5 finger Islands is a place we planned to stop and do some halibut fishing. It didn't take long and Kay hooked a chicken butt about 25lbs. Dinner tonight! The wind started to pick up and we still had 35 miles to go to Tracy Arm.

On the way we heard a mayday call from a tour boat. We were about 2 1/2 hours from their position. As I was getting ready to respond, the sister tour boat raced to get all the passengers off. The damaged boat had hit a small iceberg that was barely visible. He told the USCG he was going 9 knots when he hit, but I talked to the captain of the other boat and he was actually going 20 knots trying to get his cruise ship guests back in time. He never saw the ice. It would seem if you wear polarized sun glasses, the clear icebergs just barley sticking out of the water disappear. Good thing to know. All passengers were safe and sound and a crane was waiting back in Juneau to haul him out of the water.

As we approached Tracy arm we were amazed at the amount of ice all over the place. I also read that if there is a south wind, then the cove we were going to anchor in could get some ice, so we decided to go down Endicott Arm to anchor up in Sanford cove. The entrance was a little tricky and lots of current. About half way to the anchorage I read in one of the many publications that this was a deep anchorage at 187 feet! Known for dragging your anchor. Crap.....wish I had read that earlier! We decided to take a look at "no name cove." I also talked to a guy who was heading in there and he told me no worries, lots of room. So back out of Endicott Arm and then to the entrance of Tracy Arm. The entrance is only about 45 feet wide and if you miss it you are on the beach/rocks! Pay very close attention to my electronics. We made it. The entrance to the cove was also narrow. There were only 4 other boats there so we had lots of room. For some reason this cove gets a lot of short small wakes coming into it at tide change. We rocked quite a bit! It rained hard that night and ASD got a fresh water rinse.