Alaskan Sea-Duction: Boy did we Judge it Wrong! Hartley to Ketchikan Alaska

We broke away from the dock at Hartley and headed to a little known marine park called Klumnuggett. This little bay is tucked off the bust water way of Grenville Channel. The 45 mile run was pleasant and easy. This is one of my favorite places and it was great to share it.

From the quiet lagoons to the bustling life in a small city of Prince Rupert. This is the stop over before crossing Dixon Entrance. It is also a good place to order parts. John's windlass stopped operating due to a control box. So this was put on order for general delivery in Ketch.

Prince Rupert is also a good place for waiting on weather. We stayed 3 days waiting for things to calm down. We left PR and headed to Vreen Passage. This is a short cut and knocks about 1 1/2 hours. When we came out of the passage, we encountered south winds and small waves, but they were on the beam so it rocked the boat pretty good. It is very important to pay attention to your position. The wind was also pushing us off course. Actually it blew us toward a reef, that neither John or I realized because we were concentrating on beam seas. Wow that was close.

All of our weather apps told us Dixon Entrance was 1-2 foot seas at 12 seconds with south winds. EVERYONE OF THEM WERE DEAD WRONG!!! I hate Dixon! When we came out of the protection of Dundas Island we were met with 6-7foot seas, wind 35kts plus straight out of the west! A 30 mile crossing to Revillagigedo Channel normally is a few hours. Because of the seas we were rolling a lot! It sucked! John slugged to the lee side of Duke Island to get out of the west wind. I found doing a sailboat maneuver called tacking (zig- zagging). I was able to fight my way up into the channel. Did I tell you it SUCKED! 3 times we have crossed Dixon and 2 of those have sucked!

Did I tell you it sucked!!

Ketchikan was a wonderful sight. Float planes everywhere, huge cruise ships, commercial fishing boats and sport fishing boats. We got our slip assignments and it was time to rest.

As it ended up, the part John was waiting on was not at the post office. My parts I had ordered was there. Cigars John ordered were there. He call Fisheries in Seattle. The part was sent back as "non-deliverable!" We were also told this was the only one they had, so they could not send it back to us until they received it back. John considered this, but Defender's on the east coast also had the part in stock. He ordered it priority USP with a tracking number. We thought we would have it by the end of the week. As is our luck, this all happens over a holiday weekend. The didn't get processed until the following day, then picked it up the next day. So here we sit in Ketch for a week. The part should be here today and off we go north.