Alaskan Sea-Duction: Portage Bay to Sitka

Portage Bay to Sitka

The next morning June 6th we had a -3ft tide. So we sat tight for awhile before leaving. The ride over to Red Bluff Bay seemed to take forever! It was 0nly 57 miles! Nice smooth water, sunny and warm. It felt like we were coming home. Red Bluff Bay is our most favorite place. As we approached, we picked up 3 AIS signals. They were big boats too. 65 and 70 footers. I started to get a little panicked. Would there be room for us at the inn? Kay told me to calm down, there would be enough room.

As we rounded the last point, the Admiral was right. Plenty of room. She helped me position ASD for anchorage. She picked an excellent spot. She has an eye for this stuff, so I will rely on her a little more for anchorages. If there is a draw back to this place, it is the “dirty water.” The water has a lot of moss and jellies. More later on that.

The next day everyone left and Kay and I had the anchorage to ourselves!! What a treat this was. I took advantage and put down a shrimp pot in 360 feet and a crab pot at 45 feet. A 24-hour soak should do just fine. When I got back to the boat, Kay had scoped out some bears on shore and they were big ones! I suggested some halibut fishing and she got an ear to ear smile. She love “butt” fishing. We loaded little ASD with rods, bait and a spear, being careful not to let any of the pointy ends touch the boat. The seas were smooth and warm and we had a great time. We did catch a few “butts” but they were small, 15lbs or less, so we released them.

The next day we tried some rock bass fishing. We had “secret” rock that would always produce. We were not disappointed. We kept 6 and released around 20-30 fish. Blackened sea bass to night for dinner!! Yum Yum. I went back to pull the shrimp pot and try my new pot puller. Skunked again! What???? This was my honey hole; it always produces at least 60-100 shrimp. Well I will move it away down the bay a bit. Rebaited the trap, closed it and threw it overboard. I heard a snap and there when my shrimp pot to the bottom, without a line connected to it! It would appear the metal clip failed. Crap Kay isn’t going to like this news. She didn’t and this a is a PG rated blog. I did have 3 large Dungeness crabs all males and 8 inches wide. So not totally snucked.

Later that afternoon, some new friends showed up at the anchorage. Kevin and Bonnie of the “Ocean Dream” a 55ft Ocean Alexander (OA) and Curt and Tracy of the “Red Raven” a 31ft Ranger Tug. There will be a party tonight.

Everyone showed up for cocktail hour and dinner. Kay fixed blackened Rock Bass and fresh brownies with a bottle of wine and scotch. Kevin and Kay hit it right off as they both are wine snobs!! LOL It was all about wine. We found out that Curt and Bonnie had never fished for black bass. It was set. Tomorrow at noon we would go to the rock to see how lucky they are.

Noon arrive with low clouds and rain! Oh well can’t have sunny days every day. After the attack of the blood sucking Alaskan nats, Bonnie and Curt limited out in about an hour. Nice big ones too. We tried our luck for Halibut, but the seas were starting to build and we gave it up. I did get to ride on a new Ranger Tug. Nice boats. We had some happy friends and that was all that mattered. Bonnie pulled her 2 shrimp pots and it only produced 6 shrimp. They were all leaving the next day for Warm Springs, then Sitka. We would be one day behind.

Well you can’t stay long in this bay and run your generator without it sucking up something. About 9 PM the genny stopped running. Crap. The genny shutdown due to overheating on the exhaust. No water draining out the exhaust. I worked on it for about 2 hours with no luck clearing the moss or jelly. I would try again in the morning. If I couldn’t get it cleared, we would have to back track to Wrangell for a diver. I installed a new impeller and cleared all the lines. No water. So, Kay and I pulled the anchor and started back toward Wrangell. It was going to be a long long day. Then I remembered my friend John from the “MY Pairadice” had the same problem so he ran his boat at a fast speed. It cleared the blockage. We were already in Chatham Strait, so we shut down the engines after running about 14 kts for about 3 miles. Started the Genny and we had a waterfall coming out the exhaust!!! Success. We returned back to Red Bluff bay in the fog with the anchorage all to ourselves.

It was time to move on. The tiny town of Barinof/Warm Hot Springs was next, a short 17 miles North. There are some nice natural springs hot tubs. Nice and hot. The problem is this is a popular space and getting dock space hard to get. But folks rotate in and out so we might get lucky. One boat on the dock Yee Haw!!!! We will spend a few days here as the weather was turning bad and the next run to Sitka is a long 97-mile run.

We left Warm Spring with a full dock. Some of the boats were folks from Juneau chartering their boats out to tourists. 4-5 days of vacation then the next group. Good way to pay for your boat, I guess.

The water in Chatham Strait was like a tea cup, no wind, flat seas. The trip today, although long, is all about adventure as we have never been to Sitka. Peril Straits and the famous Sergius Narrows. Then Kay jump out of her chair “WHALES!!!” About a half-mile to starboard a huge humpback. Wait a smaller spout. I stopped and turned off the engines and it was dead quiet. POWWWW!!! The whale takes a breath as it pushes its calf to the top of the water. We spent an hour just floating listening to the whales. We also had some porpoises come along side. We could spend all day here but onward to Sitka.

The country side was cloudy by smooth. We saw a few places to anchor on the way back. Problem is the commercial crabbing season will be on and many of these bays will be choked with crab traps. Peril Strait ended with a small channel at the end that leads to the open Pacific. I had timed it just right and we would arrive at Sergius Narrows about 10 minutes before slack. On bay, called Annie’s Pocket had bears all over the place! But no time to stop.

We entered the narrows and no big deal. In fact, the narrows didn’t even impress me that much. It was like Cattle Pass in the San Jauns. As we exited the channel right in front of us was Salisbury Sound and hundreds of trawlers fishing for salmon. What a cool sight to see. There are two more narrow passages to navigate then the town of Sitka. The narrows were no big deal. The issue was navigating around all the trawlers. Then there were salmon charters zoom zooming by carrying their customers. We entered Sitka Harbor with smooth seas and low clouds.