Homer Tides

For those of you interested in such things.  Homer has the fourth largest tides in the world.  That means the harbor basin needs to be well built.  The first thing we noticed was the very tall pilings when we arrived in.  They are comparable in height to several of the masts on the boats at extreme low tides.

The tide yesterday was 26 feet from extreme low to high, and it isn't even a special tide.  Equinox tides supposedly get up to 28 feet.  That is more than 8.5 meters for the majority of our followers.  The floating ramp design (the access from the floating pontoons to the shore) is fairly extreme as one could guess.  We tried to catch a few pics.  One is two hours before high tide, it still had a meter to go.  Another is about an hour before low tide and the last is just after high tide.  Not sure how much had dropped as the water does move out rather quickly.  Anyway it makes you realize why we keep watching the currents around here.

an hour before low tide

2 hours before high tide

just after high tide

FishHead advertizing

We mentioned that Mark lost his beard in a previous post.  Well, he stopped shaving when we left Kushiro, Japan and he kept it till Laura arrived.  The beard kept his face warm during the cold passages but it made him look a little old.

Here's a photo of how he looked in his beard.  Mark was also advertising "FishHead" for our friend, Todd Keeler.

Fishing

Homer is the Halibut capital of the world, so we had to go out and catch some.

We are limited to 2 halibuts per day, per person.  So among the four of us, we caught 8 halibuts.  As a bonus, we caught a silver salmon, aka Coho and a cod.

on the fishing boat

rods on the ready

halibuts

silver salmons

Steve and Laura with their catch of halibut

Seldovia

Seldovia is a little town across Kachemak Bay from Homer.  The area was the meeting and trading place for the native people in the early days.  Russians traders arrived and settled in Seldovia in the 1740s.  It was named Zaliv Seldovoi, Bay of Herring in Russian, in 1852.

There is no road system to Seldovia, and the only way to get there is by plane or boat.  The weather was a little rough and we didn't want to take Sari Timur, so we took the tourist boat over.  We stopped along the way to look at the bird rookery as well as whale watching.  We saw many whales and even had one come within 6 feet of the boat.  He went under the bowsprit and we were told it was very rare they did that.

We had lunch in Seldovia and took a walk along the boardwalk.  While there we bumped into Marc from the sailing yacht, Shag II.  It was nice catching up with him since we last saw him in Kushiro, Japan.

dinghy ride to the tour boat.  Notice that Mark lost his beard

a bird sitting in the center of the rock formation

one of the whales we saw

not a good photo of the fluke as the whale was sounding

Laura and Steve on the boardwalk

there are many sea otters around and this is one of them having his lunch

Somebody loves us

Well, actually, 2 people love us enough to come visit us in Alaska.  Laura (Mark's sister) and her husband, Steve flew in from North Carolina to spend a week with us here in Homer.  We drove to Anchorage to meet them at the airport at "Oh God Hundred" hours.  By the time we got back to Homer, all four of us were jet lagged.

On our way back from Anchorage, we stopped at Portage Glacier.  It was too early to do the tour, so we just had a peek and took some photos.

Homer, time to slow down!

Position  N 59 d 36.352
          W 151 d 25.608
          21 August 2015

We have arrived in Homer, the halibut fishing capital of the world.  We do not have access to WiFi yet so we are still relying on the good graces of my sisters to post this blog.  The marina is big, busy, and full but very nice.  The girl in the office spent her junior year of high school in Japan so we chatted a bit as she gave us some of the lay of the land but the closest WiFi is a pretty long walk away so we opted for the shorter walk to a fish restaurant instead.

It was a bit sad leaving Geographic Harbor as it was so beautiful, but we want to keep experiencing new places.  We also met up again with Quicksilver, the English yacht that we last saw in Dutch Harbor who left Kushiro with us and have shared a couple of the anchorages with us along the way.  Nice to catch up and we found they were socially flawed as a cruising couple never having seen Captain Ron so we had a movie night for them and they are of the vintage sailing to really appreciate the subtleties of the the movie.

We are here for a couple of weeks to slow down and wait for Steve and Laura to come visit.  We paid for a month as it is the same rate for a month or ten days.  That is quite common for marinas so we expected it.  We did pull into the wrong berth when we came in but the guy who belonged to the berth was right behind us and he kindly waited while the guy next door untied and left so we could shift over.  They even took our lines for us as we re-docked.  Luckily the wind was down as we had to do some major maneuvering to get out and back in in such a tight spot.  Not bad with little sleep on our overnighter. 
There are many sea otters here in the marina and unlike the ones we have seen so far, these ones are not shy and a delight to watch.

Anyway it is a couple of days of cleaning and rearranging to get the boat a little more livable for us to receive guests.  Mark would also like to begin attacking the brightwork to at least scrap off the old varnish.  It really shows the neglect it has had for the last three years.  Time to go back to bare wood and bring it back.  We will look to see if we can get the varnish we want in Anchorage.  If not maybe we can order it and get it when we go back to drop off Laura and Steve after their trip.  We do not want to be varnishing when they are here.  It will be time to play while they are here.  Cruising is great but sometimes you just need to stop and slow down.  Dutch Harbor's forced stop was not quite it as we were expecting to leave any day and therefore could not relax.

Geographic Harbor

Position N 58 d 06.908
        W 154 d 36.400
   18 August

Well we did not stop in Port Wrangell.  We hit some bad weather and adverse currents that would have put us there quite late so we opted to spend one more night at sea and go straight to Geographic Harbor and it looked like the right call.  Later in the day the sun came out the current switched and all looked good.  That was until about 23:00 last night.  Out of no where the breeze picked up and for nearly 5 hours it blew over 30 knots one time hitting 38.6 knots.  Then the barometer bottomed out and started to rise and the wind eased to the the mid teens and we thought all would be good.  Then at about 6 the wind came back with a vengence.  Pauline clocked over 47 knots and the seas were miserable.  We thought we would be protected in the straight by Kodiak but we were wrong.  We ended up pulling off all sail and using the engine at idle to maintain steerage and we were clocking over 7.5 knots.  Good news was that we would get into Geographic sooner. Bad news is we would have to turn beam on and run over shallow water before gaining protection from the cape at the entrance.  But it did prove to be a wide entrances and we were able to configure our course to head in at a broad angle surfing the waves in.  But once we got behind that cape a whole new world opened for us.  We both think this is the most beautiful harbor we have ever been in.  We have tried to take pictures but there is something here that just makes us feel small but inspired.  Also with the wind sort of blocked by the various mountains the sun could do its job and for the first time since reaching Alaska we were both hot and all the outer garments came off.  The bears are out in force and the only drawback of this place is there are six boats here shawing the four separate bays with us.  But the good news is the main bay is very large (deep, but large) and three boats pale into insignificance in it.  We have an open view of the bears walking the shore while we sit on deck and drink our wine.  So though miserable getting here it was all worth it.

Fox Bay

Position N 55d 36.657
        W 159d 38.196

15 August 2015

We set the alarm this morning for an early start but the wind was blowing and it was raining, so we got back under the covers for another couple of hours sleep.  We finally got moving about 1030 and were planning to go all the way to Geographic Harbor but decided to put into Fox Bay for the night instead.  Reason being that we didn't want to do 2 overnight as the weather was still bad.  

As we were coming into the bay, a fishing vessel captain hailed us on the radio to tell us about some set nets in the bay.  Then he offered to give us some sockeye salmon caught within the hour.  Unfortunately we could only accept one fish as we don't have a freezer.  It was yummy!!

We hope that tomorrow will be more settled weather and we can make an overnight to Port Wrangell.  The weather is still south but the decreased winds should drop the waves.  But it is the rain that we hope will stop.  The bays between here and Port Wrangell are numerous but either exposed to the south, very steep to, or too far off the track to dip into so we are pretty resolved to make the run to Port Wrangell.  From there it will be only a day sail to Geographic Harbor.

Zachary Bay, Unga Island

Position N 55 d 20.138
        W 160 d 36.258
        14 August

Well we left beautiful and super protected Captain Harbor this morning to head for Geographic Harbor some 350 miles further up the track.  But the weather was miserable.  Even though there were three bears, a mother and her two cubs at the mouth of the harbor as we were departing and more whales than we have yet seen in a morning, many of them broaching, we were pretty tired of the weather so we picked a stop for the night.  That is where we are now.  We had some issues with the anchor winch so in the dark, cold and wet rain, Mark disconnected the deck connector and rewired it.  Of course the connector was rather corroded so he had to take that below and rework it.  We knew we had a spare but the spare was corroded even more.  He got the old one fixed and then Pauline found the real spare as he was hooking it back up.  Just to let everyone know we do have bad days even without the help of FedEx.  

Hopefully tomorrow it will clear and we will get a bigger chunk of this particular leg finished.

Alaskan Peninsula

Position  N 54 d 50.105
         W 162 d 37.288
         15:30 12 August

We have not quite arrived yet but hope to be anchored tonight. The scenery is still stunning.  The conversation at change of watch this morning, Pauline says "quick come up and see this". Mark comes on deck to see two spectacular snow covered volcanoes one spewing a steam plume straight up.  Pauline says "I need sleep but I don't want to miss anything.  Wake me up if there is anything exciting."  Mark's reply "what constitutes exciting, you have already seen whales broaching, volcanoes, great views, orcas, Dhalls porpoises, sea lions, otters, eagles?"  Her reply "Bears!"  So hopefully tonight or tomorrow we will be anchored near bears.  But the conversation this morning does bring it home.  Everyday we travel in this part of the world, and when we are stopped somewhere we seem to be awed by our surroundings.  As simple as puffins bobbing by, to the views and wildlife.  We received a chain email from the boats in front of us.  And they are all saying the same thing, the further east they get the more there is to see.  Hard to believe but we do know that the cruise ships only go around the eastern side and they know their business so we will just keep preparing ourselves for more. Oh and the change of watch this morning we were still rounding Unimak Island, the last of the Aleutians.

Moving East Again Finally!

Position N 54 d 17.106
        W 165 d 48.127
        17:00 August 11

We are finally underway again.  We left Dutch Harbor at ten this morning trying to time the tides right.  We left through a lot of whales like it was when we came in over three weeks ago.  This time however, we got a lot closer.  We even got so close to one pod that one of them began broaching.  Four quick broaches in a row to let us know he was there and he was big.  While Mark was trying to steer us clear, Pauline was trying to catch a pic.  She got rather excited and instead of hitting the snap but hit the off switch.  So we only got the last broach on record and it was a bit wimpy.  But as we say hey at least we got a pic, how are yours?

We should be out of the Aleutian Islands tomorrow.  We hope to anchor up in Captain Harbor for tomorrow night. Today we will be pulling an overnighter to try and make up for lost time.

And for all of you who have been following, we have our inverter. We had to quick get another email out to West Marine who were refunding our card already.  We hope in time, but if not it will get sorted out soon enough. We won't go into all of the stories but even the final day when we knew it was there they made us and the guys at Alaskan Marine Pilots jump through some extra hoops.  So other than one lady at the post office we cannot say enough about how nice the people were to us in Dutch Harbor.  Special thanks go out to Jay and Clay and the office manager at Alaskan Marine Pilots.  Tony, the guy with the Harbormaster's office and Judy his wife who was so busy we never met but still managed to bake us some cakes and smoke us some salmon.  Joey and his wife.  And the list goes on.

Things to note in Captain Harbor, we should see our first bears.  If not our next stop is Geographic Harbor which we have been guaranteed bears, up close and very personal!  The trick is maneuvering the dinghy close enough but not too close.  We have been warned these guys are incredibly fast and though they are concentrated on fattening up for the winter they can still get rambunctious.

No Inverter, But Going Anyway

Well our inverter supposedly missed the ship that arrived yesterday.  The next scheduled ship does not arrive until next Friday.  So we are leaving without it.  We are very frustrated to say the least.  But it is not a show stopper.  But if we wait any longer it will be as we said in the last post, we need to get moving.

Still Here

For those of you checking our positions and blog.  It is true we have not moved.  We are still waiting on the inverter.  By the way if ordering from West Marine do not pay for 2 day FedEx.  Our package was shipped via surface!  This means it took two weeks to get from Utah to Anchorage and it will take another two weeks to get from Anchorage to Dutch Harbor as there is only one ship per week and it missed the first ship.  We have been assured that it is on the ship arriving tomorrow and therefore we should have it by Monday.  But we have been assured before that it would have been here two weeks ago.  Not to mention we paid for it to be here 4 weeks ago!  A calamity of errors but at least it is physical close (supposedly).

Anyway once we have it we are making fast tracks for the mainland.  For three reasons, first we are way behind schedule, second Laura and Steve are coming to visit us on the 24th and we have to be some where before that so we can meet them in Anchorage, and lastly the super typhoon that is hitting Taiwan is going to break up then send a nasty bunch of weather across the North Pacific towards us by about Thursday next week so we want to be some where a bit protected.  It is very protected here but we still have some ways to go before we get some protection again.  So we will be moving quickly once we start.  So those of you who are checking keep watching the markers should start moving soon.