We Arrived in Auke Bay

We are in the marina in Auke Bay, which is a northern bay for Juneau.  Our first day out of Haines the winds were very light until about 1100 hours when we killed the engine and could work on sail alone.  We were sailing wonderfully as well on a nice broad reach only about 20 degress off our heading and making 5 plus knots.  So wonderful in fact that we zoomed past our planned anchorage for the night and decided to keep going.  But alas all good things have to come to an end.  After a few hours the wind dropped our speed to under two knots and with our new anchorage planned for Eagle Bay we had to fire up the engine and motor for the last few hours.  But we got the chance to let Sari Timur strut her stuff.

Eldred Rock Lighthouse, constructed in 1905

Sari Timur with all her sails up

Eagle Bay was a beautiful little stop for the night with some sort of establishment on the south side of the bay, which looked like it must be connected to Juneau by the road system as we saw a number of cars.  We were in fact only 12 miles from Auke Bay but we had been warned the anchorage outside of the marina was very rolly and the marina itself  was usually full after 1700.  So Eagle Bay was our alternate, with a good night's sleep and a late lie in, we could get to Auke Bay for lunch.  Our first run through the marina found no slips in the marina but we got a spot tied up on the outside of the floating breakwater.  As we were on the outside it meant we were open to swell and wake, not ideal.  But it was a good launching off spot if something did become available.  Mark set off toward the office to check in and as he did so he saw a fishing boat leaving.  The slips here are real long and there were two small boats on the slip already but Mark felt there was enough room and so we fired up the motor, untied the lines and raced everyone in.  There was one smaller boat who got ahead of us but luckily he took a smaller spot not as far in as our planned target.  As we approached the spot Pauline had her doubts if we would fit.  We carried on and tied up with a whole foot and a half between us and the boat in front.  Success! we were in the marina behind the breakwater.

Auke Bay Harbor

 Power was an issue.  Because of the long fingers our hundred plus foot power cord was about a foot short.  Unfortunately the two tiny boats in front of us had about 7 feet of wasted dock.  We asked the marina if we could shift them forward a couple of feet but they said that due to liability issues no ones lines could be touched.  This is a reasonable rule so we hopped on the bus to the marine store to see if we could find a small 30 amp jumper cable.  The smallest the marine store had was 50 foot and at a cost of over a hundred dollars we decided that we could run the generator for that.  We are hoping the boat in front of us leaves sometime in the near future and we can slip forward a bit.  But if not we will run the generator when we need power and hot water.

Our crew arrives late Sunday night.  There is a couple here that we met in Guam and we have contacted them by email.  We hope to catch up with them and see more of Juneau.  Right now we plan to be here at least until Tuesday.  wWe hope to post more on our exploits in Juneau later.