Dixon Entrance – Riveted

Crossing Dixon Entrance and Homemade Salsa

Laura Domela — Wed, 07 Sep 2016 16:49:19 +0000

I set the alarm for 4:30am yesterday morning in Ketchikan — after 4 (so we’d have the 4am weather report), but 4:30 for a little extra sleep since sunrise wasn’t until 6am. No point having more than about an hour of pre-sunrise cruising. The alarm went off, I checked the conditions (they looked good for us to go) and then promptly talked Kevin into another half an hour of snoozing.

We actually left the dock in Thomas Basin at 6am. The water was calm and there was no wind in the channel. We saw several humpbacks as we neared the entrance to Behm Canal. They say you’ll know what Dixon is going to be like once you’re halfway between Mary Island and Foggy Bay. (Foggy Bay is a good stopover if you need to wait for weather, or if you want to split up the 80 nautical mile day from Ketchikan to Prince Rupert…it’s beautiful, and there’s good fishing in the area.)

Conditions were great, so we continued on. We saw a bunch more humpbacks, and got a little escort from half a dozen Pacific White-Sided dolphins. Once out in Dixon, the swells picked up a little but were no big deal at all.

Approaching Dundas Island:

That turqouise hose on the bow is the raw water (salt water) washdown hose, for when we pull the anchor. The anchor rode goes down into a locker inside that’s right at the head of the bed, and if you don’t rinse off the kelp and mud before pulling it in, it can get a bit stinky. So…the washdown is important. Also, attaching the hose to the pump inlet is a pain in the butt, so these days (and since we’re anchoring quite a bit), Kevin leaves the hose attached and on the bow. That means it’s in all of my pictures. We replaced the raw water pump a month ago or so and it came with a dark blue hose…I’m lobbying for him to swap out this turquoise one for the dark blue one. Being married to an artist is rough sometimes.

We called Canadian Customs and were given our clearance by telephone about three hours outside of Prince Rupert. Once through Venn Passage, we decided to anchor for the night in Pillsbury Cove rather than go to the marina. We didn’t need anything in town, and Pillsbury Cove looked nice (and we heard there’s good crabbing in there). Kevin got the crab traps ready while I navigated us through the last of the twisty, shallow canal, and we dropped them before anchoring.

It was just after 6pm when we got in and we’d picked up more veggies for fresh salsa (since we pretty much mowed the previous smaller batch we made two days ago). Buying store-made salsa is fine, and there are some good ones, but there’s just nothing like homemade, and it’s easy! I bought double what I bought last time…here’s a look at the grill:

Five roma tomatoes (cut in half), two habaneros (yes really, the salsa still is not that hot, I promise), 3 anaheim peppers (if they’d had poblanos or pasillas I’d have done a mix, but all they had in the larger mild peppers were anaheim), two jalapenos (I do two on the grill and two fresh…seeds removed).

Inside while the veggies were grilling, I mixed together two cans of fire roasted diced tomatoes, a large handful of cilantro, chopped, the juice of two juicy limes, liberal sprinkling of Penzey’s roasted garlic powder (the BEST!), similar sprinkling of cumin, and maybe a tablespoon or so of white balsamic vinegar. Once the grilled veggies are cool, chop them up and add them to the bowl. (I removed the seeds from the habaneros, too.) There’s no fresh garlic and no onions in this salsa, but if you taste it and feel the need to add some, by all means go for it. Also, I don’t add salt or pepper. I know, weird, but just taste it first. Here’s the finished product:

We grilled up some fresh halibut (given to us by a neighbor) for dinner and had that with some sauteed shaved Brussels sprouts and a baked potato. Kevin cooked the halibut perfectly.

Today we will head down toward Grenville Channel, and maybe anchor in Lowe Inlet tonight. We’ll grab our crab traps on the way out and who knows…we might have fresh crab for dinner tonight!

Here’s a map of yesterday’s Dixon Entrance crossing. (Dixon Entrance is that middle part with no land sheltering it from the open Pacific Ocean. Foggy Bay is the bay is on the right, just before Dixon Entrance, across from Duke Island.)

82.4 nautical miles, 11 hours 26 minutes:

Ketchikan to Foggy Bay (and More Aurora Borealis!)

Laura Domela — Fri, 04 Sep 2015 23:34:05 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

I'm just gonna start with this: "Holy crap it's so amazing!!!"

Okay now, continue reading. There will be more candy later.

Downtown Ketchikan from the water:

On Thursday morning we ran a few errands in Ketchikan (more Ray Troll shirts for friends, picking up some tax docs at Frontier Shipping, mailing tax docs from Frontier Shipping…that kind of stuff) before heading out to Foggy Bay. We stopped to have lunch at Alava's Fish & Chowder, right across the street from the city dock. I'd seen the good reviews last time we were in Ketchikan, and wow, they weren't kidding. The halibut fish 'n chips was so delicious! Actually, instead of chips, I ordered asparagus with mine, and it came crispy and perfect with a sweet chili dipping sauce. I would order this every single time instead of fries if I could…it was fabulous! (They sometimes do zucchini and peppers, but honestly if they have asparagus, get the asparagus.)

I know, this photo has all sorts of crazy lines, but this is what the place looks like. Don't let its unassuming presence fool you…it's way better than the touristy cruise ship spots out on the waterfront:

We were filling our fresh water tanks and getting ready to go, when four people up on the boardwalk said hi and said they were admiring our boat. We chatted with them for a few minutes from 20 feet below, and they were super sweet and really interested in our boat, so we invited them down to see it. They were thrilled, and came down and they were lovely. Two couples, both from one of the cruise ships (but they just met on this trip), one couple from Perth and the other couple from Minnesota. We spent about an hour (or more?) hanging out and talking boat stuff and Alaska stuff. So much fun!

We said goodbye to our new friends and then headed out for Foggy Bay (with a stop at the fuel dock first to re-up on diesel, gas (dinghy), and propane. We left the fuel dock around 3pm, which meant we wouldn't be to Foggy Bay until right about sunset (7:30pm). The water was calm and the weather was still gorgeous, so no matter.

Well, except for all the LOGS in the water.

Beautiful calm cruise to Foggy Bay:

Sunset as we arrived at Foggy Bay and anchored:

View from last night's anchorage:

The sky was clear and there was a pretty good chance we might get a little show from the Aurora last night, so after dinner we headed outside and yep! There they were!! They started slow and set new records in our brief, Aurora-viewing history. All you folks who have solid ground and tripods can probably get much better photos, but hey, these aren't bad for "handheld on top of rocking boat" are they?

Such a good show on our last night in Alaska (this summer)!

Here's our route from Ketchikan to Foggy Bay (about 35 nautical miles):

Sunset in Ketchikan

Laura Domela — Thu, 03 Sep 2015 12:45:25 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

That is straight outta the camera, no filters whatsoever. Incredible, isn't it? I couldn't make this sunset look real in Photoshop no matter how hard I tried. It was spectacular. Sure glad those cruise ships left!

This is our view (same direction) this morning:

The cruise ship spot on the left (other side of that structure) doesn't have today's cruise ship in it yet, but it wouldn't be much different than a wall of fog even it was there. (There are four ships scheduled in port today. Four!)

Here are a few supporting photos for last night's sunset:

Today we're heading to Foggy Bay (an overnight stop before going the rest of the way to Prince Rupert tomorrow).Foggy Bay is 30ish miles from Ketchikan, and Prince Rupert is another 50 or so from Foggy Bay. We did the trip in one long day on the way up, but it'll be nice to break it up this time.

The forecast for Dixon Entrance (today and tomorrow) is for 1 meter seas, and winds (varying directions) from 5 t0 15 kts. Sounds like a great weather window. Now if this fog will just burn off so we can better see all those dang logs in the water!

Day 17 – Lowe Inlet to Prince Rupert

Laura Domela — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 02:22:30 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska – Day 17

Today was a 60 mile day form Lowe Inlet to Prince Rupert. We left Lowe Inlet at 7:30am and the cruise was pretty chill. No dolphins or humpbacks, but we did see a couple of deer attempting to swim across the Grenville Channel.

It's a pretty wide channel and we were all uncertain whether they'd make it (or why they were heading out in the first place). Perhaps they were running from something (bears)?

Cool rock textures:

We arrived in Prince Rupert at 3pm today. It's quite a change from where we've been the past couple weeks. Cranes! Giant ships! Trucks!

On either side of this tug, there were places that said "Tug" with an arrow. Looks like he missed:

We're at the Prince Rupert Rowing & Yacht Club for the night:

We finally had some good internet and cell service, so we did a TON of work in a short period of time, and I was able to post the past four days of posts that I'd written offline. At 6:15pm we all headed up to the Waterfront Restaurant at the Crest Hotel for a nice dinner. This was the view from our table:

Kevin and I shared a beef carpaccio starter, a caesar salad, Haida Gwai halibut and a BC salmon entree, and all was delicious.

We're hitting the sack early tonight (10:30pm!) because the plan is to depart Price Rupert at 4:30am tomorrow and go all the way to Ketchikan (80 nautical miles) rather than stopping after 50 miles to anchor in Foggy Bay for the night (with permission from U.S. Customs), because the weather looks good for tomorrow, but by the next day a front should be moving in that could make our crossing not as pleasant. Although I'm sure Foggy Bay is lovely, no one really wants to hang out there for three days waiting for weather to clear again, so we voted to go go go!

We'll listen to the 4am weather and make the final decision in the morning, but probably we'll see you next in Ketchikan, Alaska! Wish us luck!

Here's our track from today (60 nautical miles, about 8 hours):