Takatz Bay, Kake, Rocky Pass

Laura Domela — Tue, 16 Aug 2016 00:37:40 +0000

The weather was supposed to be not bad in Chatham, so we poked our head out and things looked pretty calm. Foggy, but calm.

The forecast was for 15 knot winds and 3 foot seas, but it wasn’t even that. Until we got about mid channel, and then the wind picked up considerably. I think we saw 24 knots. The waves were on our bow and about 3-4 feet but not too bad. As we neared Point Gardener at the bottom of Admiralty Island we opted to go for the rougher water and cross over there rather than stay out longer in Chatham, because sooner or later we’d need to turn east, and the later we did that, the more on our beam these 3-4 (5?) foot waves would be. Having abeam seas sucks quite a bit. The boat rolls side to side and stuff you forgot to put away falls on the floor. So instead, we had about 45 minutes (felt like WAY longer) of pretty steep 5ish foot waves on our bow. Crash, crash, blam, blam. Kevin took some video while I was working through the worst part of it (I know, nice bedhead, hush.)

Ahhhh, nice and calm here in Frederick Sound, finally:

We saw a few humpbacks in Keku Strait, on our way into Kake:

We got to Kake and headed for the harbor where we could get some water, some calm, and walk to the market to get more eggs and few other things. Some photos from our walk to the store:

And sunset from the back of Airship:

In the morning we got a little bit of fuel in Kake (just enough to make sure we had plenty to get to Wrangell, since it’s about a dollar more per gallon in Kake) and then headed for Rocky Pass. We haven’t done Rocky Pass before, and are looking forward to it! Most of it isn’t a big deal…we’re timing it to get to the “Summit” just before high slack tide. The shallowest, trickiest parts are The Summit and Devil’s Elbow (a super kelpy, narrow, shallow turn to port that also happens to be missing three of its navigational aids at the moment). We had some time to kill so we hung out and drifted with some halibut lines in the water out near Pup Island, but all we caught was this shark (a spiny dogfish). We put him back:

Here are a couple of photos from Rocky Pass (more like “Kelpy Pass”…so much kelp!!):

After we were through Rocky Pass but not quite yet into Sumner Strait, I noticed some splashing up ahead. Turned out to be a humpback doing a whole lot of tail slapping (and then some fin slapping). We detoured slightly to watch the fun:

Awwww, humpback floating on his back with fins up….so cute.

We saw several more humpbacks as we entered Sumner Strait, but this lively one was the only one we photographed.

Next stop: Totem Bay!

Takatz Bay

Laura Domela — Mon, 15 Aug 2016 22:34:34 +0000

Takatz Bay is beautiful! (And we were here for three days, so there will be a whole lot of photos!)

We anchored near the waterfall on the south west side of the anchorage and as soon as we were set, we took the dinghy out exploring. The water is icy blue in here (glacier melt).

It was nearing high tide, so we were able to go really far up the head of the bay and almost to where the roaring salmon stream enters the bay. There are a ton of salmon in here (including a bunch of dead/spawned out ones), and the birds are having a constant feast along the shoreline. We have seen not one bear, which is kind of weird. Maybe they’re stuffed full of salmon and sleeping it off somewhere.

We had one more crab in our crab trap the morning we left Half Tide Neck, so the first night in Takatz we had fresh crab, grilled corn on the cob, and caesar salad for dinner. The forecast for Chatham (and Frederick) wasn’t great for Saturday and Sunday, so we planned to stay in Takatz Bay here where we have internet and a nice protected spot for the weekend. We’re just getting a ton of work done (while it’s raining and raining and raining). Rain, work, glacier blue water, super pretty…just really wet. The clouds cleared a tiny bit yesterday morning and I noticed a giant granite cliff we hadn’t been able to see until then…with two giant waterfalls cascading down the face of it. Sweet!

There are so many eagles in here. These two juveniles were hanging out on the little island next to our anchorage:

This guy has gotten a lot of his white head and tail feathers:

Even though the weather was crappy and we mostly just worked from the boat for three days, we got out and explored several times by dinghy…saw lots of spawning salmon, eagles, kingfishers, seagulls, and other water birds, but no bears. The couple on another boat anchored in here our last night said that four or so days before when they were here they did see one bear up on shore eating fish. We’ve not seen that bear.

The day before we left, we were out in our dinghy and we noticed a fast, metal, official looking boat zoom straight over to our boat (we’d just finished talking to the other folks anchored in here and were heading up toward the head of the bay, but these guys looked like they were AT our boat, so we headed over there). They noticed us in the dinghy and redirected our way. They asked us if we were out fishing, and we said no, we were just cruising around…and…you know what? This really should be a post of its own. So hang tight for the whole story in another post.

The fog started the clear and blue sky was showing through when we left Takatz Bay on Monday morning.

Hey look! the mountains have tops!

Takatz Bay – Riveted

Takatz Bay, Kake, Rocky Pass

Takatz Bay