Icy Strait – Riveted

Look! Snowy Mountaintops!

Laura Domela — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 19:58:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

I took a few photos yesterday before (well, and after) all the drama. It was sunny and clear and we got quite a different view of the scenery than we did on our way out of Juneau last week as we headed to Hoonah, Elfin Cove, and Pelican (when it was socked in and rainy).

Leaving Flynn Cove yesterday morning, looking west down Icy Strait:

Lynn Canal, looking toward Juneau (before the seas kicked up):

Rounding Point Retreat (from Lynn Canal into Saginaw Channel):

After we rounded the point (before the drama), another boat (a Grand Banks called "Safari") who had been traveling the same route radioed and asked how we'd liked the ride out in Lynn. Heh. We both felt about the same: glad to be out of it. Here's Safari with some nice scenery in Saginaw Channel, also headed to Juneau:

Mendenhall Glacier:

We passed a tug in Stephens Passage towing a barge with a bunch of containers on it, and also, this little scenic railroad train car, probably heading up to Skagway.

We binoc'd it and there is no name or writing on the side, but I'm certain it's a new car for the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad. Kind of cool to think about riding that railroad from Skagway in a train car that arrived by boat.

Today the weather is (again!) sunny, mostly clear, gorgeous, and warm.

We're working with the local Nordic Tug dealer this afternoon in Juneau (and a fantastic guy he connected us up with) on our boat issues from yesterday. We'll update you after haul out (which is at high tide, in about an hour and a half)!

Excitement at Sea!

Laura Domela — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 00:50:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

Excitement at sea today! We were cruising from Icy Strait through Southern Lynn Canal toward Juneau, Alaska.

The seas in Lynn Canal were much heavier than forecast – seas 5-7 feet! (forecast was 3 feet for Southern Lynn Canal, 5 feet for Northern Lynn Canal…so, you know, trickle down happens, and then builds). We were headed right into it, and it was a pretty rough ride (but still kinda fun).

We'd brought the engine up to 65% power for about three hours as we crashed through the waves. (We normally cruise at less than 30% power.) The boat handled it like a champ (and we’d been in worse conditions before).

Watch this video, and then just picture that for three solid hours:

We turned the corner around Point Retreat into Saginaw Channel. The waves were still big, but at least we were going with them. In a following sea, it seems (and sounds) much calmer, but the waves are the same size and they just push you around a bit. It's way more squirrely. They boat will suddenly turn left or right as you surf down one wave, then the bow buries as you start up the next one. It's all about timing and picking the right boat speed for the seas. (Note: this will be important later.)

About 5 minutes after we made our practically 180 degree turn at Point Retreat, we both smelled SMOKE. On a boat, smoke is not good. At all. Our first instinct was that it smelled electrical, so we shut down all nonessential electrical busses and went around the boat sniffing. Engine room check – nothing, galley check- nothing, head check- nothing, stateroom check- nothing, lazarette check (where the auto-pilot gear is) – nothing. Oh, and all this while still dealing with frantic 5 foot following waves.

Finally, we opened the hatch where the drive shaft goes through the transom to the prop. Bingo! A bit of smoke! (and some noise and vibration…)

We throttled back to idle and the drive shaft was still making noises and there were a couple of shuddering vibrations. The bearing enclosure was hot and wisps of smoke were coming off of it. We immediately put the boat in neutral while we checked the water cooling on the bearing…water coming in, so working fine. We tried reverse, some vibration. Back to neutral, then forward again. The vibration was not happening anymore, and after a few minutes of cooling down at idle and then slow speeds forward (while we went up and down, and up and down, and sideways and up and down some more), we were able to make slow cruising speed with no more smoke and no more vibrations.

We still had 3 more hours to go to get to Juneau (the closest port), so we kept the hatch open and checked the seal every few minutes for any signs of heating. All was good for the rest of our slow cruise to Juneau.

We contacted Nordic Tug factory customer service to ask for some guidance. We sent them a long email with a detailed description of the problem. They sent us back an email that didn’t answer any of our questions, suggested maybe we'd "hit something" (we didn't hit anything), and then suggested things to troubleshoot that didn't really match the issue we were pretty sure we were having. To be fair, it was nearing 5 o'clock (5 til, in fact, PST), and perhaps they didn't have time to read our email completely. They said to have our marina check it out. We pointed out that we were about a month from our home marina and didn’t know a marina with repair facilities in Juneau. They sent us back a Bing results listing for “boat repair juneau alaska”

Ummm… Bing? Someone uses Bing?

And, honestly, we were hoping for a bit more from factory support than the equivalent of “Let me Google that for you”.

One of the results in the Bing “boat repair…” list was Wingnut Auto Salon, which is apparently an auto detailing service (nice to have good ‘ol Bing there to pick up where Nordic Tug support left off). Wingnut Auto Salon had one review on Google (one star) which began “I paid over $270 for a detail and they didn’t clean under my seats. My car mats were not in the car when it was returned to me…”

Think we should see if Wingnut will take a look at our PYI PSS dripless shaft seal?

Looks like we’ll be doing some mechanical work and diagnosis here in Juneau before we continue our long journey back south toward home. Even though things seem fine now at “normal” cruising speeds, we’d rather not start a one-month trip through remote waters with a shaft bearing that might or might not be okay and may or may not give us the option to "haul ass" across areas like Dixon Entrance or Queen Charlotte when we need to.

And here's today's map (70.3 nautical miles):

And so now, at Harris Harbor in Juneau, we are having a cocktail, and some caviar that we made from the eggs of salmon that we caught. Because….balance.

Alaska Has No Clue How to Edit

Laura Domela — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 03:50:47 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

One of the most important things I learned in art school was how to edit. So many students try to cram every idea they have and every technique they know into each piece they make, and one of the biggest challenges for professors is to get students to see that “less is more” and that too much stuff can overwhelm the audience. There’s an elegance in the simplicity of a piece of art that’s been pared down to its bare essence. Some of the most difficult things to design are the pieces that seem the most minimal, and most artists and designers struggle with this throughout their careers.

ALASKA TOTALLY DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO EDIT!

We woke up this Sunday morning in Flynn Cove with eagles flying overhead, otters swimming nearby, and salmon jumping out of the water all around the boat. While I was making breakfast (salmon cakes using the Coho we’d caught on our way into Flynn Cove last night, topped with an over easy egg and hollandaise sauce) Kevin grabbed the crappy little telescoping fishing rod that we used to throw in the kayak bag, and put a spoon on it and went out and reeled in a 5 pound pink salmon. Before breakfast. How ’bout that?

While we were heading out of the cove (past the humpback whale near the shore), we hooked another big Coho.

After a bit more trolling for salmon, we dropped the anchor in 120 feet of water to fish for halibut in a spot not too far from Flynn Cove (where we planned to spend another night). While that was going on and we were sipping a beer on the upper deck, across Icy Strait from the entrance to Glacier Bay National Park, two humpbacks were basically circling our boat, grazing at the surface the entire time we were fishing.

We came back into Flynn Cove to anchor for the evening and to cook up some fish tacos for dinner with the rockfish and salmon we caught today… (oh, did I forget to mention the rockfish? we also caught rockfish) …anyway, while we were heating the tortillas on the grill, some harbor porpoises came into the cove and swam around our boat for 45 minutes or so (of course, because, you know, that whole editing issue).

One of the many salmon jumping around the cove:

We ate our fish tacos (delicious) and then noticed that the sky was turning a beautiful blend of pastel pinks and blues, so we went out on the bow to watch the sunset.

Pretty, isn’t it? But no, Alaska can’t stop at a beautiful sunset, a tiny wooded island in the foreground, and the mountains of Glacier Bay behind. Alaska needs to add some humpbacks, tail- and fin-slapping, right there along with the F you sunset:

(You can click to see these two a little bigger if you want.)

(The only way I even got these shots is because I was ALREADY looking through my lens taking photos of the sunset.)

Here are the rest of the photos. I don’t even know what to say about them. “Ooooooh. Aaaaaaah. So pretty. Sunset. Barf. Whatever.”

And there’s no audio with these photos, but I’ll also tell you that there were wolves howling occasionally as we sat there on the bow of the boat, wondering where the hell we were where this was normal.

Oh, and then the moon rose, and I went up to the pilot house of the rocking boat with my zoom lens and managed to get this shot:

Let’s do this again tomorrow, Alaska!

Hoonah, Elfin Cove, and Bubble Net Feeding Humpbacks

Laura Domela — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 21:26:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

Before we left Hoonah this morning, we went up to Chipper Fish and had breakfast. A local recommended it to us, and specifically, she recommended that we try the “Right On” which was biscuits, covered with mega tots (tater tots kicked up with bacon and green onion), covered with sausage gravy, and topped with a fried egg. We ordered half an order to split, and it was STILL too much. But it was darn good. (One-quarter serving shown in photo below.)

Our cappuccinos came with a nice message, too:

We got back to Airship and waved goodbye to Hoonah (and the internet sucking cruise ship anchored out by the cannery. Seriously, each morning we had great internet until the cruise ship came in, then basically no internet again until the cruise ship left.)

The seas in Icy Strait were relatively smooth and we were cruising along happily when we heard someone talking on the radio about humpbacks bubble net feeding at Pt. Adolphus. We were not far from Pt. Adolphus and could see boats over there, so I upped our RPM to 3200 and we headed for the point. I watched with the binocs and could see the action from afar…super exciting!! Bubble net feeding is something we were really hoping to see while we were up here, and today we spent about two hours watching it.

Bubble net feeding is a cooperative way of feeding where the whales dive down and form a circle, exhaling to create a cylinder of bubbles to trap the fish. The whales then rise up through the circle of bubbles with their mouths wide open catching thousands of fish on the way up, emerging at the surface like a bunch of gigantic baby birds. It’s dramatic and incredible to watch! Here are some photos:

We spent two hours hanging out near Pt. Adolphus with a few other boats coming and going, and then eventually headed on our way toward Elfin Cove. Once while I was sitting out on the bow with my camera, we were just drifting and waiting for the next group of mouths to pop up somewhere, and a humpback came very close to the boat as I watched it pass by. Kevin leaned out and said something like “So, there’s a whale 10 feet from the boat and doesn’t even rate a photo anymore??” Ooops.

This boat got a good view of this one:

We saw quite a few porpoises today, too. Also, otters:

Kevin put a couple lines in the water and fished for about an hour but didn’t catch anything, but we did come upon another feeding humpback (just one this time):

It was off and on cloudy, sunny, rainy today, and made for some beautiful skies:

As we got closer to North Inian Pass at the Inian Islands, we started getting some smooth ocean swells coming in from the Gulf and Cross Sound. We went through Middle Pass and Mosquito Pass…super scenic! And tons of sea lions on ALL of the rocks:

We heard the small cruise ship Wilderness Explorer telling the AK State Ferry that was heading west through South Inian Pass that there was a pod of orcas near Dad Rock, and we happened to be really close to Dad Rock, so guess what? We finally saw Orcas in Alaska:

The passengers on the ferry got a good view as well:

Near South Inian Pass:

Arriving in Elfin Cove:

The outer public float at Elfin Cove was filled (and boats were rafted three deep…there were maybe only 9 boats…it’s a small float) so we headed into the inner harbor to try our luck. To get to the inner harbor, you go through a narrow, shallow channel. You can kinda see the corner of it here…heading around the boardwalk and then turning to the left.

This is the far end of the inner harbor (where apparently the locals don’t like you to anchor unless the docks are completely full, and really not even then):

We found a spot on one of the floats and asked the local guys working on the boat behind us if it was okay for us to tie up there (they said it was). I’m pretty sure the inner harbor is a “locals only” operation most of the time. I read one review on Active Captain from a cruiser who said they came from Hoonah to Elfin Cove and there was no room for them, so they made the 5 hour trek back to Hoonah.

It’s a little hard to navigate where to go in Elfin Cove because the harbor (in the summer) is super busy with fishing boats and locals and there’s no harbormaster to tell you what you can and can’t do, and there are no signs. But all was cool. We walked up to wander around the boardwalk village and ended up grabbing a beer and some pizza at the only restaurant in town (Coho Bar & Grill). The whole village is connected by boardwalks heading every which way, so we explored a bit more after dinner.

Arriving in Elfin Cove feels like being dropped into a place that was never meant for you. It’s adorable and quirky, but really feels like it exists in a little bubble. The people we’ve run into are nice but a little distant…not at all like that “please, spend money here, we need it” feeling you get in the more tourist-welcoming towns. (They do have a gift shop though, and it’s open until 9pm, so there’s that bit of contradiction.)

Looking toward the inner harbor floats from the boardwalk:

Photos from around ‘town” (which has about 50 residents in the winter):

Not much data or cell service inside the cove here, so we’ll probably do the online part of our work on the way to Pelican tomorrow.