Cordova - Lay Day

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Today is scheduled to be a lay day in Cordova. We slept in until 7 and we both sat around in our jammies until 10. We helped Telita cast off from our port side at their announced time of 9am. They are off to go explore, and we’ll catch up to them tomorrow at Beartrap Bay. Watching Telita leave was fun, as the fishing fleet was filling up the fairways, and it was hard for them to find a gap to squeeze into!

Kathy from Telita tends to the lines after casting off from OceanFlyer

Telita gets a head start on the fleet

Around noon our stomachs managed to get us moving up to the Baja Taco. It’s a bus that Karen had read all about – funky but good.  Like all things in Cordova, it is humble in appearance but does serve a good fish taco. We sat for an hour after our lunch and used their free WiFi. This is our last opportunity for about three weeks to have any internet access.

While we were at Baja Taco, a front moved through with gusts up to 30+ knots. Notwithstanding the wind and rain, we walked up to town and spent about three hours waking around. We hit LFS for a Racor Fuel filter, visited the post office to mail a postcard home,  checked out the local sporting goods shop that looked like a Quonset Hut  for a halibut lure, went to Nichols grocery store for odds and ends, as well as True Value Hardware and a few other little shops along the way. I rewarded myself with a soft serve ice cream cone from the convenience store in town.

Baja Taco and internet access

If you make it to Cordova, stop in for some Alaska charm

Karen finds a Cordova slug 

Our big entertainment was watching the fishing fleet come in. The harbor is host to over three hundred “bow pickers”. A purpose-built design that features a shallow draft to be able to go up the nearby rivers in search of salmon. The name comes from the fact that the net is launched and retrieved over the bow. Karen called it the “Bow Picker Ballet”, as they came and went at warp speed, yet never hitting anything no matter how close a call it looked like from our vantage point. As the day progressed, we had 3 bow pickers rafted behind us and 4 rafted just in front of us. The harbormaster’s desire to leave some empty space on “G” dock now made sense!

The ubitiquitios bow picker

Bow picker out of the water shows the very shallow draft

Bow picker out of the water shows the very shallow draft

The "Old Harbor" is where the bow pickers berth

A reminder how much Mother Nature influences life in Alaska

The Old Harbor, bow pickers as far as the eye can see

From our spot on “G” dock,  we could also see the large “receiver” boats come into Trident Seafood’s dock to have their holds of salmon vacuumed out of the boat and into the plant. These boats receive the catch of the bow pickers during the openings, and then transport the large accumulated catch to harbor while the bow pickers return to fishing. They are big, long and fun to watch as they maneuver into tight spaces with aplomb.

Now every time I see the Trident Seafood logo on the salmon patties we buy at Costco, I picture this amazing operation.

A little social hour is scheduled at five today on Deception to welcome the wives of the crew on Patos and chat about tomorrow’s plans. Dinner will be freshly caught Copper River Salmon – Yum!

Icy Bay to Cordova

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220 miles, 24 hours  non-stop…the trip length, complete with an overnighter, is a first for us and a first for NWExplorations' Mother Goose.

We were off at 8am. The anchor chain was the worst we’d ever seen, coated with what looked like gray cement, courtesy of the nearby glacier. Even Brian said it was the worst he’d ever seen. It took Karen quite a while to get the chain cleaned and stowed…and she was covered with grey goop. Luckily, I appeased her with pancakes for breakfast and all was well.

The weather was perfect and sunny, winds were less than 10 knots from the east and southeast, with seas less than 2 feet on the quartering stern.

Orca parallels our course

With just Karen and I onboard, we decided to try a four hour on, four hour off watch schedule. With such benign conditions, four hours at the helm was no problem. And the four hours off gave you the opportunity to read, wind down or actually get some sleep. We drove for quite a while from the flybridge, it was so calm with such an amazing vista. Dinner was chili and cornbread, which was easy and filling.

Sunset in the Gulf of Alaska

For the night portion of our journey, Karen set the schedule so that I stood watch on for the 11pm to 3am period. She did not want to take the “dark” watch.  I smilingly informed her at 3am, when she came to relieve me and asked if the night transit was scary, that it never really got dark this time of the year at these latitudes.

One of the unusual aspects of the trip is that most of it was comprised of a westerly heading. You think that you “go north” to Alaska, but Alaska actually arches over to the west, so our crossing of the Gulf of Alaska was actually due west.

In terms of scenery, snow-covered mountains were off in the distance.  Kayak Island was stark and eerie, jutting out of the water like something from a science fiction movie. We saw no traffic, except for a fishing boat or two as we neared Hinchinbrook Entrance.

"Deception" approaching Kayak Island

Looking back on Kayak Island

Our approach to Cordova was into the rising sun. Luckily for me, Karen was at the helm so she had to deal with the navigational challenge.

Sunrise is welcomed after an all night passage

Early morning passage through Hinchinbrook Entrance

Alaska high-speed ferry Chenga coming out of Cordova

Our first stop in Cordova was the fuel dock. Like most facilities in this part of Alaska, it is not a floating dock. At 6:30am, Deception and Telita tied up on opposite sides of the dock and OceanFlyer and Patos rafted to them. Four diesel hoses came down to us, and we all took on a little less than 250 gallons each when we were done. Good thing, because the local fishing boats started lining up to get fuel, wondering who these pleasure boaters were that were hogging their access.

Cordova Harbor, guest dock on the starboard side

Cordova is a very nice and large fishing port. It features wide fairways and large slips. The harbor master had us raft up along “G” (guest) dock, even though there are many open slips. Seems the fishing fleet of 350 boats is due in tomorrow, so he is leaving plenty of room for their arrival.

It’s still early in the morning, so after securing the boats, we walked up town for breakfast with the crew of Telita. The Killer Whale Café is a local favorite, and while the food was good, the service is very slow. The back of the menu warns of this, but it took over an hour for the six of us to get our breakfast. If we were not so happy to be sitting on land, rocking as we were from the effect of more than 3 days at sea (especially Karen), there might have been a revolt. But wait we did and we all inhaled our breakfast. It was good.

Breakfast in Cordova

You gotta go to Copper River Fleece

"Downtown" Cordova

Our first stop after breakfast was to visit Copper River Fleece. Karen had read all about this place and it was on her “must see” list. Their unique service is that they customize their products with a wide range of unique embroidered tape. I picked out a plain black weatherproof jacket and then picked out my pattern, the location where I wanted the adornment added and even had them shorten the sleeves a bit. Two hours later it was ready. A custom jacket all my own to remember Cordova by. We also enjoyed a trip to the local library to see a small but very interesting museum with lots of information on the effects to this day of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

View of the Cordova harbor from the town

There are a couple of great grocery stores in town. The most convenient is the AC Value Center at the head of the docks, but the Camtu (box store) was good too. I made a trip to Redden Marine Supplies just behind the grocery store, for some fuel filters and we checked out the recommended pizza place, Harborview Pizza. It’s a humble looking shack, but it has a wood fire oven and best of all, they deliver directly to your boat. We picked up a menu and pizza became the plan for dinner.

The "pleasure yachts" stand out in the working harbor of Cordova

Although we are traveling with our friends on Telita, we have not seen much of the crew since we were always at sea. So we took this time in Cordova to sit on the rear covered deck of Telita and catch up, enjoying our libations, eventually ordering pizza and then moving inside as the temperatures cooled. We stumbled home to bed about 9pm, ready for a good night’s sleep.


Lituya Bay To Yakutat

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The days are getting longer. Yakutat lies 100 nautical miles from our anchorage in Lituya Bay. Our course is simple. Exit Lituya Bay, turn right and turn right again into Yakutat Bay.

Before we could clear the entrance to Lituya bay, Patos called Deception to report that one of the shafts was making a screaming noise. We all came to a stop inside the bay as Deception came along side Patos to take a look.

We started speculating the source, narrowing it down to either the shaft seal or, heaven forbid, a cutlass bearing. The crew from Deception isolated it to the shaft seal and the decision was made to secure the shaft to prevent it from turning and continue on using one engine while they researched possible solutions.

As a result, we and Telita continued on at our normal 9 knots, and Deception matched the slower speed of Patos. The exit out of Lituya was with about a 1.6kt flood, and it was a bit swelly. It was a very “traffic free” day. We only passed a Uniflite-styled vessel and a small fishing vessel, both headed south.

The skies were cloudy and the seas were about as good as you can hope for with swells ranging from 1 to 3 feet.

Nice ride on the way to Yakutat

The Fairweather mountain range hid behind the cloud deck for most of our trip. Winds remained below 10 knots but rain showers were our constant companion. According to Wikipedia the Fairweather Mountain was named on May 3, 1778 by Captain James Cook, apparently for the unusually good weather encountered at the time. It is one of the world's highest coastal mountains at 15,325 feet. It is located 12 miles east of the Pacific Ocean on the border of Alaska, and western British Columbia.

About an hour out of Yakutat, the skies finally lifted and the Fairweathers revealed themselves in all their glory. Truly amazing to see snow covered mountains from horizon to horizon.

Yakutat is a fuel stop for the fleet. All but Patos could make it to Cordova without adding fuel, but NW Explorations arranged for a fuel truck to meet us so we could all top off and have lots of safety fuel aboard.

We found the truck waiting atop a fixed high dock. Not our favorite when compared to a floating dock but we’ve done it before and it is more common than not around here.

Telita fueled first and then came our turn. As we approached we could see that there were large monster tires mounted as protection from the vertical pilings. We did not appreciate just how high these were mounted.

We were as well fendered as we could be, but fenders were basically useless. The tires barely came to the top of our stainless handrail. So, on our approach,  we touched one of these tires and our momentum against the tire seriously bent the handrail. Karen was totally devastated. After we set a stern and bow line to the pilings, we were held off the tires by the prevailing wind. If the wind was on the dock I doubt we could have made it work at all until we gained six feet more tide. We later learned that Deception also bent their railing during the fueling process. To add insult to injury, the fuel guys in Yakutat charged 1.25 more per gallon than the “going rate” in most of Central Alaska. AND they charged a “callout fee” to deliver the fuel to the dock. It does not stop there. While there was a floating dock that connected to the end of the high pier, the operator said he did not want to drag the heavy hose all the way down there. I would love to send him all the repair bills his laziness caused.

Not certain what this is, but they had one at the docks in Yakutat. Beautiful aluminium construction. I'm guessing some sort of oil mitigation emergency response barge.

We docked easily at the small boat harbor, which was nice and even had 30amp power. It was too far a walk to town for dinner, given how tired we were after an eleven hour trip and the fueling fiasco. So we broke out the frozen pizza which we have on standby for just these occasions. By 9:15 we were in bed, after all we have 70 miles to go tomorrow to Icy Bay.

The weather looks like it's going to be great as we settle in for the night on the docks.

Elfin Cove to Lituya Bay

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Another 55 nautical miles and we’ll be in Lituya Bay today.

These long trips make for boring blog entries. That is good, because it means we have not had any issues or problems worth noting. Except for rounding Cape Spencer, the seas were kind to us.

Deception makes her way into the seas rounding Cape Spencer.

Rounding Cape Spencer

Deception had decided to brave a bit of gnarly seas in that area to get us to Lituya Bay at the right time to safely enter and still have time to enjoy exploring this rarely visited Bay. To put it in perspective, the Bay is about 125 nautical miles to the north of Sitka.  

Sea Caves populate the west coast as a tribute to the power of seawater erosion.

The Fairweather Mountain Range in all its glory.

In addition to the out-of-the-way location, the Bay has a deadly history that often keeps pleasure boats away. The entry “bar” has taken its toll on a wide range of boats and people over the years.  The potential of an ebb tide from the Bay developing standing waves as the ocean meets the shallow water can be epic. We planned for a high slack tide entrance, as per the Coast Pilot (“no stranger should attempt to enter except at slack water.”) Add to this, the entrance is small (150’ wide at maximum navigable water), rocky and visually not self-evident. Thankfully, to help the mariner, there is a range for the entrance.

The range for the entrance to Lituya Bay shows the challenge. NOT FOR NAVIGATION

The fleet spread itself among three anchorages in Lituya Bay.

The fleet spread itself among three anchorages in Lituya Bay.

The ranges were easy to see starting five miles out.

With the weather clear and the sun at our backs, we could visually pick up the range as soon as we turned on our inbound heading, five miles out. We were getting set to the south, but the range made this obvious and aided in making the needed correction.

The sea was following, so we surfed into Lituya Bay. We breathed a sigh of relief to have made it past La Chaussee spit. Karen had done a lot of research on Lituya Bay, and we knew once we made it through the entrance, all would be well (barring any tsunamis or earthquakes!)  It is part of Glacier Bay National Park, but does not require permits. The Bay is very large and seems to support its own weather system.

We headed towards Centotaph Island, thinking of the anchorage behind the island that might allow for fun exploring later in the day. To our surprise, clouds and rain greeted us. However, to the west of the island, it was still clear. Others in the fleet headed toward the glaciers in the rain. We decided to turn around and bask in the sun. We picked a spot on the south east shore, called “the Paps”, and while a constant breeze tugged at our anchor, the sun never stopped shining down on us. We spent a lazy afternoon relaxing, interspersed with installing a depth sounder on our dinghy and looking for elusive halibut. We were later visited by Brian and Rich in Deception’s dinghy. They couldn't believe the weather difference between their location and ours.

Brian, at the helm, and Rich on a mission.

The most interesting feature of Lituya Bay is the scarring of the tree line from the 1958 Tsunami. The wave was 1720 feet tall, the highest in recorded history. If you are a student of the marine environment and geology there is a wealth of information on the internet about this amazing event.

Klag Bay to Elfin Cove

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Today our destination is Elfin Cove, 55 miles from Klag Bay. The wind was cooperative, generally remaining less than 15 knots, and the skies were sunny and bright.

We weaved our way inside as much as possible because when we did have to go out into the ocean, the waves were 8-footers with a short period,  producing what I call “hard chop”. Not dangerous, just annoying.

A little bit of follow the leader as we sneak inside.

Nice ride and beautiful scenery up Lisianski Straight.

Elfin Cove is unique and charming and certainly worth the stop. But there is not much dock space in the outer harbor, and it is always busy. Deception went in first to reconnoiter the berthing situation. There was a cargo barge working adjacent to the dock, loading all kinds of refuse from Elfin Cove residents. There were fish-boats galore. Patos, Telita and OceanFlyer hovered outside for an hour in swells while Brian and Rich negotiated with the fishermen to move boats around and make some room for the “fleet”. Everyone was great. In the end, Patos rafted to Deception and Telita rafted to OceanFlyer, and several fishing boats were rafted together in front of us.

The docks at Elfin Cove.

There was a mad dash to the little grocery store thinking that, being Sunday, the shop would close soon. The store was just as we remembered, perhaps with the stock down a bit. After we made our stop at the store, purchasing what turned out later to be stale lemon cookies, we walked the boardwalk to see what has changed and what has stayed the same. The inner harbor was packed and quite active.

The inner harbor at Elfin Cove.

We were disappointed to find that the fish smoker had retired. Our hope was for some fresh-smoked salmon to add to our larder, but we were skunked.

The Elfin Cove Lodge and adjacent Coho Bar and Grill has been rebuilt since our last visit in 2010 when it was still smoldering from a devastating fire.  We were in the mood to relax on our boat rather than eat out (or drink out), although most of the fleet found their way at one time or another to the Coho Bar!

A little Elfin Cove humor. A lot of the "uphill" residences have a cart track alongside the stairs for getting groceries home.

A couple of Alaskan Amber beers onboard OceanFlyer were our reward for a long day of cruising. We had a peaceful night…and unlike our last trip in 2010, no naked men knocked on the hull at 2am!