Wrangell to Petersburg

Looking up Frederick Sound - all shallow water from the river!

6/18/11

This is a short one because I only stopped in one spot before I got here. 

I’m now at Petersburg, which is a nice little fishing town.  I like it better than Wrangell, although Wrangell probably has more convenient stuff.  At least here, the harbor masters office is open 24/7, where the Wrangell’s office was open…sometimes.  But at least Wrangell had better showers…ha ha…the funniest and dumb things make a place better or worse…go figure.

Clear weather - fine sunsets! St. John Harbo

At least Petersburg has a nice coffee shop where I can send e-mails and write this blog.

Hey!  Butt out! This is MY place!

We left Wrangell – only 2 days ago, going directly west on Stekine Strait, where the great Stikine River dumps a load of soil from Canada creating a very silty and shallow area north of Wrangel, creating what is called the Dry Strait – only a few boats "in-the-know" can get through there and only at high tide.  I chose to ignore that and go west, but I had to do some careful navigation through very silty and green water with a ton of logs, trees, deadheads and other debris.  We stopped at St. John Harbor, on Zarembo Island and anchored close to the shore.

St. John Harbor is really a carving in the island surrounded by small islands.  It happened to be one of the few warm and sunny days that I’ve seen in Alaska so far, and I took advantage by taking the kayak for a spin and circumnavigating the area, seeing various seals, eagles, and, of course, lots of crows.  Not a breath of wind was there the whole time.  There was only one other yacht there.  It was very peaceful and quiet, except for the occasional noise of boats passing by.

Looking out St John to the entrance of Wrangell Narrows

Petersburg

My next stop was Petersburg, but to get there, I had to worm my way up through Wrangell Narrows, a thin channel that is notoriously crowded and can create some vicious currents going against you if you don’t time it right.  I left at a little earlier than scheduled, 10am, from St. John Harbor only going about 5 knots across the Stikine Strait to Wrangell Narrows.  Once I was there, I slowed the boat down even more, even though my ground speed was going at 7, later 8, and then later 9 knots.  Wow!  There is some point where the flood reaches a half-way point in the narrows, and then the current will go against you.  I came close to the half-way point, then dropped anchor at a cut-away called Half Moon Cove, and lazed away about 3 hours, watching the traffic go buy.  Very interesting.  When it was high tide, and the current was going to ebb, I upped anchor and proceeded on.  In that way, I saved a lot of fuel.

OK, Bill (Mr. Answer Man...), what are those things? 

Petersburg had a friendly, folksy harbormaster instructing me where to dock.  The town is funky, but it’s not touristy, being very oriented to fishing boats, of which there is a lot. The boats range from big offshore beauties to scroungy, never-used tiny boats.  One boat has fungus growing so much, that there is actually soil on it and it's growing weeds and grass. It would be possible to plant a seed there and grow a tree, if the roots could somehow dig into the fiberglass.  The bottom of the boat has yards of growth on the bottom. Despite the general funky-ness, Petersburg is still pretty, with big mountains surrounding it from afar.

First time I've seen a green garden ON a fiberglass boat! You should see the bottom!

Anyway, I will leave tomorrow and head north again, stopping at a few spots until I get to Juneau.  I'll be stopping on the way at Tracy Arm, where I'll get my first glimpse of berg'r bits.

Route from Wrangell to Petersburg