Goin' South from the North

Just a long scenic day on the road (channel).   As I mentioned yesterday, Skagway was our northernmost point on this summer's trip.   It's all southward from here.

We covered 74.35 miles from Skagway south to Auke Bay down the Lynn Canal.   By the way, Lynn Canal is not a canal, it's a channel.  Poor penmanship caused a clerk to transcribe it as "canal" rather than "channel".   Isn't that cool.

Anyway, Auke Bay is a northern suburb of Juneau.   That run took us 10.2 hours; a bit faster than I'd anticipated as Karen was masterful again at finding less foul current and more favorable currents.

We saw many beautiful waterfalls.   Here's one we both liked.

And, of course, more glaciers.   Spoiler Alert - we never get tired of seeing glaciers.

A friend's son works on this cruise ship which was docked in Haines.   It's the Admiralty Dream (the little cruise ship to the left of the big one).   You will probably have to zoom in to see it.   We were trying to hook-up, but schedules didn't coincide well.  For what it's worth, I think small cruise ships are way more fun than the big ones; more education, more nature, and less partying.

I noticed a vibration in the running gear when underway.  Pretty much unnoticeable at 1,000 rpm, start to feel it about 1,100 rpm, by 1,400 rpm it is annoying, and as the rpm gets higher it gets worse.  It's a pretty slight vibration, but if I can, I'll have someone dive and check the prop to make sure I didn't bend or nick it on ice or some other flotsam.

It's been bothering me all day.   I made a few calls tonight.  I'll see what can be done about it in the morning.

If I can't fix it, it won't stop us from proceeding.   We will just get a micro-massage when underway.

The only real excitement came early this afternoon when we motored into a fleet of fishing trawlers.  There were probably 50 or so of them in various stages of gill-net fishing.   This is something new to me as I've not seen this fishing style before.  

Fortunately, I spotted the net in the water just in time to go to full reverse to stop the boat before I ran over it.   The kindly fishing boat captain (really, he was fine) gave me some polite pointers as to how to navigate around them.   Aim for the boat or the orange buoy, go around the outside, and not between - don't run over the net.   I'm sure I'm not the first pleasure boat captain to require some remedial instruction.

But this isn't as easy as it sounds.  In gill-net fishing, the fishing boat drops a weighted net that is suspended by small off-white invisible floats.   The far end of the net has an orange buoy that looks just like a crab pot buoy and the near end of the net (1/4 to 1/2 mile away from the buoy) is the boat.   It's not obvious as to which orange buoy belongs to which fishing boat either.   We had to slowly pick our way carefully through this fleet as they spanned the entire channel and there was no way around them.  We simply had to go through them.

In the panic of trying to not destroy their nets, my prop, or anything else, I failed to snap a picture.   But I assure you, these boats were everywhere for about two miles and across the whole 2-mile width of channel.

Lesson learned!

Just before Auke Bay, we passed by the Mendenhall Glacier, which is just north of Juneau.   It is a beautiful glacier and looks to me like the vision I have when someone says "glacier".   It is no longer a tidewater glacier.   It now terminates in a beautiful crystal blue lake.   Maybe when Kippy & Dean are here in a few days we will visit this glacier by land.

We pulled into Auke Bay about 1600 and were able to get a side-tie along the inside of their floating breakwater.   Not ideal, but it will do.   On most breakwaters, you don't get power or water, and they tend to be more exposed to wind & waves.  This is no exception to all of those.   So, we are rocking & rolling tonight.

We may move tomorrow to a different slip here or to someplace downtown Juneau.

The glacier peeking out from the mountains in the picture to the left is the Mendenhall glacier, same one as the picture above.

Tonight's dinner was our standard spinach salad and spaghetti Bolognese.   Just a great meal as it is easy & quick.   It also so happens to taste great.   No alcohol tonight for us; just didn't feel like any.