The sailing adventures of SV Meriwether and her crew
We stayed in an anchorage not far out of Kake, Alaska under the protection of a small island with a low slung conifer pine {Kerri corrected me} forest. For two days we swung around our anchor in Hamilton Bay while the work week ran it’s course. By Saturday morning the boat was prepared to take off on another weekend long...
When we pulled into Portage Bay, fairly late on a Sunday afternoon, we thought it would only be an overnight stop. Portage Bay isn’t the most scenic place, nor is it super-well-protected from the weather from the South or North (a few-miles-long bay can still allow the wind to howl through), it did have that one little thing we need...
The northern arm of Thomas Bay contains a glacier; Baird Glacier. Following our successful hike (no injury = success) to the waterfall here in Thomas Bay, the only thing left to do was to tackle a glacier, right? Right. Unfortunately, Baird Glacier has been on the retreat for many years so is far from accessible via the sailboat. We learned...
We did spend the work week in the Petersburg marina since there are no nearby anchorages. Not a whole lot happens when we are tied to a dock; work/chores, restaurants, resupply, and repairs, not necessarily in that order. The big thing news was that we got the replacement part for the autopilot in, midday on Friday, even though it was...
We motored out of Point Baker, back into Sumner Strait, with the plan to re-sail the same route we sailed into Point Baker the day before. This would bring us [back] to the southern entrance of the Wrangell Narrows where we would anchor to wait for the proper tide to pass through – the next morning. The forecast this day...
Our Friday evening departure from Wrangell once again gave us the opportunity to get 20 miles closer to our weekend destination, which was a good two-day-sail away at our 5-6 knot pace. With no wind, the miles on Friday were all done via the diesel motor. Until, of course, we neared Saint John Harbor where we were to anchor for...
After circling Wrangell Island, we did stay the work week in the Wrangell city marina, although you may think I am lying as there is not a single photo of Meriwether tied to the dock. In fact, neither Kerri or myself took a single photo in the five days we spent in Wrangell. It is just a side effect of...
The sun sets so late here in Alaska that we have been doing a lot more late-day sailing than usual, extending our weekends by a few hours. That head start on this weekend got us to Kindergarten Cove on Etolin Island, but our exploration objective was the next island over; Wrangell Island. By the end of the weekend we would...
In search of a stable Internet connection we had to leave Meyers Chuck. The only place we could guarantee our goal was all the way up into Wrangell. The plan was to split up the 50 nautical mile trip into two chunks; one Tuesday night, and the other dark-early Wednesday morning. This would get us there in time for Kerri’s...
I wanted to give this post a few extra days just to make sure we actually made it out of Ketchikan’s grasp. By now we are far enough away that it would be easier to get to another town (Wrangell) if something were to pop up on us. It does appear we have made beyond Alaska’s first town. It took...
