Taken when we were anchored at Cannery Cove, half-way between Petersburg and Juneau Alaska.
Greetings everyone!
This is a quick update on our NW Passage voyage. I will follow this up with a YouTube video soon. My plan has been to publish email newsletters every few days, and I’ll start doing that soon as well. The truth is that we are in a part of the journey that we’ve done before and nothing all that exciting has happened. But stay tuned!
ARRIVAL IN KETCHIKAN
Flying into Ketchikan, Alaska was a bit of a surprise. Roberta and I expected a rough flight but we departed Seattle with blue skies and 70 degree weather. We landed in Ketchikan with even bluer skies and 74-degree weather.
We were leaving for Wrangell the next morning, so other than a quick dinner in Ketchikan at the funky but fun restaurant called Annabel’s we never really saw the town.
WRANGELL ALASKA
The next morning we cruised north to Wrangell, Alaska. Roberta and I had been there with our Nordhavn 68 back in 2009 as part of our trip to Japan known as the GSSR (Great Siberian Sushi Run). As far as I could tell not much had changed. Roberta and I hiked into town with our pups hoping to find dinner. I was only partially joking when I said to Roberta, “Looks like they roll up the sidewalks at about 5pm here!”
We walked the short length of downtown and saw only one restaurant open: an Asian place with no outdoor seating. It looked all right. While I read the menu Roberta spied a food truck in the adjacent parking lot. The nice, but lonely, lady in the food truck pointed out some tables across the street where we could sit with the dogs and eat. It wasn’t the fine dining I had hoped for, but we enjoyed every bite and the food hit the spot.
Roberta ready to walk to town in Wrangell
The first few days of our trip north were in the 70s. This was our first look at snow-covered peaks.
Enjoying fine dining in Wrangell Alaska. 74 degree weather!
The sign says, “Closed and Permanently on vacation.” We saw a lot of “for sale” signs on businesses in Wrangell and Petersburg. My impression was that the local economies might be struggling.
Wrangell, Alaska
Tides here are 12 feet (four meters) it makes going up and down the various ramps lots of fun. Sometimes they are flat and sometimes they are very steep
We had arrived in Wrangell on a very unusual day for June. It was 78 degrees! Exploring the town we saw a few local women wearing halter tops and shorts. Temperatures in the high 70s are not that common in Wrangell and these ladies were going to enjoy it while it lasted!
WRANGELL NARROWS
There are two routes by water from Wrangell to Petersburg. One is a skinny channel shortcut, and the other is “the long way around.” Roberta and I ran the same route as part of our GSSR trip from Seattle to Japan in 2009. The skinny path is called the Wrangell Narrows, and as if the narrowness of the 20-mile channel weren’t enough fun, there can be a strong current to push you to shore, places where sand piles up (called shoaling) making the bottom closer than on the charts, frequent encounters with boats coming at us, and of course there are 12-foot tides in this part of the world. When Roberta and I made the run in 2009, we had the good fortune to encounter the owners of a very small cruise ship who were making the run north. They guided us into and through the narrows.
Our Captain, Garrett, felt confident he could get us through the narrows safely, no guide needed. He timed our departure perfectly and with a total lack of excitement passed easily through the narrows. We were safely in Petersburg only six hours after our departure.
Capt. Garrett, fresh from our triumphant Narrows passage, called the marina hoping for a place in town. We had been unable to make a reservation. Finding space for a 90′ boat, on short notice, is not easy. As we approached Petersburg, he radioed the local marina asking for space. The good news was that they had space for us, and the bad news was that the space was deep into the marina, near shore. Luckily, it was a beautiful day with no wind, and no significant current inside the marina. Getting to the slip was a bit tricky but North Star behaved like a graceful ballerina.
Capt Garrett, looking intense as we weave our way through the Wrangell Narrows
Entering Wrangell Narrows
A quick glance at the radar shows the various targets we had to dodge as we worked our way through Wrangell Narrows
Roberta wore this t-shirt as a memorial of the last time we did the Inside Passage when we went across the Aleutians to Japan in 2009. She purchased this t-shirt in Nagasaki, Japan — a very beautiful, but surprisingly international city in Japan.
ADDRESSING THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
Sidetracking for a second, I saw a question on one of my YouTube blog entries asking, “If you have a Captain, are you and Roberta just guests?” It’s a good question and one Roberta and I have asked each other. The quick answer is that Roberta and I are very qualified to operate a boat, with 10s of thousands of miles under our belt. I’ve done some time at the helm on this boat and will do plenty more. That said, I must admit it is nice being spoiled and realistically, a boat can and should only have one Captain. This boat and this voyage are bigger than Roberta or I should handle alone. I do not like thinking we are guests, and we are far more involved in the boat operation than what the word “guest” would ordinarily imply. But, to answer the question, “Yes.” On this trip we are primarily guests, but also partially crew, and they are spoiling us. It’s a difficult trip and we are all in it together.
PETERSBURG
Roberta and I eagerly hiked into Petersburg hoping for a nice dinner. Petersburg is many notches above Wrangell in terms of town activity but to call it a “bustling metropolis” would be an exaggeration. It’s a very charming and photogenic small town. We have been taking the dogs with us most of the time when we go into town. It’s tough on them being cooped up day after day on the boat. We hit a warm day in Petersburg and were able to sit outside enjoying some surprisingly delicious Thai food.
In Petersburg we were assigned a slip deep in the marina. I always dread being assigned anything except an easy “end cap.” But Capt Garrett did a masterful job of tight quarters maneuvering
What seemed like an impossible moorage in Petersburg when first assigned turned out to have plenty of room – a good thing!
I try not to post the same pictures on my blog as everyone else posts on theirs, but … I suspect virtually everyone who has been to Petersburg posts this same picture (except ours has Roberta and “the kids”)
Your guess is as good as mine. But, just to be safe, avoid walking too close behind other people.
Capt Garrett and Engineer Hudson dropping the tender. They have become expert at dropping it to the water. And we’ve been impressed with our new crane, which easily handles the tender
CANNERY COVE
After only one night in Petersburg, we were off early the next morning to an incredible anchorage, called Cannery Cove, roughly half-way to Juneau. We had an amazing night at anchor, highlighted by an evening of barbecuing hamburgers and finishing off the evening with a soak in our top deck hot tub!
At anchor in Cannery Cove
Our first bears! I’m sure we’ll get a closer view sooner or later. I’m not in a hurry
Life don’t get much better!
We are only a few days into our journey but have already seen whales, porpoises, eagles, a sea otter and seals.
JUNEAU
We are now in Juneau for a couple of days.
This puts us right at 1,000 nautical miles since our departure from Seattle.
That said, we all feel like the trip is just getting started. The Inside Passage is a popular cruising destination. There are many Pacific NW-based boaters who do this route year after year for their entire cruising lives. I wouldn’t call it a well-traveled road, but on North Star we are all looking forward to the next chapter. We will be venturing out into the Gulf of Alaska which will give us much more of a sense of exploration.
We have now completed the first thousand files! Only 7,500 left to go!
Roberta, bundled up and happy to be in Juneau. It got colder here, and very misty and rainy too, especially the first day. It got slightly warmer the next day, and almost sunny the third day.
Juneau has more, and larger, cruise ships than I could ever imagine. I counted six giant ones in town at the same time.
There is no way that I could ever convey in a photo how big the cruise ships are. We lived on the Seattle waterfront for a decade and saw cruise ships come and go, but they seemed nothing like some of these monsters. At one point there were five of them in town at once!
My overall sense of Juneau, and I haven’t been in town long enough to really know much of anything, is that it is a town divided. There is the Juneau we are visiting which caters to tourists. And, somewhere else (somewhere further out) is the real Juneau where people live. Roberta and I have spent much of our life living in tourist towns and it felt very familiar. During the day, the town was flooded with tourists from the cruise ships, and in the evenings, the town simply emptied.
Ken Williams – Keeley is a tiny, elderly Rat Terrier — and unlike her ‘sister’ Pixie — she can get cold. In Alaskan weather she needs to be carried in a furry pouch despite wearing a heavy sweater with a hood, and a tight ‘body shirt’ underneath it.
Pixie is our four-year-old Alaskan Klee Kai. She doesn’t seem to have a problem with cold!
Juneau backs up to a steep mountain. It’s there, but hidden by the clouds
This is something that turned out amazingly well. We put a Samsung “Frame TV” in the main salon. It’s a specialized TV intended for displaying art images. To make the appearance more art-like and less tv-like, we surrounded it with a physical frame and real matting (as opposed to ‘digital’ matting). It really does fake people out, and we can change the art based on our mood.
The Samsung Frame TV installed aboard North Star.
CREW
It’s a long story but immediately prior to departure our wonderful chef had to bail for non-boat-related issues. We went into panic mode to quickly find a replacement and now have a new chef (Dani) who just joined us. Welcome Dani!
Engineer Hudson. He’s planning a full engine room tour. The engine room is too noisy to do it while we’re underway. Once we get to Whittier, Alaska it will be a top priority. (Could there be a burgeoning ‘friendship’ here!)
Engineer Hudson, Captain Garrett, and First Mate/Stew Lydia
Chef Dani. Just arrived but doing a bang up job!
FUEL
We fueled the boat here in Juneau. We departed Seattle with 7,500 gallons of fuel, and have consumed 1,500 gallons thus far. We’ve traveled 1,000 nm, so that makes our consumption around 1.7 gallons per nautical mile traveled. That’s our “all-in” fuel burn (main engines and generators).
Why are there legs hanging from the ceiling in our bathroom? As you might imagine, there is more to this than meets the eye. Subscribe to North Star’s YouTube channel to find out the rest of the story!
AND LASTLY
Your questions and feedback are the best part of my blog! I have an incredibly smart group of readers, and I’ve learned more from my readers than could ever be imagined.
I’ve been thinking about how to handle the inevitable questions that follow each blog entry I send. With YouTube it is obvious, but it’s less obvious how to handle questions following my emailed blog entries.
Here’s my idea. Email any questions directly to me. I’ll answer you via email or include some subset of the questions in my next newsletter. If I include your submission in the newsletter I’ll list only your first name and last initial.
Write to me at: ken@mvnorthstar.com
That’s it for this edition of the blog.
Ken and Roberta Williams, with Pixie and Keeley
TO SUBSCRIBE ON YOUTUBE
https://youtube.com/@mvnorthstar?sub_confirmation=1
OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL
https://youtube.com/@mvnorthstar
FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM
https://instagram.com/mv_northstar
PAST BLOG ENTRIES
EMAIL NEWSLETTER
Lastly, if you were forwarded this email by a friend and want added to this newsletter, so you get your own emails in the future, click this link:
https://kensblog.eo.page/nh9zj
