BRUNDIGE INLET TO KETCHIKAN

Monday, June 1^st

Today is my firstborn’s birthday! Happy Birthday Jordo! 38 years ago at Berkeley Hospital.

Today is the last “gate” we have to go through to get to Alaska, Ketchikan being our destination today, about 60 miles. Dixon Entrance is an exposed open ocean leg that takes about 3-4 hours to cross from Brundige Inlet before you are somewhat protected again by outer islands. We had planned to leave at 8:30, but everyone was chomping at the bit to just get it over with after our icky experience the day before. Our back up plan was to turn around and go back to Brundige if necessary. Once again, all the models pointed to light wind, and the offshore buoy was reporting 1 meter and lots of spacing which meant lazy rollers. Things started out rather smoothly for the first couple of hours, but the wind started to build out of the north, and we had some good chop going. We did get some 3 footers here and there, and it was a little lumpy but nothing like the day before, and completely manageable. When we reached Revillagegedo (pronounced “Rah-Villa-Geh-Gay-Dough”) Channel the water smoothed out to nothing and we had a wonderful 2 hour cruise up to Ketchikan from there. First stop was the fuel dock where we had to feed a very thirsty Huntress with enough fuel to last us 6 weeks, then over to our moorage. Once settled on the docks Connie and I walked up to get our rental car, mail, and a stop at the grocery store. We are trying something new this year and are having our mail forwarded to “General Delivery” in Ketchikan, Juneau, and Sitka. We are one for three, as our mail was indeed awaiting us at the post office. Success! We take our mail at an independent Pony Express so they provide custom mail forwarding services which is fantastic for us. Next the group walked uptown to celebrate our crossing and arrival in Alaska! We stopped at the Sourdough Tavern a locals dive bar with good beer and a new fangled juke box that was like a computer screen! Lorraine got us going with some fun music choices and we toasted our successful crossing. Dinner was at The Alaskan Fish House which is down by the cruise ships so a bit touristy, but loved by locals too as it is a really great fish and chips place. We walked Creek Street afterwards, which was where the speakeasy houses were from the 1920s to 1950s. Now it has numerous gift shops and galleries, very scenic setting on buildings built right on the creek – something that Army Corps of Engineers would never approve in today’s world! Great day overall and to boot, a heatwave has hit Ketchikan so it was already steamy hot when we arrived and tomorrow is supposed to be in the upper 80s!

Cruising up to Ketchikan

Views on the way to Ketchikan

Pretty "View from my Window"

Sourdough Bar

Group at Sourdough Bar, minus Greg who took the pic

And a view of the Sourdough Bar

Dolly's House, Ketchikan

Creek Street

PRINCE RUPERT TO BRUNDIGE INLET

Sunday, May 31^st

Let’s just say this day should be erased from memory, as it was not our finest day of boating. It all started out lovely enough, with a beautiful cruise through Venn Passage, a tight and shallow channel out of Prince Rupert into Chatham Sound. ALL of the weather apps and resources available to us said the wind was coming out of the south, and we’d have following seas and wind. The exact opposite happened. It started out slowly and manageable, but over a couple of hours and about halfway into our voyage, it turned into a snarly mess of opposing wind/current, stacked waves that seemed to be arriving from all directions, and it turned the water into a washing machine. We could hear our galley cupboards shifting the contents and condiments rattling in the fridge, cringing, and hoping no real damage happened. We were far enough into it that turning around wasn’t really an option, and it wasn’t the wind so much that was a factor it was a convergence of current and wave action. The wind got up to maybe at most 20mph. Anyway, we ended up having to tack a few times to get to our destination so we didn’t have to take it on the beam, which means sideways, which means things flying around the boat more than they already were! FINALLY......as it seemed to take forever, we ducked into Brundige Inlet on Dundas Island which is a protected anchorage at the southern edge of Dixon Entrance, found a quiet anchorage in the very back of the east arm, and all rafted up together. Once settled, John set out for some salmon fishing and the rest of us just cooled our heels and reveled in the peacefulness. John came back withing a couple hours and reportedly hooked up two fish right off the bat! Apparently the kings are already running strong up here and have been for a couple of weeks. Anyway, he had a fish tale for us again. He was running two poles and hooked up both almost immediately! Since he was alone he could only reel in one at a time so while he got the first fish to the boat, which turned out to be a small king that he let go, the other line peeled out about 200 feet. He ended up losing the second fish unfortunately, and didn’t get a bite again after that. Dinner Plan B was a Steelhead fillet out of our freezer which I thawed out and we had a nice group dinner of fish, Beechers Mac n Cheese with piles of fresh crab added, and grilled veggies. Bill made ice cream from scratch which was delicious too! Played Whiskey Poker after dinner, John eventually winning the whole pot, Connie getting second place (Shannon would like that).

Barge passing by Prince Rupert

Cruising through peaceful Venn Passage

Green Island Lighthouse, a little blurry but left this in because of wave action

Close up view of this beautiful lighthouse, Green Island, BC

Tucked away in Brundige Inlet

Went for a cruise around the bay and found a heron gathering, about 10 of them in this area, they are hard to see among the rocks

PRINCE RUPERT, CANADA ON THE DOCK

Saturday, May 30^th

It has been a crazy morning here in PR. Woke up to rain, then a glorious sunbreak, then just when you’re about to go for a walk a giant squall moves in and it’s blowing sideways rain! We had a quiet morning around the boat, just doing chores and relaxing. Abells and Bryans left around 10AM to walk up to town and shop. A giant Princess Cruise ship pulled in sometime overnight or early morning, so the town is probably crawling with people. We plan to head up there but as I said, keep waiting for that break. The wind is coming from the southeast and blowing the weather over the hills behind Prince Rupert so we don’t even see it coming, it all of a sudden appears over the crest of the mountains! I did some recon this morning on our future destination of Ford’s Terror which is just south of Juneau. We originally planned to go up into Tracy Arm to see glaciers but after last year’s massive landslide and subsequent Tsunami (second largest Tsunami on record) some of us are spooked to go that deep into Tracy Arm. The cruise ships have cancelled their stops at Tracy Arm as the geologists have warned there still might be some residual weakness in the hillside. Watch this very informative video if you are interested in seeing more!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIziQW3-QJA

Anyway, Ford’s Terror is a very technical trip as you must transit a very narrow passageway, between two sandbars, and over a charted rock (sources say you just have to trust even though you are driving right over a submerged rock, but it’s deep enough at high tide). High slack is approximately 45 min to 1 hour after Juneau high slack, and doesn’t last very long.

“Kevin” the manager came down to our boat late morning with his charts and his stories and regaled us for a full three hours on where to go in the vicinity, local stories, his life story and then some. We loved it and all I could think of is “where is my Mom when I need her!” (she was a professional writer). Kevin’s stories need to be documented, he is such a wealth of knowledge. After he left, we eventually ventured out for a walk around town for some boondoggle errands. I needed batteries for my bathroom scale….why?, I ask, do I want to know, but I do. My pants are the telltale sign but I just feel I need to stay on top of this or it will get out of hand over the summer! Abells needed a toaster, theirs died after leaving Port McNeill so they were toastless and wanted to remedy! We found both items, did a little shopping and sightseeing around town where they have a beautiful hidden garden, and a boat from Japan that washed up in Haida Gwaii, and now resides as a memorial in Prince Rupert to lost fishermen. The boat was traced to a Japanese fisherman that ventured out and never came back. In September 1985 Kazukio Sakamoto took his vessel, the Kazu Maru, out to fish in local waters. Tragically neither he nor the boat returned home. A year and a half later the Kazu Maru was found in Skidegate Channel (the body of water that separates the north and south islands that make up Haida Gwaii) by the DFO patrol vessel Sooke Post. It was quickly established that the overturned vessel had been a considerable time at sea.

Eventually the Kazu Maru was taken to Prince Rupert where she was restored and an open shed was built for display. A plaque nearby commemorates her voyage and a park surrounds the shed, built as a dedication to all mariners whose lives have been lost at sea. Sakamoto’s wife referred to the Kazu Maru as ‘the love of his life’ and indicated he would have been happy to know the little craft was part of a park honoring mariners, recognizing the danger of a life at sea.

Coincidentally, the two cities of Owase and Prince Rupert had become ‘sister cities’ in 1968 so it’s perhaps appropriate that this stoic little craft should find its way across the seas to her ‘second home port’ of Prince Rupert.

Appropriately, we had Japanese food for dinner at the delightful OPA restaurant, a tiny hole in the wall sushi place that always has a line out the door!

Kazu Maru on display in Prince Rupert, can't believe that little low rider boat made it across the Pacific

One of our Eagle friends on a neighboring mast

This little unmanned remote control vessel does research on currents, salinity, whatever its programmed to do. 

KLEWNUGGIT TO PRINCE RUPERT - UPDATED 5/30/25

Friday, May 29^th

We invested in top shelf all inclusive professional mariner medical kit this year which we obtained from Lafferty’s in Ballard. They mostly provide kits to commercial vessels but long-haul recreational boaters benefit from having a comprehensive kit, as we learned a couple years ago when John nearly severed his big toe by a hatch cover malfunction. Anyway, our new kit received its first customer yesterday after I sliced my finger chopping onions last night. You know how the layers of onions can be slippery, well the chef knife (which is a brand new very sharp set) slid right off that onion and onto my middle finger. How apropos. It bled for a long time, but isn’t all that serious, just made a fuss.

Today is exactly two weeks since we left port and we are right on schedule, in fact a day ahead of schedule. This morning we were greeted with blue skies and scattered clouds, but it’s shaping up to be a beautiful day! Heading to Prince Rupert for some light provisioning, fuel, a nice long walk, and dinner out.

Arrived at Prince Rupert around 1:00pm and while UnforgetAbell fueled up, Huntress and Far Niente found their moorings on the end tie at Prince Rupert Rowing and Yacht Club, a reciprocal marina to our MBYC. Kevin is the marina manager and is effusive in his descriptions and a delightful person! Soon UnforgetAbell was also securely at the dock, and we all decided to walk up to the grocery store because tomorrow it is supposed to rain. We made it as far as the head of the dock where the Breakers Pub is located and the vote was to duck in for lunch. By now it was 2PM, and lunch wasn’t served until around 2:30/2:45, so it became our “Linner” (Lunch and Dinner). Afterwards we walked up to Safeway and the Marine store to fetch a few items, and back to the boat around 4:30/5:00. Nap time for me, which ended up being the end of my day, too tired after that to do anything, eventually ending up reading into the night. John rallied Greg and went up to the Breakers for late evening snacks and beers. Our moorage here is exposed to the outside channel, and the local commercial boats don’t care about throwing a wake, so it rocked and rolled a bit throughout the evening. 

A beautiful morning leaving Klewnuggit

The most darling little tug boat towing just a few logs, he hailed us on the radio and asked if we would mind backing off speed when we passed him which of course we obliged. All about respecting other mariners.

Looking back at our flotilla as we exited Grenville Channel

Close Up of the cute tug

As we entered the channel where Prince Rupert is located the Eagles were feeding on something. I tried in vain to get good clear closeups of the Eagles but I suck at picture taking. I have a beautiful camera that I barely know how to operate. Sometimes I just get lucky

KLEWNUGGIT AT ANCHOR

Thursday, May 28^th

Oh my aching back. I guess 4 pulls of crab pots did me in because I am slightly hunched over this morning with lower back pain. The cost of crabbing and I wouldn’t change a thing! Thankfully I didn’t leave them out another night and still have a few carcasses left from dinner last night so we will be fine.

Our run on sun is over for the time being. During the night I woke up to the sound of rain and as of this writing at noon, it hasn’t let up. John and I debated whether it is truly rain or just heavy mist from sitting in the middle of this glorious rainforest environment. Regardless it is wet wet wet today. Greg and Bill left a bit ago to pull their traps and am guessing they snagged a good amount as it seems leaving them overnight here is best. I have spent the morning working on the blog and editing photos from the last two days because I am behind. It’s a lot of work actually to keep up the blog, mostly the time consuming part is sorting through all the photos. Perhaps I have already mentioned that in a previous post.

Today not much to write about except weather. Since we started this trip we have been outrunning the bad boating weather and thankfully seem to be ahead. We have heard reports that the day after we crossed Cape Caution the winds moved in and nobody has been crossing since. In fact one inside passage traveler who has been stuck in Port McNeill for the past 5 days due to weather said online “my husband is tired of waiting, we are heading back south” and that seems to be the trend below us in the Broughtons. Today Cape Caution has 8’ waves with 13’ interval….no thank you. Trend continues over next couple days. However, that is behind us and we are planning for our Dixon crossing which at this moment looks favorable for May 31, 3 days from now, but that’s only if weather predictions hold. Fingers crossed. Signing off, gotta go pick crab so I can make crab melts for lunch.

I love these peaceful mornings when you can't tell where the shoreline ends and reflection begins. Klewnuggit at Anchor

KLEWNUGGIT AT ANCHOR

Wednesday, May 27^th

This morning I decided to make use of three overripe bananas and make banana bread while I waited to go pull pots. Everyone was having a nice lazy morning enjoying a non-travel day, again the sun is out and it’s beautiful. We are the only boats in the bay which is nice. Around 9:30 we went to check our pots and scored! A total of 8 keepers, three of which were 8” or more, the crab measurer was too small is all we know! I used chicken leg/thigh piece and prawn shells from the spot prawns I had cooked yesterday. Connie used cat food, a piece of old salmon, and prawn shells. Stinky all the way around. Forgot bait to reset so after running our haul back to the boats and quickly processing our catch, we zipped back out and reset the pots. Today there is no wind so the water was like glass all the way. There’s a lake here that is just about 10’ or less above the high tide line so it is always pouring out into the bay, creating a nice waterfall, it’s very cool. John spent the day ticking items off his to-do list which makes him very happy, there’s always a lot of things to fix and tweak on a boat. I spent the rest of the day prepping for the dinner we are hosting tonight which was going to be Steelhead from the freezer, but now is going to be a crab feast! Caesar salad, sourdough bread (the take and bake kind from Costco that lasts 3 months in a sealed bag, we don’t want to know the ingredients), Spot Prawns and cocktail sauce, and Bon Apetit Brown Butter Peach Cobbler for dessert (if you haven’t made before, google, print and make it today!). I use thawed frozen peaches of course since it’s not peach season, and highly doubtful one could find peaches in remote marinas even if it was! I also add some almond extract to the peach mixture in case you do make it. No keepers in the second pull except for Bill and Lorraine who got 1 keeper, but it was a short time period and was an outgoing tide. Greg was kind enough to cook up our crab for us while I prepared the dining table for our feast! A rousing game of 5 Crowns followed dinner and we all retired around 10PM, full.

Dinner in the Wheelhouse

The feast awaits

Looking down to the head of our bay where Far Niente is anchored

Huntress at Anchor, with UnforgetAbell behind, you can just see the tip of Greg and Connie's orange kayak sticking out!

Beautiful morning in Klewnuggit

My crab victims awaiting their fate in my galley sink, which is where I crack them

Bill and Lorraine 

The lake in Klewnuggit, note you can see the lake line just a bit above the high tide line

Close up of the waterfall at mid tide

Greg and I picking the pots in the afternoon, I got a pile of females in mine and all the bait demolished, so am hoping they make lots of boy babies

 

KHUTZE INLET TO KLEWNUGGIT

Tuesday, May 26^th

At dinner last night we took a vote whether to stay another night in Khutze or move on, and it was decided that we’d move along to Klewnuggit where we can crab and prawn, and hang out there for 2 nights maybe 3. We have our moorage reserved in Prince Rupert for May 29-30, still 3 days out. Klewnuggit is about 80 nautical miles away so quite a long run for us, but we will be that much closer to Prince Rupert which gives us more options on our itinerary, and it’s a beautiful day out! We stopped briefly at Butedale Falls for some boat photo ops but the low light and mist made for some dark photos. Butedale was founded in 1911 as a logging and fishing camp and at one time had up to 400 people living in the community, eventually boasting a hydroelectric plant. There is a large dilapidated cannery onsite that shut down in the 1950s and is derelict. Currently there is a group of investors that has a grand plan to redevelop the area into a premier fishing and marine destination, creating a desirable stopover spot for mariners along the inside passage, but to date it hasn’t made any progress. When we stopped here in 2018 the owner was very enthusiastic about the prospect of development and had grand scale mockup drawings and brochures about what was to come. I am not sure what has happened along the way, but to date to my knowledge and as visually evidenced, there has been no change. This tidbit about Butedale I got off Google but it’s interesting

The "Lights On" Legend: When the camp was abandoned, the hydroelectric plant continued to run. Because no one turned the turbines off, the lights of the town were left burning, creating a famous and eerie ghost town that passing mariners and BC Ferries noted.

After departing Butedale, John and I decided to cruise close to the shoreline of Princess Royal Island and Gribbell Island to look for the elusive white Spirit Bear, which is also known as the Kermode Bear, a subspecies of the black bear with a genetic mutation causing the coat to be white instead of black. These two islands and a third contain 15% of the Kermode Bear population but they can also be found other places along the Central and North Coast of BC. I look every year we get up this far, but have yet to see one. I might have to sign up for the Spirit Bear tour out of Kitimat someday, just to click that box. So far today, and it’s only noon that I am writing this, we have seen two pods of dolphins, and the other two boats saw a pod of Orcas (we were busy on the other shoreline looking for Spirit Bears). Lots of lumber in the water today as we transition to the Grenville Channel, fondly known as “the Ditch” because it’s long and skinny and a rather boring section of the journey.

The wind picked up this afternoon as we approached Klewnuggit blowing 20+ and making spray. Once tucked way back into the westernmost arm of the inlet things were quite calm. Today the Bryans were solo on anchor, and Abells tied up with us. We are in a good crabbing location so I was chomping at the bit to get the pots out. The crabbing spot is at the other end of the bay however, so about a 10 minute whaler ride to get there, but Connie and I set off to drop the pots after getting settled at anchor. Wind was still howling down the main entrance channel which hit us broadside when we came around the corner, neither of us dressed completely right for the occasion! I had my rubber jacket and leggings, Connie had rubber pants and a sweater as we took the waves broadside and spray came cascading over the boat, soaking our non-rubber parts. Oh well, it’s a beautiful sunny day. Back where the crabbing area is, the waves weren’t as big so we quickly got the pots set and motored back to the boat, at times 2-3 footers! It was all stirred up. Dinner tonight on our own, but played Mexican Train and cards until 10 with the Abells, always fun. We love card games.

Photo Shoot at Butedale Falls, Huntress

UnforgetAbell at Butedale Falls

Far Niente at Butedale Falls

That would leave a mark,,,,big piles of debris on today's cruise

All that's left of the Butedale settlement, cannery on the left

Close up of cannery

Close up of uplands and dock, Butedale

The "Vision" of a future Butedale, would love it if it came to fruition!

Klewnuggit Inlet, we are anchored at the Circle at the top, and Crabbing grounds are bottom left at the X, so it's a long run, relatively speaking. The inlet where the crab are, is called Exposed Inlet, aptly named. We had some waves back there on the first day!

Connie and I in our cold weather gear out crabbing. Even though it's sunny, it is a chilly wind.

KHUTZE INLET AT ANCHOR

Monday, May 25^th

Woke to the sound of rain, yes it is still raining here! The weather channel says per the radar that the rain is supposed to stop at 1PM. The Slowboat flotilla arrived mid morning, so 7 more boats anchored in the inlet. My morning was spent on sorting and editing photos and working on the blog. It seems to take a lot of my time doing that, especially on a day where many photo opportunities appear. It ended up clearing off late morning so we gathered the troops and made our way up the estuary in the whaler to see what we could discover. It was tricky at times, and it got down to 1.2 feet of water at which point we had to turn around. People from neighboring boats made it farther up the estuary because they have lightweight inflatable boats that don’t draw much water. We later discovered that “just around the bend” where we turned around, the other boats got a quick glimpse of a bear as it headed back into the woods. On our journey we motored by the remnants of an old rail spur and tram system used for mining 100 years ago, of copper, gold and silver. Now almost every activity you can think of is banned in Khutze – not only no mining and exploration, but no harvesting of crab or prawns, no humans or dogs are allowed to step foot on shore, as the First Nations owners and BC Parks have designated it as a conservancy. As we made our way back out the estuary with the intent on exploring another river, we noticed huge black clouds rolling in over the mountains and decided to boogie back to shelter and try later. It did indeed pour buckets so we missed that thankfully! Again around 4:30 it cleared off and was sunny! Went for a cocktail cruise and tequila tasting with the group around the bay, the tequila for the sole purpose of keeping us warm. Even though the sun is out, there is snow on all the peaks around us, causing a cold wind at times. Lorraine whipped out some excellent Sicilian spaghetti and garlic bread, doctored up a bag of salad I contributed, and we had a very nice dinner onboard Far Niente. John brought along the giant map of the Inside Passage and we spent some time discussing our route and our options. We are just 2 run days away from Prince Rupert, and 1 run day thereafter to arrive in Ketchikan. It’s getting real folks! 

EDIT: For those of you that leave comments, they almost always show up tagged as Anonymous, so if you choose to leave any comments, please leave your name!! Thank you! Blogger is not the most sophisticated blogging tool, but it's what I know how to use. 

Far Niente (L) with UnforgetAbell hidden behind them, and Huntress in foreground, all at anchor in Khutze Inlet

Remnants of mining operations

Headed out on our exploration cruise up the Estuary, it was a bit nippy!

Da Boyz

Just can't get enough of this waterfall and bowl

Nice late afternoon shot of the boats at anchor in Khutze Inlet, Huntress (background-L) and UnforgetAbell rafted to Far Niente in foreground

Actually warmed up late afternoon! Tequila tasting cruise around the bay. It was between Clase Azul and Campovedo Extra Anejo. We decided the Campovedo was a nicer sipping tequila, almost like a nice brandy or Drambuie