JUNE 29, 2022 – TOLSTOI BAY TO KETCHIKAN

Pulled the anchor around 9AM and headed for the big city, Ketchikan! Water was a bit choppy today as we crossed Clarence Strait to Ketchikan, but not bad. We stopped to feed Esperança at the fuel dock, and also the whaler, both of whom were thirsty! As John put the port engine into gear to get off the dock, a horrible vibration started up – no idea what it was but clearly something very wrong. John did some diagnostics to see if he could figure out the cause but no clue, we were down to one engine. Well, this wasn’t going to work to get into our slip because he had to thread the needle to get in, with a giant 110’ yacht on one side taking up a lot of fairway, and some opposing wind. After doing one pass at that and deciding it wasn’t worth the risk, we tied up to the outside of the dock and called a diver, thinking there had to be line wrapped around the prop. Once settled, we shut down the engines and John went to work down in the engine room to try and solve the problem. He soon reappeared in the pilot house, started the engines, and the port engine just purred….all fixed! Seems the culprit was that he used the cockpit console (the driving station on the rear of the boat) to shut down the engines which he never does. Apparently it caused some sort of electronics issue with the control box for the engine and it didn’t like it. Once he started it from the pilothouse – the engine was happy again! WHEW, dodged that bullet. All sorts of thoughts had gone through my head, like – we’re stuck in Ketchikan for 2 weeks for repairs or worse that our trip was over, glad it was an easy fix. With two engines at work, we moved the boat over to our inside slip, got everything secured and settled, then promptly went to explore town as it was now 2:30 and the afternoon was slipping away! We wanted to show Scott and Lisa around town a bit and they were anxious to see the art galleries. That evening we drove out to Salmon Falls Lodge for dinner which was wonderful! It’s a fishing lodge about 20 miles north of Ketchikan (we rented a car) with a restaurant open to the public. Perched on the hill above the shoreline, we all had gorgeous views of the water and surrounds. We were fortunate to have JENNY as our server, she was so fun and funny! We had great conversation with her and another server, which made our evening all that much more enjoyable. Food was some of the best we’ve had in Ketchikan. Great evening.