T&T: Alaska is for the birds

[John Marshall]

To second Bob's comment, I'm in Juneau right now, and I can tell you  
that its an even worse place to boat than the Washington and BC areas.  
It never stops raining, not even when the sun shines, and if the  
hostile locals don't punch your lights out just for coming, or the  
fisherman don't try to sink your boat for stealing their fish, and the  
bears don't eat you (they consider humans a delicacy), then the whales  
will.

A friend and I were almost killed by a humpback whale that leaped high  
out of the water right in front of our dingies, and we were in the  
Auke Bay marina entrance! A few feet further outside the breakwater  
and it would have been our end. You simply cannot put inflatable dinks  
in the water here for fear of the whales, who love to flip them over  
like the blow-up toys they are. Aluminum, or ever better, steel dinks  
are the only ones you can use, as long as they are really heavy.

An eagle tried to kill one of our dogs two days ago. We have  
Maltese's, which weigh only 8 pounds, and that's a size that eagles  
can easily fly off with. Fortunately, my wife is very quick on her  
feet and managed to grab a 2x4 and swat the eagle just before it sunk  
its talons in our dog, and instead sunk those talons into that 2x4. It  
was a hell of fight out there on the dock, but she managed to keep her  
grip on the 2x4, which is now grooved and half shredded from the  
talons. Last I looked, there were a dozen of those puppy killers  
circling our boat, waiting for the dogs to step out on the dock again.  
Eagles can dive at fantastic speed -- you never hear them coming until  
its too late. The damn things are protected or I'd shoot them  
(everybody has guns on their boats here to protect themselves from the  
bears), and I can never hit them with that stupid bear spray, so  
instead we just carry a 2x4 whenever we go out.

Of course, we're tied up here at this sagging, half rotten dock  
because its very rare to find any anchorage under 100' depth, and then  
its rock, plus the tidal swing is 25 feet and the wind always blows  
really hard after twilight (which is currently at 11:00PM). So you  
have to stay up most of the night watching your anchor. (But given it  
never really gets dark, you can't sleep anyway.) Given the huge tidal  
swing, your anchor always pulls out and resets in the middle of the  
night (or not!) when the winds blow. Your chain rattles across the  
rocks all night and fills the boat with eerie sounds.

Fortunately, the mosquitos aren't out yet, but they are reportedly  
gathering their forces. I found a five gallon pail of 100%  
concentration DEET at Costco yesterday and plan to bath in it each  
morning once the mosquitos arrive. Trust me, its better to suffer from  
DEET poisoning than to have all your blood sucked out.

My advice... stay south. The further the better.

John Marshall
N55-20 Serendipity
Sequim Bay, WA
(Enroute tomorrow from Auke Bay, Juneau to Glacier Bay National Park).


>
> Message: 7
> Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:53:32 -0800
> From: Robert Deering <deering at ak.net>
> To: T&T List <trawlers-and-trawlering at lists.samurai.com>
> Subject: Re: T&T: Another thought on anchors, windlasses and washdown
> 	systems
> Message-ID: <C649397C.3F6E%deering at ak.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> Marty,
>
> Here in SE Alaska we have deep anchorages as well, though they're not
> crowded (and no wonder, what with the incessant rain, swarms of
> blood-sucking insects, hostile locals, and price gouging for  
> everything -
> only idiots would want to boat up here!  Stay home!).
>
>
> Bob Deering
> Juneau, Alaska