Alaska is very big and very far away

Oh my goodness, we sure haven’t covered much distance yet have we?

This morning we left Keats Island as the sun was getting up and headed out over the Gibson Bar into the Strait.  Unlike our crossing 3 years ago, this morning was uneventful.  As we told Jack and Donna, the goal of our boating is boredom.  Exciting days are to be avoided if at all possible.

We arrived in Pender Harbour around noon and considered anchoring in Garden Bay but ended up back in our favourite spot in Gerrans Bay.  The weather is supposed to go to hell for a few days so we wanted a sheltered spot.  Garden Bay has a reputation for poor holding and it was deeper than I remembered it being.  We’ve only ever anchored there once – it was the first time we anchored anywhere and we ended up dragging our shiny new CQR around the bay when the wind came up in the middle of the night.  I don’t think our Sarca would drag tonight but we were seeing roughly 40 feet of water compared to 20+ in Gerrans Bay.  I like to have 5:1 or better scope so 20 feet of water plus 6 feet to the bow pulpit translates into a minimum of 130 feet of chain our here compared to maybe 250 feet minimum in Garden Bay.  The more chain we have out the bigger swinging circle we need. 

If you look very close at the image above, there is a little red line from Cow Bay to Pender Harbour but you’ll probably have to zoom in to see it.  Our goal is to, at a minimum, get to Ketchikan so we can say we were in Alaska.  Ideally I’d like to be in Juneau on the June solstice but we’ll let weather, reluctant generators and whatever other mechanical misfortunes befall us make the final decision as to our ultimate destination.