>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> MEXICO TO ALASKA 2008 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

This was, hopefully, only the first of many adventures ahead for the crew of Last Resort as our voyages continue.


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In 2006, after I survived Stage 3 neck and throat cancer, we decided to pursue our dream of cruising. Here’s the XO christening our new Catalina 470, Last Resort, which we purchased on November 14, 2006, just before we shoved off for Mexico.

TO VIEW THE ENTIRE ALBUM OF PHOTOS OF OUR OFFSHORE DELIVERY AND CHRISTENING PARTY, JUST CLICK HERE OR ON THE CAMERA ICON.

This cool picture was taken by a friend of ours who utilized a radio control model airplane as a platform for a digital camera. This photo and the cover photo for Manning-up in Alaska, An Astounding Tale of Overcoming Cancer, Sailing 2600 Miles to Alaska and Finding New Direction, were taken by Spike Webb. Radio control aerial yacht photography available for hire. Contact him at bearospace@hotmail.com.

After stops in San Diego, Oceanside, Newport and Long Beach, we put into Marina del Rey for a number of repairs and upgrades that would be required for our 2200+ nautical mile trip to Alaska.   This picture was taken on February 22 as we departed Marina del Rey.

TO SEE THE ENTIRE ALBUM OF OUR TRIP FROM MEXICO TO MARINA DEL REY, CLICK HERE OR ON THE PHOTO ICON.

After stops in San Diego, Oceanside, Newport and Long Beach, we put into Marina del Rey for a number of repairs and upgrades that would be required for our 2200+ nautical mile trip to Alaska.   This picture was taken on February 22 as we departed Marina del Rey.

TO SEE THE ENTIRE ALBUM OF OUR TRIP FROM MEXICO TO MARINA DEL REY, CLICK HERE OR ON THE PHOTO ICON.

Our strategy for heading north in the winter was to ride the southerly winds produced as low pressure systems approached shore. rotate counterclockwise and produce winter storms, with strong winds and occasionally huge seas. This picture was taken the day after a three-day storm passed,  producing 20 to 30 foot seas in and beyond the Santa Barbara Channel.

A day later, the seas had settled enough for us to safely leave the Channel Islands Harbor and continue our trip, stopping next in Santa Barbara. 

Here we are with Mary Lou, an old high school friend, and her husband, Ray. The calm seas in the background belie the ferocity of the storm that just passed.

This picture, taken from the opposite angle, shows the damage to a restraining fence on the boardwalk when a storm-driven wave came over the seawall (pictured above) and knocked three people to the rocks below, one of them suffering serious injuries.

This picture of Pillar Point was taken at Half Moon Bay over 25 years ago, the first time I made the coastwise trip between San Francisco and Los Angeles.  It has changed significantly, so I had a lot of fun sharing it with the folks at the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club.

Speaking of the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club, one of the great delights of our trip was to meet Stephanie Breslin, who was then the membership director of the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club. Stephanie would pinch hit as crew aboard Last Resort during the Alaska portion of the trip. This photo was taken as we were about to tour the Alaska-Gastineau Gold Mine in Juneau.

After sailing from Half Moon Bay in almost zero-zero fog, we finally emerged to catch our first glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge. While we were in the fog, we had the unnerving experience of an encounter of the all too- close kind with a passing oil tanker.

The southern side of the entrance to the Golden Gate is dotted with a family of dangerous wave-swept rocks. The two northernmost, and thus most dangerous to navigation, are Mile Rock and Little Mile Rock, known together as Mile Rocks. Located only 0.4 miles from the closest shore, it seems Mile Rocks are so named because the rocks are one mile south of the main shipping channel leading into San Francisco Bay.  On February 22, 1901 the City of Rio de Janeiro, inbound from Hong Kong in heavy fog, struck Fort Point Ledge and sunk in just eight minutes. Of the 210 aboard, 128 were lost. The Lighthouse Board concluded that the shipwreck, the worst in San Francisco’s history, was ample motivation to overcome the obstacles inherent in constructing a lighthouse atop Mile Rock. In 1904, James A. McMahon was awarded the contract to build the lighthouse that you see here.

We were elated as we sailed under the Golden Gate to end the first leg of our voyage to Alaska. The skies cleared and the Bay opened before us in all its glory as we sailed in.

Our first stop of many in San Francisco was the St. Francis Yacht Club, pictured here. Many of the yacht clubs, including the Encinal Yacht Club, opened their doors to us. We had such a wonderful time during our six-week stay in San Francisco that it is our plan to spend the winter of 2009 -2010 in the Bay Area, where I have a number of friends who migrated north from Los Angeles after graduating from high school and college.

TO VIEW THE COMPLETE ALBUM WITH ALL THE PICTURES FROM THE MARINA DEL REY TO SAN FRANCISCO LEG OF OUR TRIP, CLICK HERE OR ON THE CAMERA ICON.

After entering the San Francisco Bay, our plan was to stay for about six weeks. First, I have a number of old friends from high school and college in the area that I wanted to visit, and second, we wanted to wait until the Pacific High developed over the eastern Pacific Ocean so that we would have reliable weather for the trip north from here. While in San Francisco we had a wonderful time, including playing tourist, here visiting Coit Tower.

TO LOOK AT THE ENTIRE PHOTO ALBUM FROM OUR SIX WEEK STAY IN THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, CLICK HERE OR ON THE CAMERA ICON.

Our next stop on our northward journey was Bodega Bay, immortalized in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller, The Birds.  Much to our disappointment, none of the original buildings from the movie have been preserved. It seems like Bodega Bay missed out by letting the buildings fall into disrepair and ultimately be torn down, because what could have been a good tourist draw has been lost to posterity.

Cruising yachtsmen often bypass Fort Bragg because the shallow, narrow entrance is extremely hazardous in a heavy westerly swell, and fog often obscures the hard-to-find entrance.

The reward for braving the treacherous entrance to Fort Bragg was our journey up the Nolo River to the marina. At every bend in the river this short trip became more and more like a cross between a small New England fishing village and Disneyland.

One of the highlights of any stop in Fort Bragg is a ride on the Skunk Train through the redwood forest. Always the ham, the XO cuts up with the conductor after unceremoniously appropriating his conductor's cap.

Coast Guard Group / Air Station Humboldt Bay serves the public along 250 miles of rugged coastline from the Mendocino - Sonoma County line north to the California - Oregon border. Cold Pacific currents, powerful Alaskan winter storms, towering offshore rocks, fog and dangerous harbor entrance bars consistently threaten commercial and recreational vessels operating in the area. The Command Center located at Group / Air Station Humboldt Bay monitors for distress 24 hours a day and directs Coast Guard boats and aircraft to respond to any maritime emergency in the region; along the coast, well offshore, or even inland.

Fresh from Lee Chesnaux's classes, we were thrilled at the opportunity to tour the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Eureka. Not only did they give us a full briefing of what to expect during the next seven days of our voyage, but we got to examine the high tech tools they have at their disposal to accurately forecast the weather in the region.

When I think of Victorian Architecture, I think of elaborate bow windows, towers, gingerbread trim, wrap around porches, odd shapes and unusual roof lines. The Carson Mansion in Eureka is one house that leaves nothing else to describe. This is said to be one of the most photographed houses in California, if not the USA or the world.

This mermaid, with the Crescent City light house in the background, adorns the waterfront. It was as we departured Crescent City that we had our first life-threatening experience of the voyage.

My mother had a favorite term, Grand Klong, which she whimsically described as "a sudden rush of shit to the heart." Well, less than an hour out of Crescent City, on a pitch black night in heavy seas with strong winds, we had our own Grand Klong. The XO had just gone to bed, leaving me to take the night shift, and I was startled by the sound of an unfamiliar alarm. A quick investigation revealed that it was the high water alarm.  I soon discovered that the bilge was rapidly filling with water which was imminently threatening to swamp the batteries and disable all electronics aboard ship. After tearing into several suspect locations, I discovered that the PSS shaft seal, pictured here, was the source of the flooding.  The chrome wheel seen at the top of the picture had worked loose, breaking the seal with the bellows and allowing water to flood the boat. Once identified as the source of the flood, I was able to quickly secure the restraining wheel. The short term fix was to install a hose clamp on the shaft forward of the wheel.

While we couldn't quickly forget the experience with the shaft seal, it did fade in our memory when we had two of my dearest lifelong friends, Ned Forman and his wife, Bev Roy, aboard last resort for an enjoyable daysail off Coos Bay, Oregon. 

As we traveled further north, the winds and seas grew increasingly stronger, as evidenced by this image shot by the XO of the seas outside the breakwater at the entrance to Newport Harbor, Oregon.

At around 9:30 pm on  May 1, 2008, our luck ran out. About six miles offshore, we heard a loud shudder and our engine ground to a halt. I restarted the engine with no problem, but the prop would not engage.  We had clearly hit a crab pot and somehow the line and float had disabled our prop. After sailing back to Newport and being towed across the bar by Vessel Assist because the wind had died, we spent a restless night worrying how serious the damage might have been. Fortunately, when the diver arrived in the morning, it turned out that the line on the crab pot had been effectively cut by the Shaft Shark line cutter, but not before the remaining line managed to seize our folding prop in the closed position, rendering it useless. But the good news was that there was no other damage and we were good to go at our discretion.

Remember I said that our strategy was to ride the southerly winds on the leading edge of approaching low pressure systems? Well, when we hit the crab pot, we also lost our weather window. After studying all the available information, the approaching cold front, with winds forecast to 25 knots and seas to 6 feet, did not seem like an insurmountable challenge, as we had been in far worse conditions in the past, so we decided to make a run for Gray's Harbor. The camera never seems to do justice to the sea state, but needless to say we had a busy night battling the seas pictured here en route to Gray's Harbor. When we arrived at daybreak the shallow bar that must be crossed was closed to all vessels under thirty feet. We contacted the Coast Guard to advise them we were coming in. They called us at least every five minutes for the next half hour to check on our progress and take down essential information. They were kind enough to send the harbor's dredge boat out to meet us at the bar. We laughed afterwards that the Coast Guard did everything but ask us for our next of kin.

The trip from Gray's Harbor to Neah Bay in the Straight of Juan de Fuca would be our last night underway at sea for many months to come. The Inside Passage does not lend itself to night sailing because of the amount of debris, seaweed, logs and deadheads in the water. Also, in the summer, the days are very, very long, so even adjusting for favorable tides, it is easy to complete even long passages in daylight hours.

With over 1500 miles under the keel since leaving Mexico, we rounded Cape Flattery at first light on May 6, 2008. More than a little spooked by the prospect of hitting another crab pot, we made the trip from Gray's Harbor by sailing over 20 miles off shore, which also allowed us to time our arrival in the Strait of Juan de Fuca with daylight.

It was very cool that our arrival in the Pacific Northwest coincided with the Canadian Catalina Rendezvous. Here you see our new friends, Betty and Kees (pronounced "Casey") who we palled around with for the 2008-2009 winter....no, they aren't terrorists!!!

After knocking around the Gulf Islands for a couple of weeks, including attending an informal Bluewater Cruising Association rendezvous in Pender Harbor and visiting our friend Bob Morris in Nanaimo, we were ready to begin sailing the remaining 800+ miles to Alaska. Our next stop after leaving Nanaimo was Ford's Cove on Hornby Island.

Cape Mudge lighthouse marks the southern entrance to the Discovery Passage. Near here, I had my first prawning experience, catching over 300 prawns during our enjoyable stay in Campbell River.

Seymour Narrows looks docile at slack tide, but here's what the sailing instructions say about the narrows: "Mariners are advised to navigate Seymour Narrows only at or near slack water... Fatal accidents have occurred to small vessels when attempting to navigate this narrows when the tidal stream is running at full strength. Some vessels have been capsized with loss of life...even near slack water and in reasonable weather conditions."  We have one friend who transited the narrows during strong currents and at one point registered 17 knots on his instruments!

Rounding Chatham Point  when northbound means that you've both successfully completed a passage through Seymour Narrows and entered Johnstone Strait, where you'll enjoy its broad vistas and majestic scenery.

When strong winds oppose strong currents, the result is steep, choppy waves, and an uncomfortable ride. The first leg down Johnstone Strait was planned for about 20 miles, allowing us to safely anchor before the current changed.  We had planned to stop at a small anchorage on Helmcken Island, but when we arrived, much to our surprise there was already a boat anchored, leaving no room for us. As a result, we had to push on for another hour to get to Port Neville, and we really got hammered by 25 knot winds and steep four to six foot waves. This was one anchorage we were really happy to reach.

One of the more interesting stops along the Inside Passage was in Alert Bay. Here we saw this totem pole under construction. Sharon, who loves the smell of fresh cedar, managed to snag a few of the chips to help ward off moths in our closets. 

Another Alert Bay gem was the U'mista Cultural Centre, one of the longest-operating and most successful First Nations cultural facilities in British Columbia. It was founded in 1980 as a ground breaking project to house potlatch artifacts which had been seized by the Canadian government during an earlier period of cultural repression. The return of the potlatch artifacts not only provided U'mista's name ('the return of something important'), and sparked a general trend toward repatriation of First Nations' cultural artifacts, it caused the creation of a physical facility and human resources infrastructure which have been successfully operated for over two decades. Pictured here are some examples of local art.

From Alert Bay we stopped in Port Hardy to collect our mail, then it was off to Rivers Inlet, our entry into which is pictured here. In order to take advantage of favorable winds blowing across Queen Charlotte Sound, one of the few open ocean crossings in the Inside Passage, we elected to depart Port Hardy by crossing the infamous Nahwitti Bar. The problem for skippers is that the bar is quite shallow (about 7 fathoms) with a maximum ebb current of 5.5 knots. The prevailing northwest swells, which reached 12 feet during our Queen Charlotte Sound crossing, heap up across the Nahwitti Bar if the wind is blowing at the same time. Even though we timed our crossing for slack tide, the swells across the bar were six feet and very steep, causing us to pound through them before turning to a comfortable beam reach. Our friends in power boats, who took the direct route around Cape Caution complained for days about the beating they took with the waves right on their nose.

As I have always been a "gunkholer" ("Shallow-water sailing and anchoring in out-of-the-way places"), I couldn't resist taking numerous shortcuts on this trip. Here we are on our way to Duncanby Landing in Goose Bay, after turning out of Rivers Inlet before the main entrance. Sharon, eyes glued to the depth sounder, alterted me to the rapidly rising bottom in time to hard reverse just before we hit an uncharted rock, of which there are tens of thousands in the Pacific Northwest.

We arrived at Duncanby Landing several weeks before this exclusive fishing resort was open for the season, so as you can see, we had the place to ourselves. We enjoyed hiking along the moss-covered streams in the foothills behind the resort. 

This is the entrance to Codville Lagoon Provincial Marine Park. Once beyond the entrance, we were greeted with beautiful vistas of towering mountains with cascading waterfalls. Codville Lagoon is truly a saltwater lake.

There is nothing particularly distinquishing about the Shearwater Resort and Marina, although the scenery is beautiful, as you can see, and the services are first rate. But it was here that we met a group of cruisers that had gotten together because they all owned Nordhavn yachts. Were we ever to buy a powerboat, I suspect it would be a Nordhavn. We partied with this group at several other stops during the summer and plan to get together with some of these new friends in the future.

Discovery Cove is off the beaten path and seldom visited, so why are we here, you might ask?  Well  this story has it's genesis in the fall of 2007 when we were cruising the Channel Islands in Southern California. While there, we met two boats en route to Hawaii from the Pacific Northwest. They told us about the http://www.toandos.com/bnnbn.html, and when propogation permitted, we joined in. As a result, we met Clark and Nina, a couple cruising the Pacific Northwest on their home-built trimaran, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. While in Shearwater and communicating on that very same ham net almost a year later, we learned that they were staying in Discovery Cove, so we immediately detoured and had the pleasure of meeting them in person.

Seeing our first humpback whale sounding just yards from the boat was a thrill, and catching this image even more thrilling. I actually got two shots as there were a pair of humpbacks and I caught the second one as it sounded as well.

Many of you will remember this picture from Khutz Inlet. While we had seen lots of beautiful scenery until arriving here, this location thoroughly validated our decision to begin our life as cruising sailors in the Pacific Northwest. We gleefully circulated this image among our friends so they could enjoy the scenic beauty we were enjoying.

Khutz Inlet was also where we saw our first grizzly bear....this guy. In talking with some locals anchored nearby, we learned that the bears in this area were extremely dangerous because this is a designated bear relocation area for problem bears. We also learned that when grizzly (or brown bears) attack, it is usually defensive or to protect cubs, whereas black bear attacks are predatory. Hearing that prompted us to buy a can of pepper spray formulated specifically to deter bears. Thankfully, to date none of the bears we've encountered have overtly considered us a likely snack!

I guess you can tell I was overcome by the grandeur of Khutz Inlet by the amount of space I've given it, but for first impressions, this place took the cake. Traveling here, up the Khutz River, we also saw our first black bears, a sow with her two cubs and a young male that actually jumped into the river as if he was coming after us. But when we quickly backed down the dinghy, he swam harmlessly by and scampered up the shore into the safety of the dense  forest.

I know, I know, I said I loved to gunkhole, but when I saw the entrance to Watts Narrows I thought "You've got to be kidding. How are we going to get 47 feet of sailboat with 65 feet of mast and rigging through there?" Well, read on....

After issuing a "Securité" over the VHF radio to announce that we were entering Watts Narrows (it's a blind channel), we twisted and turned and edged our way through. At times we had less than ten feet between ourselves and the rocky shore. At the spot pictured here, we got our first glimpse of the safety of Baker Inlet, if only we can negotiate this last turn!

TO VIEW THE ENTIRE PHOTO ALBUM OF OUR TRIP FROM PORT ANGELES TO ALASKA, CLICK HERE OR ON THE CAMERA ICON.

      >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>ALASKA<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Here, the XO celebrates our arrival in Alaska. Almost five months to the day since we left the Coral Hotel Marina in Ensenada, Mexico, we crossed the US/Canada border while transiting Dixon Entrance, the last open ocean passage of the northbound voyage.  The emotions we experienced were hard to describe, at once feeling a sense of satisfaction and immense anticipation at the Alaska adventures that lay before us. Most cruisers seek approval from US Customs to anchor overnight in Foggy Bay, cutting 38 miles off the trip from Prince Rupert to Ketchikan. When we reached Foggy Bay, we were too excited to stop, so we just pushed on to Ketchikan, making for a very long 13.5 hour day.

We were really lucky to find moorage in colorful Thomas Basin upon our arrival in Ketchikan. In the heart of the city, this popular marina is jam packed during the summer months. We also reconnected with the Nordhavn fleet and our friends when we first arrived.\

While some of our cruising friends scoffed at us, we decided to attend the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show, primarily an attraction that exists because of the cruise ship industry. We actually had a great time, and while it was pretty hokey, the athletes were actually very impressive.  The guy on the right on the log is actually third in the world at the pole climb. During the competition, he was up and down a fifty foot pole before his competition could even make it halfway up the pole.

Some wonderful friends we made in Ketchikan sent us this lovely picture, I guess to prove to us that the sun really does shine in Ketchikan. Unfortunately, our summer in Alaska reportedly had the worst weather in many, many years. But not to worry, we had so many incredible experiences and saw such unbelievable sights that the weather was merely an annoyance, not a hindrance.

The next unique experience was our trip through Misty Fjords National Monument. Dead ahead as we entered is the Punchbowl, a deep fiord that took our breath away. We anchored overnight before moving deeper into the fjords.

Somebody needed to pinch me to make me believe we were really sailing our own boat into this majestic fjord. We discovered the only mooring buoy in Walker Cove was occupied, so we ventured to the head of the cove, and were duly rewarded.

Seeing Last Resort as a mere speck against the enormous grandeur of Walker Cove was indeed a humbling experience. It was at this anchorage I caught my first crab and where we enjoyed watching a grizzly bear with her two cubs for over an hour.

A passage through Wrangell Narrows can best be described as a piloting challenge. There are over 60 numbered navigational aids, including five sets of range markers, along this 21 mile, narrow channel. Constant vigilance is required so as not to miss any of the marks, especially since some of them are nearly behind where you’ve just been. The XO and I found it very satisfying to include a passage through Wrangell Narrows among our cruising accomplishments.

We encountered our first icebergs in Stephens Passage en route to Tracy Arm. From a distance, I couldn’t figure out what I was looking at, because I hadn’t expected to see icebergs so soon. Icebergs take on this beautiful blue color because the ice is so compressed that all of the air has literally been squeezed out of them. It is said that by the time an iceberg calves from a glacier, the ice is over 10,000 years old. Try this in your 12-year old single malt scotch!

As if we didn’t have enough to worry about with uncharted rocks, raging,  turbulent currents, williwaws, deadhead logs, violent storms, crab pots, big seas, life-threatening mechanical failures, and cruise ships in narrow channels, we could now add “bergy bits” to our list. How would you like to try to avoid this prop-killer from the cockpit in limited visibility while traveling at eight knots?

The first glacier that I saw up close and personal was the South Sawyer Glacier. It was some feat to get here. After sailing nine miles up Tracy Arm, we ran out of real estate. The pack ice closed in, so we decided to leave the XO aboard Last Resort while I ventured forth in the dinghy. After picking my way through the ice, I finally arrived at this spot where I had a clear view of the glacier. The bergy bits were too thick for me to continue any further without the risk of damaging the prop on the outboard and getting stranded three miles from the safety of Last Resort.

There is a shallow bar with a narrow opening that must be crossed to enter and depart Tracy Arm. The path of entry is so critical that vessel operated range lights and day beacons have been installed to keep vessels from straying out of the channel. The buoys are unreliable, because as you can see here, icebergs frequently drag them off station, an accident waiting to happen for the unsuspecting mariner.

I can not forget the joy of seeing our first eagle in Bedwell Harbor soon after we arrived in the Pacific Northwest. Since then, we have seen dozens of eagles, but this is my favorite image. When I look at it I fell as if I, too, am soaring.

Of course, the Holy Grail of this voyage was Glacier Bay. All vessels are required to have a permit and check in at the Bartlett Cove Ranger Station. Under the vessel permit system, motorized pleasure boat operators are required to obtain a non-fee permit prior to entering Glacier Bay anytime between June 1 and August 31. Because Bartlett Cove is one of the most heavily used whale feeding areas, a permit is required to enter Bartlett Cove as well as the rest of the bay. Vessels entering without a permit may be denied access to the bay, asked to leave and issued a citation.  Even with fuel prices nearing $7.00 a gallon, Glacier Bay was as busy as ever and we had a difficult time obtaining a permit. But once we did, the adventures began.

Once cleared to proceed into Glacier Bay, we were overcome by the scenery and the glacial views. This picture is of the Grand Pacific Glacier which we saw as we entered Tarr Inlet.

Margerie Glacier is the most spectacular of them all. During our visit this glacier put on quite a show, calving continuously. The Margerie Glacier is an excellent example of a tide-water glacier -- that is, a glacier that extends into a body of water. The Margerie Glacier's height is 250 feet. The glacier also extends another 100 feet below the water line.

If you look closely at the base of this glacier, you will see a wave that has been generated by ice calving off the face.  As we were in the dinghy, this wave, about ¼ mile distant gave us quite a start, but it dissipated to a pretty small wave by the time it reached us. We were told in our orientation at the Ranger Station that this kind of wave can reach thirty feet.  They suggested we keep a mile off the glacier, but privately they said we could safely approach within ¼ mile. An unseen danger is that the glaciers also calve from under the water, and if you’re too close a huge ice berg could actually surface from beneath, capsizing a small dinghy and doing serious damage to a sailboat our size.

The double dangers of calving from above and below is why we all pretty much held our breath when this fishing boat barged right through the ice to the base of the glacier. He came in too quickly to realize how much calving activity was occurring, but when he saw a huge chunk of ice break off nearby, he made a hasty retreat to a safe distance.

If anyone had ever told me that I’d be standing an overnight anchor watch to fend off icebergs, I would have suggested that they were slightly crazy. But here we were anchored in a cove that filled with icebergs and bergy bits as the tide changed. Our friend Stephen Chew took the 0600 watch and here you see him fending off one of the larger icebergs. Remember, 90% of the volume of an iceberg is unseen below the surface. So maybe I’m the crazy one after all.

And no sooner had we arrived in Glacier Bay than our short stay in this majestic place came to an end. This was to be our final sunset anchored in Reid Inlet, Glacier Bay. But there were lots of adventures still ahead of us.

In spite of the excitement of our Glacier Bay experience, the real drama of the trip was a couple of weeks later just before we arrived at Elfin Cove. Much of the action was under water, so this picture only gives a hint of the drama that was taking place. As we came through the narrow Inian Passage, we saw a lot of activity in  the water ahead. When we approached, we realized a pod of Orcas was attacking a humpback calf. This was at once both tragic and compelling to watch. We could see the sow frantically flailing about and her plaintive cries were haunting and heart wrenching. We did not stay to see the end and learn if the calf survived or not, but clearly it was a battle that was going to continue  for some time.

It's an understatement that the people of Alaska are eclectic.  Every one of the tiny little hamlets we visited was peppered with random works of art, ranging from a huge spiderweb, complete with copper spider, to this carving of what looks to be an eel, adorned with salmon berries. The analogy to "Beauty and the Beast" is inescapable.

So many of the frontier towns in Alaska are built over the water on boardwalks. Pelican is an excellent example. It is also the home of  Rose's "World Famous" Bar (perhaps self-proclaimed), established in 1973, where the custom is to get unsuspecting customers to climb on the bar to paste their business card on the ceiling, when they are promptly "pantsed" by the other clients!!!  We managed to avoid that since I had no business cards with me at the time.  Here we met a fisherman who described being chased back into the bar by a black bear the night before.  The guy looked and talked just like Stephen Wright...you know, the "Why do we drive on a parkway and park in a driveway?" comedian.

Gardener Bay, on the west side of Prince of Wales Island, proved to be  a photograher's dream.  After negotiating another extremely narrow and shallow entrance channel, which we unbelievably shared with a humpback whale, we entered a fascinating lagoon-type setting.  Here Sharon tests her new kayak in the rapids of a waterfall created from a lake that sits about 15 feet above sea level and is fed by the spillover of sea water at high tide, and then drains through these falls.  Tidal swings are remarkable in these waters, sometimes with as much as 25 feet of difference between high and low tide, requiring a careful eye on the tide tables when setting anchor.  You wouldn't want to find yourself high and dry at low tide!

Shortly after we left the relatively benign waters of southern British Columbia, we were warned by our friends Clark and Nina that these orange jellyfish, the Lions Mane, can be extremely dangerous should you find yourself entangled in the highly toxic tentacles. Not long after I took this image, we had a close encounter of our own.  While running the generator during the evening, I noticed that the sound of sea water running through the exhaust suddenly stopped, so I quickly shut down the generator and began to investigate. What I found was that one of these gooey creatures had been sucked into the raw water intake and completely clogged the intake and the sea water strainer.  Even though I took precautions while cleaning it out, I managed to sustain some nasty burns.  In some pain and concerned it would get worse, I called the Coast Guard for advice. They told me to treat the wounds with vinegar, and absent that, to use urine, confirming what I thought was a joke when a bunch of local fisherman chimed in on the VHF suggesting just that remedy...in far more colorful language.  When the vinegar didn't do much, however, I followed another anonymous fisherman's unsolicited advice to just "Man Up," rather than try the urine approach. You gotta love it up here in Alaska!

So just like that, our dream to cruise Alaska drew to a close. It was with very mixed emotions that I plotted a course for our winter home in Sidney, British Columbia, knowing it's a certainty we will never again sail our own boat in these wild and uncharted waters. It is said you should never visit Alaska as a young man, because you'll spend your whole life trying to get back. This might hold true at any age. But while we won't be back, images such as this will be emblazoned in our memories while we search for new adventures as the voyages of Last Resort continue. I will continue to update our POSITION REPORTS as we move around the Pacific Northwest over the winter and next summer, so you can keep up with our travels.

Here are a few interesting statistics:

I hope you've enjoyed these images and a small taste of the adventure you'll find in Manning Up In Alaska. Please enjoy the book too!