The weather had been sunny and warm all week, so you know what it was for the weekend, rainy and cool, with a little wind thrown in for good measure.
But it's summer, so we do what we do - go boating!
Here is our intended route from Bar Harbor to Shelter Cove in Carroll Inlet.
You can't tell from this map snippet but Carroll Inlet runs almost due North.
I did not get many photos this trip partly because of the rainy weather, and partly because we just didn't do that much. That's not to say we did not enjoy the weekend, because we certainly did.
Here are a couple of shots of the USCG (US Coast Guard) vessels at the base that we passed on the way out of town.
This the cutter Anthony Petitte. I apologize if it is not actually considered a "Cutter." It could possibly be a "Buoy Tender." Having never been in the Coast Guard I don't really know the different types of vessels that they have.
There are 2 USCG vessels in this shot, in case you can't tell. These vessels have machine guns on the foredeck.
Because of Ketchikan's unique location on the Inside Passage, boats of all sizes pass through here during the cruising season. The City of Ketchikan maintains several harbors around town, but those harbors really don't provide spaces for the really big mega-yachts to tie up. So a few enterprising people in town have private moorage available for the big yachts.
I was following the blog for 76' Nordhavn Eliana when she came through Ketchikan, They tied up at a private dock and they told me it was $3 per foot per night. Quick math, that's about $250 a night for a place to tie up.
All of that is leading up to this next shot, the yacht "Glaze." According to the Internet it is a 161' yacht.
Glaze is tied up at Doyon's Landing, which is one of the few private moorages in town. I wonder what it's like to cruise around on a yacht like Glaze.
You can also see the bright orange wind sock in the right side of the picture. We had a stiff SE breeze blowing as we made our way out of town.
We made our way into Carroll Inlet which is a very protected area. We did some bottom fishing, just drifting along and not anchoring. All I managed to catch were a few Turbot. Turbot are a flat fish a lot like a halibut. They are smaller, not getting very large at all, and they hardly have any meat on them at all. We don't keep them.
Somewhere along this time I prepped and baited the shrimp pots and we dropped them in what I hoped was a likely looking spot. I have not yet been able to locate a proven reliable spot for shrimp in this area, so I am still prospecting so to speak.
I had 3 options lined up for our night spot on this trip. We prefer to be at a USFS (US Forest Service) dock if we can be. That makes it a lot easier for stretching our legs, and we also don't have to worry about our anchor dragging. There are two such docks in this area, Shelter Cove and Shoal Cove. Shelter Cove was my first choice, so we headed that direction.
Unfortunately this is what we found when we got there.
This a bunk house/barge tied to the float taking up one whole side. On the other side they have a float plane dock which boats are not allowed to tie to. There is a small USFS boat already tied up on the right side, behind the float plane dock. It might have been possible to tie to the front, but that blue buoy seen on the right foreground shows where the cable from the bunk house is anchored. There is a similar buoy out of frame on the left. That means there are two honkin' big cables coming from that bunk house barge. Not good to tangle up with them - they always win.
The presence of the barge indicates that logging operations are either already fired up there or are about to be fired up.
So option 1 was a no go. So we moved over to the Shoal Cove USFS dock. And we had a fantastic dinner of hot dogs and baked beans while we were on our way.
Here is a shot of Faraway at the Shoal Cove dock:
We took a little hike up the road and stretched our legs.
I don't think Bambina has ever seen a deer before. This deer saw her before she saw the deer. The deer took a few timid steps toward her before Bina turned and growled and started chasing her. Lisa was amused at the way the doe hopped its way off the road and into the brush, with Bina growling and chasing her.
We had a relatively quiet night at the dock, even though it rained fairly hard off and on during the night. About 2:15 AM both Lisa and I heard a loud "Ka-thump" from outside. We both thought it sounded like someone or something jumping on board. So I turned on all the deck lights and went out and checked things out. Couldn't find anything. I think it might have been a bumper resetting itself between the dock and the boat.
Sunday morning we were up early and had a good breakfast. We took another walk and then headed for home.
The shrimp pots were a disappointment, only yielding about 2 dozen shrimp. We usually get a lot more than that. There are two species of shrimp around here. I call them Spots and Stripes. Usually we get about 95% Spots, but this haul was 100% Stripes.
When we got over to the Herring Cove area I set the two trolling poles and we trolled up the shore line and around Mountain Point. All we got was one undersized King, which we had to let go.
Back in the stall by about 2:15 PM.
57.1 nm for this trip.
Could have been a better trip, but it's better than staying home and sitting on the couch.
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