Unexpected Petersburg

We woke up early again and left for Petersburg with only about 25 gallons of gas in the boat because the Wrangell fuel docks are closed on Sunday. Huh??? We had about 40 miles to go via Wrangell Narrows. The tide was with us, so we hoped we would be fine. We added 5 gallons from our spare cans about half way through the narrows and ultimately got where we were going. We still had almost 10 gallons of spare fuel available.

Our intent was to spend just a short time in Petersburg to provision and then leave for Baranof Warm Springs, one of our favorite stops in Southeast Alaska. As we were leaving the dock, we discovered that our engine would not go in reverse, so back to the dock we went and Don spent the afternoon fixing the problem. By the time he was done we decided to stay the night.

We both enjoyed Petersburg on our 2007 trip. It is a friendly town and everything is very close to the dock and, if you have time to stay, they have a nice five-mile trail around the island. The last time we visited, we rode our bikes all over the island and enjoyed visiting with the local fishing crews. But this time we were anxious to get to Baranof Warm Springs. We needed to wait until the stores opened at 8 a.m. and then we were on our way.

As we were leaving the weather reports were being updated to say that smoke from a wild fire in the Yukon had settled over Southeast Alaska and visibility could be limited. We noticed the haze in the air and as we traveled it became more dense until we felt as if we were in fairly heavy fog. Visibility was limited to less than five miles. Other than that, the weather was still beautiful.

On the way to Baranof, Fredrick Sound was very flat. As we approached the east end of Kupreanof Island we were cruising along minding our own business when Don looked out the window and saw a humpback whale surface going the same direction right next to us. It happened so fast we didn’t have the time to grab the cameras. After that we began seeing whales spouting all around. We saw orcas, but most of the whales were humpback and there were a lot of them probably twenty or more. We just slowed our pace, kept going, and watched the whales pass by. As we moved into Chatham Strait we began seeing two- and three-foot waves. We thought we would fight this all the way across, however, after a while, it settled down to less than a foot. We arrived at Baranof Warm Springs at 4:30 p.m. and quickly found space at the dock.