With about 55 nm to go today we got an early start. The weather was beautiful in the
morning. Blue skies, sun, a bit of fog
hanging low on the water. Mountains were
visible in just about every direction and the wind was light.
 |
| What a morning! |
The first half of the day’s trip were easy, and we benefitted
from a bit of current pushing us along.
Lots of humpbacks all around, and quite a bit of breaching and fin
slapping in the distance. Nothing too
close, but that’s okay.
About half way through the trip we began hearing a whole
bunch of commotion on VHF 16. A 58 foot
boat had struck a rock in Windham Bay and was taking on water faster than her
pumps could remove it. The Coast Guard
responded promptly and sent two helicopters with dewatering pumps to the
sinking boat. A number of good samaritans
nearby changed course to the vessel in distress and offered assistance. Not too much later, the owner of the sinking
boat got things mostly under control it sounded like (we could only hear the
Coast Guard’s radio transmissions). They
were making way for Petersburg with an ETA of 7:00 pm.
 |
| Getting close to Petersburg |
We got into Petersburg about 4:00 pm after a pleasant day on
the water. The wind picked up a bit in
the afternoon, but it was coming from behind and didn’t make for uncomfortable
seas.
Princess, a 40-foot sailboat from San Francisco owned by
Bruce and Lynne was just down the dock from our slip. They’re friends with Hans and Terri on Mellow
Moments and I’d met them at Glacier Bay.
I swung by there boat to see if they had any recommendations for dinner
places and we ended up going out to dinner with the two of them and Hans and
Terri.
After dinner I walked over to the haul out area and found
the boat that had been in distress earlier, still floating. As I walked by the owner popped his head out
and I said I was glad he made it in. He
ended up telling me the whole story of what happened and showed me the
damage.
Basically, he left the boat on autopilot with his wife in
the pilothouse while he went to use the head.
A few minutes later he heard a crash.
Their port stabilizer fin had struck a rock. He got the boat back to deeper water and then
noticed the high water alarm going off in the engine room. He went down and found the floorboards
floating. At this point he called the
Coast Guard on the radio.
The “box” where the stabilizer fin shaft enters the boat was
a mess of buckled fiberglass with saltwater shooting in through the
cracks. Not good, but the inflow was
only about five gallons per minute, easily handled by the installed bilge
pumps. The owner said the initial
problem was that he had blocked off the weep holes to prevent a bit of oil
leaking out of his generator from being pumped overboard. This also prevented water from flowing from
the leak to the bilge pumps. As soon as
he got the weep holes opened up, his pumps had no problem keeping up.
He was really glad to have made it into port and extremely
grateful to the Coast Guard and good samaritans nearby. A really nice guy who made, as he termed it,
a stupid mistake.
Anyway, tomorrow we’re off to LeConte Glacier and will
probably spend the night in Ideal Cove.
Then back to Petersburg and down Wrangell Narrows. We’ll spend the night at St. John Harbor and
then head to Wrangell Monday morning. A
friend from college grew up in Petersburg and is working on a seine boat this
summer. He’s going to be in Petersburg
Monday and Tuesday, so I’ll head back up to Petersburg Monday after dropping
dad off.
52.9 nm today and 1,889.5 total
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