Scary names

Murder Cove, Peril Strait, Deadmans Reach, Poison Cove – these are nasty names and there’s plenty more like them.  Compared to them, Rocky Pass sounds positively benign.  Tonight we’re at the top end of Rocky Pass and – in what some guidebooks describe as a last frontier for S.E. Alaska – we have data coverage.  Who’da thunk?

We had a wonderful time at Baranof.  It was a totally different experience than the first time we were there and we loved it the first time.  Last night SWMBO organized docktails and we ended up with 7 boats comprising about 20 people on the dock.  A good time was had by all and, true to form, the Aussies tried to steal one of our folding chairs at the end of the party.  Descendants of murderers & thieves all of them. 

Unlike the last time when we had the dock entirely to ourselves, this time it was full on both sides.  Which means only one thing – DOCKTAILS!

The two couples off the Aussie boat were good fun, particularly Christian Fletcher.  That’s not his real name but after he started calling his Captain “Bligh”, we all started calling him Christian and by the end of the evening he was well enough lit that he was responding to Christian.  The men were about to embark on a grand adventure – taking their newly acquired Ocean Alexander – I’m guessing it at 55 feet – across the Pacific and home to Australia.  The women were (probably wisely) going to fly home.  Ocean Alexander makes a great boat but they’re not generally regarded as ocean crossers so they will need good weather but they have a weather router that they trust so I’m sure they’ll be OK. 

This is bull kelp.  It grows on shallow rocks but that’s not where we picked up this one.  After it breaks free of the rocks, it floats in big mats on the surface and when we ran through one of those areas today this guy got hung up on the port side stabilizer fin.  It was a big struggle to get it off but we succeeded.  One year we ran through some kelp south of Cortes Island and it slowed us down enough that we had to stop and reverse for a few seconds to clear it.

We’re officially heading south now – Rocky Pass lies directly north and south.  Once we come out the south end of the pass we’ll be about a day north of Ketchikan although I expect we’ll stretch that to two days in order to stop in Meyer’s Chuck.   Tonight we’re anchored in Stedman Bay at the north end of the pass, just south of Kake.  Its a pretty spot but the pretty is a little bit disturbed by the presence of a couple of oyster farms.  Another couple that we met in Baranof just joined us and we plan to stick together through Rocky Pass.  That way when we run aground they can pull us off.