2025 Adventures on Blue Redd

Today, our good friends from Portland, OR joined us aboard Blue Redd for a week of the Alaska experience.  Which according to the local forecast is going to comprise of rain, every day.   Even the locals are universally complaining that this is the rainiest/wettest summer they've ever experienced. Jerry & Diane are real troopers.   In order to get here, they endured cancelled flights, rerouted flights, overnight in the Anchorage airport, crack-o-dawn flights on the milk-run from Anchorage to Sitka, lost luggage, and a 0.6 mile walk from the Sitka airport to our boat in the harbor in the rain (note, the distance is actually 2.6 miles as the walk goes).   And they finally got here, and even in good spirits! Otherwise today consisted of some waiting, boat chores, cleaning, shopping for fishing supplies (I bought a new salmon rod), lots of good conversation, and dinner. Dinner was spaghetti Bolognese, arugula/sun dried tomato salad, and a left over 1/2...

This shot of the coastline in Appleton Cove.   Most of the cove is really shallow as it is a drying mudflat at low tide.   The mudflats extend a long way from shore.   We were anchored in about 30' of water, so we were fine but when the sea level drops and the shoreline approaches quickly; it does make me nervous! Here we are heading west in Peril Strait towards today's destination of Sitka, about 50 miles away. We departed Appleton Cove at 1055 because that's when the currents turn favorable.   In a slow boat that only does 7.5 knots, fighting a 2-knot current against you just burns fuel and wastes time.   So, we time our voyages accordingly.   Sometimes that coincides with more favorable winds and sun, and sometimes not.   Today was mostly a not... The "not" part was 35knots of wind and a lot of rain.   I'm not used to seeing dense fog and strong winds at the same time.   That made for some navig...

I assure you there are probably 15-20 whales in the area of this picture.   Most of the time we just see a spout or maybe a tail.   This morning, there were spouts, backs, tails all over the place.   Too bad you can't really see any of them in this picture.   Welcome to whale watching in Alaska! Maybe you can spot one in this photo.   See the black spot in the middle of the photo just below where the water meets the land?   That's a humpback whale's tail.   When you see the tails, that generally means they are diving deep, and you won't see them again for a while. Chorizo Scramble for breakfast, then a bit of clean-up and preparation and we are ready to retrieve the anchor and be underway. We departed Ell Cove leaving only one fishing boat in the anchorage.   We are headed to Appleton Cove in Rodman Bay on Baranof Island.   This is the same island that the town of Sitka is on, but Sitka is on the o...

What is a Purse Seiner?    A pu rse seiner is a type of fishing vessel that uses a large wall of netting called a purse seine to encircle and capture schools of fish.  The net is deployed around the fish, and then a line is pulled to close the bottom of the net, preventing the fish from escaping.   And they snatch them from the ocean in large quantities. Remember in the movie, "Saving Nemo", when the Australian fishermen captured Nemo in the big net?  That was a purse seine. In this picture, above, you can see the fishermen reeling the big net in. Here is another picture where the fishermen have their purse (net) out all the way to the shore. These Purse Seiners, like the other types of fishermen, travel in fleets.   There were maybe 15-20 boats all around Ell Cove as we were entering.   In this picture, this is their processing "mothership".   When the fishermen are full, they unload their catch onto this boat.  We gott...

Yup, we've got a bear.   Brown/Grizzly.   6/25/2025 2030 (8:30pm) hours and we see our first bear of the season!   And, "Yes", it really is still this light at 8:30pm!  Twilight won't start for another hour or so. Bears look remarkable similar to large slow-moving rocks.   We think we spot one and then it turns out to be a rock.   But sometimes, not. I think this one must be a juvenile, as he seems pretty small. Today, we went nowhere.   We stayed put in Red Bluff Bay.   This place is stunningly beautiful.  Towering snow-capped mountains all around, waterfalls galore, and just gorgeous scenery.   Here are some pictures of this place that we took from our dink ride around the bay in the early afternoon.   We had to wait until it finally stopped raining, hence the late start.   It was a bit chilly, so we bundled-up. And some deer, too. For those of you who wanted more pictures and...

  Enjoy the Zen moment.   This is one of the many reasons we like cruising in Alaska.

From today's title, you can probably hazard a guess at the weather today.   If you guessed FOG, you'd be right!   This is a picture from Red Bluff Bay, our anchorage for perhaps the next two nights. I started out this morning with a surprise sales meeting.   This is what happens when you put a Calendly link in your email signature; people will sign themselves up.   No problem, I got this.   Hey, it was a sales call and I'm a sales guy... Yesterday we were motoring through some areas that were just teeming with life.   While that's pretty cool, it also plugs up the primary sea strainers on the main engine. So, this morning's chore was to clean them out.  It's a bit tedious, but not difficult to do.   When the boat was designed the sea strainers were located in a reasonable area, so long as they never needed to be serviced...   They are squeezed between the forward bulkhead (think firewall in a car) and t...

Departing Exchange Bay, before the fog set in... Today, we transited Sumner Strait and the southern end of Chatham Strait as we continue towards Sitka.  It was very foggy this morning making the many gill-net fishing boats a major hazard to navigation.  Gill-netters string out a long net (up to about 1/2 mile long) with a small orange buoy at one end and their boat at the other.   Between that buoy and the boat is a net suspended by faded white/blue semi-floats, which are impossible to spot.  I can tell you that a lone, small orange buoy is hard to spot until you are nearly on top of them, let alone the invisible net floats...   But, we weaved our way through the fleet.   Why can't they answer VHF??? Once we rounded Port Protection, the weather cleared-up, and while not sunny, it was still very nice. The weather was cooperating, so we passed by Bear Bay, which was our intended destination and headed around Cape Decision to Port Malmesbury. Wh...