17 Jun 23

The alarm rousted me out of a restless night of broken sleep at 04:40. After listening to the morning weather forecast, we were under way by 05:00 to catch the last two hours of ebb tide down to the bottom end of Behm Canal. Caamano Point (at the southern tip of the Cleveland Peninsula was abeam to starboard at 06:40 and with the wind now behind us, we killed the engine and hoisted all plain sail on a very broad reach with the wind essentially behind us at SE 15. By 08:00, the wind had dropped to SE 7-10 and was now directly behind us, so I rigged up the pole on the starboard side and we goose-winged for the remainder of the run to Meyers Chuck. On the way up, we passed the “Queen Elizabeth”, which was headed to Ketchikan. We sailed to within 2.5 miles of the entrance, when the wind essentially died. We were tied up at the public dock at 10:00. After a quick video and voice conversation with Dan, Emily and Joyce, we walked up the dock and ordered a cinnamon bun and a dozen cookies from Cassy, who also runs the U.S. Post Office here. Cassy informed me that there is no fee for moorage. We had intermittent showers and sun throughout the afternoon, although we did find time during a sunny spell to walk to both ends of “town”. It’s a quiet little place; it used to be occupied mainly by professional fishermen and there was a small guest lodge, but it is now being taken over mainly by seasonal folks from the city. We had dinner aboard and enjoyed a glorious, absolutely cloudless, sunset; the first one in at least a week. I played guitar and sang songs for an hour or so as it set. Lovely. I think we will press on to Wrangell tomorrow.

55-44.369’N, 132-15.489’W; Log = 26.7, Sum = 1059.3; Eng. hrs. = 2.2, Sum = 3279.5