20 Jun 23

We had a great sleep after yesterday’s long walk, and were up by 08:00. The weather was again clear and warm. After breakfast, we decided we might as well get going, so were off the dock at 09:20. After stopping by the fuel dock to fill up, we were on our way from Wrangell at 09:55. The wind was light and on the nose (what a surprise), so we had an uneventful motor to the west in Sumner Strait to the south end of Wrangell Narrows. We turned up into the narrows at 12:58 and were tied up at the dock at North Harbor, Petersburg by 15:40. Wow, we have made it to Petersburg; in 1 month and 10 days. What a trip, so far. The Wrangell Narrows was a nice navigational interest, but no real challenge for seasoned veterans like us. We got to Green Point about 1.5 hours before HW slack. Since the engine was nice and warm, and engine has done 188 hours since the last oil change, I decided to go ahead and tackle this chore. The oil change was unremarkable, but I did find that the access door to the engine compartment from the galley was saturated with diesel fuel, as were the absorbent pads under the engine and then I found a 11/16” Nyloc nut laying in the bottom of the tray under the engine. Hmmm. I think this may have been one of the lock-down nuts for the house batteries that went missing when they removed the batteries - at least it fits on the hold-down studs; I hope so anyway. We are parked beside several local active sailors, so I got some good info on where to go for parts for mounting the Starlink, assuming it finally shows up. After Captain’s hour, we went up to town and had dinner at Inga’s Galley; very nice.  

56-48.804’N, 132-57.751’W; Log = 40.0, Sum = 1152.5 N-m; Eng. hrs. = 6.1, Sum = 3293.4

21 Jun 23

First day of summer; longest day of the year. Another beautiful day in paradise. The day started out well enough. After breakfast, we went up to start a load of laundry. Then, at the recommendation of one of my marina neighbors, I stopped off at Homeport Electronics and got the antenna mount and rail clamp for the Starlink dish unit and cancelled the order of similar equipment from Fisheries Supply, which had inexplicably never shipped anyway. Then, I came back to the boat to spend a bit of time looking for the apparent diesel fuel leak that I identified yesterday. It did not take long to find; with the engine running and the galley engine cover off, diesel fuel was fairly spraying out from a fitting on the top of the fuel injector pump. There being nothing I was able to do about that, I solicited advise from the fisherman next door regarding a good diesel mechanic in town. He put me onto Wikan Enterprises; I called them immediately and they had a technician here within 30 minutes. Unfortunately, the problem is within the fuel pump and not repairable on the boat. They pulled the fuel pump and went back to the shop to see if 1) they had a replacement in the shop or 2) they would have to send my fuel pump to Oregon Pumps (presumably in Oregon) to be repaired. By the end of the business day, we had not heard back from them, which I take to be a bad sign. It is not a big deal for us, but Jake is coming in on Friday and we were planning to run over to Sitka over the next week; this plan is now in serious jeopardy. Jake is still planning to come here anyway and we will have to figure out some way to entertain him in Petersburg if we cannot leave the dock. If we leave Petersburg by Wednesday, we could still make it to Sitka on Saturday, if the weather is good and we can average about 6.25 hours per day; a bit of a grind, but doable. But, this is cruising life.  

22 Jun 23

Well, we finally heard back from Wikan Enterprises (the diesel engine mechanic), after I walked over to the shop; they were unable to do anything in-house with mine and the unit they had in-hand, was not the right one for our engine. So, they have sent my off to Eugene, OR to be repaired; they sent it gold-star (whatever that is; sounds expensive) and Oregon Fuel Pumps(?) should have it by late tomorrow morning. Hopefully, they have all the spare parts to effect the repair rapidly and can get it shipped back early next week. But they don’t work weekends, so it will be a miracle if it arrives back in Petersburg by Wednesday. Terri went grocery shopping, but of course, the better grocery store is a mile up the road. She bumped into our next boat neighbor’s mother-in-law (whom we had met yesterday afternoon) and ended up chatting with her for nearly an hour. We went back to Salty Pantry for lunch; at least this place has been a highlight of Petersburg. I looked into renting a car; none available until maybe Wednesday of next week. No bikes available to rent. One outfit does rent motor-scooters, but has not fired up any of them all winter, so was not sure if he could find one or two for tomorrow. So, it is looking like we are limited to walking anywhere we want to go around Petersburg.

23 Jun 23

Having nothing much to do today, we slept in, sort of. Actually, I was awake from 03:15 to about 05:30. After breakfast, we went up to the coffee shop to take advantage of their WiFi. No news regarding the fuel injection pump or the Starlink. Then we went to the hardware store, bought me some new boat shoes from Lee’s Clothing (my old New Balance shoes were at the end of their life), and after lunch (at the Salty Pantry, again), went to the Cedar Box to check out their native art. They had some really nice bentwood boxes, but I did not feel like dropping $1500. However, we did find a good salmon net. Back at the boat, I decided to take a little nap to catch up with my early morning loss, while Terri went to the bookstore to look for bargains. When I woke up, I went looking for her, and on the way up the dock got a notice from DHL that my package (Starlink) had finally been delivered. Sure enough, they had it for me at the marina office. I came back to the boat and plugged it in and it worked straight away; it’s a game-changer. It worked just fine with the inverter (I was worried that the modified sine wave alternating current signal would not be clean enough, but it seems to work just fine). We watched the Astros get beat by the Dodgers. Dinner aboard followed by an early night.

24 Jun 23

It was cloudy when we got up, but at least it was not raining. After breakfast, we started into routing the power and signal cables between the antenna and the modem. I found a good place for the modem right in front of the chart table on the port side behind our various technical books. I had to drill a hole through the bulkhead in front of the chart table, but inside the port side storage bin behind the settee for the power cable to route it to the inverter, which is under the chart table. Then, I had to drill a hole through the transom to route the signal cable from the antenna, which is mounted on a bracket above the after bimini arch support on the starboard side. The hole was the easy part. Then we had to route the cable from the starboard lazarette, under the steering cables just forward of the quadrant, past the after A/C unit, down through the bulkhead into the aft cabin under the port-side mattress, forward along the outside of the water tank, into the aft head, under the holding tank and under the electrical panel beside the chart table. We had to use our fishing wire to get from the aft head, past the chart table and into the port-side storage bin and then up to the router. I had to unscrew the A/C power control unit to gain access under the electrical panel to pull the cable through. Then, we went to lunch at Salty Pantry. After everything was pulled through and connected, I made sure the Starlink was still working correctly, then cable wrapped the signal and power cables and secured them all to the various bulkheads, so it is all nice and tidy. Then, I spent a couple of hours putting everything back together and reloading all of the lockers. I had to do a bit of repair work on the duct from the after A/C unit to the galley, because I kind of knocked it off while I was fooling around with the signal cable in the port-side lazarette; my ass is too big and I am not flexible to fold myself into the locker without pressing on all kinds of things I should not be. Anyway, it was all done by 15:30, in time to watch Alex Bregman hit a grand-slam homer to put the Astros ahead of the Dodgers 5-3 in the top of the 5th. I will need a couple of Advils tonight after all of this crawling around. I made one more quick run up to the hardware store to buy a 6 ft long 3-pole extension cord, so I can run the Starlink off of shore power without having to run the inverter constantly. The Starlink does not offer a 12-volt power option, so when we are at anchor somewhere, we will have to run the inverter. The Starlink also uses several amps of power, so we will not be running it continuously while at anchor, but we can run it long enough to get a weather update or collect/send any important e-mails. Jake flies in tomorrow afternoon at 14:15. The Astros somehow managed to blow a 7-3 lead and lose the game 8-7. About 18:00 a 65 foot gin palace pulled up to the T-head close to us; when they plugged into shore power, the last 10 boxes, including ours, tripped out and we did not have electricity for the remainder of the night. For dinner, we had leftover eggplant parmigiana from Salty Pantry.

25 Jun 23

After another good night’s sleep we awoke to an overcast, but not too cool morning. The power is still not back on. With a leisurely breakfast, including the most excellent cinnamon bun we bought yesterday at Salty Pantry, we sauntered up to the hardware store and bought another small foot rug (for the aft cabin) and another small storage bin for the starboard locker, to store Good to Go meals. It sprinkled a bit during the middle of the day. Jake’s flight arrived at 14:15 and he made it to the boat at about 15:00. After we got him settled in, we watched a Polynesian twin-hull vessel come in; it is on some kind of round-Pacific cultural tour and is stopping at most of the Alaskan villages that have any kind of First-Nations’ presence. We had Captain’s hour and dinner aboard, then sat up till midnight solving the problems of the world. The power came back on about 18:00. It started raining late in the evening; not hard, but steady.

26 Jun 23

It rained all night long, so we slept well. After breakfast, I got an update from Wikans; they are going to sell me a new fuel injection pump, as the repairs to the old one were somewhat involved, apparently. It may make it here late Tuesday afternoon, but more likely Wednesday.  Then, we went up and wandered around town, poking our heads in all the shops, having coffee at Glacier Express, then lunch at Coastal Cold Storage, which sells lunch (fish and chips of course) along with frozen fish. At the hardware store, I found a couple of cam cleats which I bought and installed alongside the line brakes on the coach-roof to help control the anti-jibe lines, etc. It rained steadily all day long, so we mainly concentrated on staying dry. In the evening, we went up to Inga’s Galley for dinner. On the way back to the boat, I fell in conversation with a couple, Jim and Deb, on “Nellie B.”, an old harbor tug that they have converted into a pleasure craft. We invited them down for a medicinal whiskey and they came by later and we had a great time swapping yarns and cruising stories. These guys are real cruisers; in their younger days, they sailed from Seattle to San Diego to Tahiti, and then to Hawaii on a Flicka 24.  

27 Jun 23

It was another glorious night followed by a glorious sunrise, not that we saw the actual sunrise. It was after 08:00 by the time we struggled out of bed. I went up to Salty Pantry and bought a piece of quiche, a chocolate croissant and a sticky bun, all of which we shared along with our normal morning gruel. We lazed around for a while, checked with Sheri at Wikan (the replacement fuel injection pump has made it to Juneau, but they do not know if it will make it on the plane to Petersburg this afternoon, then went up to Glacier Express for coffee. The Clausen Memorial Museum opened at noon, so we wandered up there and spent an hour and a half boning up on the history of Petersburg. After lunch at (where else) Salty Pantry, Jake and I walked up to the Post Office and the Hammer and Wikan grocery, while Terri did a load of laundry. Back at the boat, I hear from Sheri that the fuel injection pump has made it to Petersburg, but the airport closed before she could pick it up. They will collect it first thing in the morning and Earl should be here to re-install it between 09:30 and 10:00; woohoo! It was a lovely afternoon; I got down to only a T-shirt and Jake even got down to shorts - summer is here. We watched the Astros at St. Louis; St. Louis won 4-2. We had leftovers from last night for dinner, then went for a long walk out to the north side of town for the views of The Devils Thumb and Frederic Sound. We got back to the boat just at local sunset and settled in for the evening.