22 Aug 23

The alarm once again jerked us out of bed at 06:00 - actually, we had both been awake for some time because of all the noise outside the boat: seagulls squawking, salmon splashing and repeatedly crashing into the boat or landing on the dock nearby and thrashing about. When Terri said she thought she heard a rat (or mouse) scurrying around on the deck, I could take it no more and we got up. We had been planning an 07:00 departure to catch the last of the ebb tide down Sukkwan Strait, so we only got up a bit earlier than planned. The engine was running at 06:38 and we were away from the dock within minutes. On our way out of town, we made a close pass of the island across the strait that one of the Hydaburg elders said was their new burial island; there was not much to see and, of course, we did not go ashore. We then took off to the southeast down Sukkwan Strait, soon passing into the bottom end of Hetta Inlet, the bottom end of Tlevak Strait and across Cordova Bay. Eventually, we anchored just after noon at Buschmann Pass North in 9.0 m WD. On the run down from Hydaburg, we saw exactly one commercial fishing boat and one sport fishing boat. There is just nobody over here and we are all alone in our anchorage. We had a very pleasant afternoon soaking in the warm sunlight. Later, we watched the Astros beat the Boston Red Sox again. After dinner, we enjoyed solar showers just before sunset, which occurred at 19:32; the days are getting short rapidly.

54-46.091’N, 132-18.812’W; Log = 36.8, Sum (2023) = 2264.0; Eng. hrs. = 5.3, Sum = 3473.3