STILL HERE

According to my emails…….you have been wondering what is going with us. WELL, we spent several beautiful sunny days in Glacier Bay. Watched Humpback Whales put on a show in the Icy Passage, caught prawns in Swanson Harbor, trolled for salmon, caught halibut.
We went into Auke Harbor – there is a great Thai Restaurant where we had a nice dinner. We stocked up on groceries and such and headed to Juneau’s Harris Harbor.
Jeff and Bevil came in on July 2nd and we headed for the Mendenhal Glacier. The weather was pleasant so we walked the 2.5 miles to the bus stop……….we stopped at the Alaskan Brewery for refreshments and back to the boat. We did the tourist walk through downtown Juneau in the drizzle. The fireworks were cancelled because of rain!
Jeff was anxious to get fishing so Jerry headed the Jade Princess to all of his favorite spots. The wild life cooperated; we saw eagles, whales, sea lions, and sea otters. We caught crabs in Taku Harbor and Bevil even tasted them. (she does not eat seafood). Next, we stayed in No Name Bay overnight and headed for the Tracy Arm Glacier. It is always a nice trip through the ‘burgets’. And we lifted enough of the small ones to fill the coolers.
Not much luck in the fishing department, so we went into Pack Creek and headed for bear watching. There is a large clearing near a creek that feeds into the River. Along with a ‘packing’ guide we were able to watch a momma bear with her cub for an extended period of time. The ‘sowl’ even caught the first salmon of the season. At anchor in Fools Bay they fed a lot of fish and picked up some ‘double uglies’, no keepers.
Close to Petersburg in Hobart Bay…..more fishing, no luck with Halibut but Jerry and Jeff did catch some yellow eyed rock fish. There are bright in color and very good eating. Next stop, good ole Cleveland Passage. No sooner did we anchor than the ‘boys’ dropped their fishing lines. About 10 pm Jeff said he was going to bed. About 10:15pm Jerry said to go get Jeff; he had a fish on the line. Sure enough Jeff grabbed his pants and reeled in a Halibut, boy were we relieved. Jeff decided to stay up a little longer and caught another, bigger Halibut. Whew!
After seeing the sights of Petersburg, Jeff and Bevil headed for home. The weather had not been great but I hope they had a fun time. We sure did.
I have finally figured out how to get the pictures on my Blog again. I had to put my computer in the ‘Geek Hospital’ again. Apparently, windows tried to do an update and when it failed it took my computer back to what it was 6 months ago. I was in a real panic about my Quicken Program but was able to get Intuit to allow me to download the latest version that I had put on my computer right before we left. I have spent a lot of time getting my programs back up to speed.
The weather has been 4 days of rain to 1 sunny day. Even our friends from Anchorage came in last night and said their weather has been no better. Oh well, today is cloudy but no drops.
This morning we decided NOT to head south this year. The cost of keeping the boat in Vancouver or Washington State was much more expensive than Petersburg. So, the latest is that we will come back next spring and immediately head south and take the boat down the California Coast.
July 16th we headed south of Petersburg through the Wrangell Narrows into Sumner Strait. We will explore the West side of Prince of Wales Island. Hopefully, by the time we get around the east side my friend Debbie will be in Ketchikan. She and I go way, way back and it would be great to spend some time with her.
Hallelujah, we have had 3 beautiful sunny days………….we even saw the moon………I have a picture. That is a rarity! The moon came up about 6 pm and was down by 10 pm. We went through the El Capitan Passage and were going to go see the caves that had recently been discovered. However, when we read that the walk was uphill 370 steps (and I knew I would not go in a cave) we decided just to enjoy the scenery. And it has been beautiful.
We stopped last night in Devilfish Bay and Jerry saw that another boat had put out a couple of crab pots, so he did too. Well this morning, he pulled it up and was very excited by the weight of the pot. Well, no wonder, he had a huge star fish, and about 5 tiny Halibut.(picture).
Last night was Kaguk Bay, we saw whales, sea otters, sea lions, eagles, and bear. The anchorage was ours alone, the day (day 4) sunny and mild. This morning we are on our way to Craig where I hope we get cell service and I can put all of this b.s. on the blog.