Cruising to Petersburg
Meyers-Chuck
We left Ketchikan on 6/12 at 7:35 am on a calm, overcast morning. We dodged 4 cruise that were arriving from the north. We were heading for Meyers Chuck, a small community that had a federal dock with a post office. We noticed on AIS a boat in front of us named Escape. We first saw this boat in Foggy Bay where we had anchored when we crossed the border going through Dixon Entrance. Our friends in Wanderlost had talked to them that evening. Escape is a CHB Trawler from Canada out of Pender Harbour and Secret Cove. We had light northerly winds. We saw some whales spouting in the distance on our way.
Meyers Chuck is a small community. The name Meyers is from the first settler in the 1800’s. The ‘Chuck’ comes from a Chinook word that means an inlet that fills at high tide. For power some have windmills, others have solar panels. Water is piped down from a lake about a mile away. The waterline was build by the townspeople in the 80s. Back in the 1930s there were more than 100 people living there but now only about 25 during the summer when people boat over to their cabins.
At the community outpost is the post office box where you can mail out letters. I had some birthday cards that I had to get mailed. The mail is picked up and delivered weekly by a beaver float plane. Not only does mail get delivered but grocery items and anything else someone has purchased online or ordered. Just image if there was no mail service for this community.
There is a hiking trail around the island and at the kiosk are some maps which were hand painted and beautifully printed. It is a work of art! Not only does it show the trail but also paintings of some of the homes/cabins. There is creative artwork along the trail provided by the community! A group of us on the dock - boats Escape, Wanderlost, and Wanderlust took a hike each direction. We had beautiful sunny weather.
Art work along the trail at Meyers-Chuck
Meyers-Chuck Bay - we are the taller boat in the middle tied to the dock. Wanderlost our friends are on the right and Escape is behind us on the left.
Bosun flirting with everyone on the dock at Meyers-Chuck.
Getting to Wrangell Narrows
On 6/14 we departed Meyers Chuck at 5:35 am with light northerly winds. We enjoyed our cruise up Clarence Strait watching whales off in the distance forging for their breakfast on the east side of Etolin Island. Arriving at St. Johns Bay on the northwest corner of Zarembo Island we were disappointed. It was odd that this bay was written up as being the best anchorage ‘in the area’. I guess the key is ‘in the area’ because we felt it was too tight and due to the irregular bottom, Don wasn’t sure of the depth. We went from depths of 50 ft to under 10 ft from the bow of our boat to the stern so we could easily roll off a ledge or find ourselves beached if we weren’t careful. After anchoring twice we decided to pull up and check out another anchorage near Wrangell Narrows just across Sumner Strait from where we were.
The first anchorage we checked out was Deception Point Cove on the west side of Deception Point and off of Woewodski Island. There were a lot of boats anchored in the bay as this cove offers good shelter from northerly winds however, the prediction was for the wind to shift to be a southerly later in the evening.
We continued going up Wrangell Narrows and went behind Keene Island into the bay there for more complete protection. We approached the bay slowly due to the entrance being narrow, shallow, rocky with a reef that extends out further than you would expect. Luckily, it looked like the locals living around the bay had marked the end of the reef with a buoy. The view of the mountains in the distance was breathtaking.
We arrived at 3:15 pm (9 hrs 40 min) noticing the wind was already shifting to come from the south. From our anchorage we could watch the boat traffic going up and down Wrangell Narrows scrambling to get to their destinations before the storm hit. We saw our friends boat Wanderlost navigating up the channel but we were unable to hail them on our VHF radio. We spent 3 nights here waiting for the seas and wind to calm down.
You may wonder why we didn’t just continue our travels to Petersburg rather than stopping at Keene Island. Our concern was that mooring is on a first come, first served basis so Don was worried we would not be able to get a slip because Petersburg is a small marina with mainly fishing boats.
The view from our anchorage behind Keene Island. Of course the days we were there we lost most of this view because of rain and clouds.
Wrangell Narrows
Weended up spending 3 nights in the bey behind Keene Island. On 6/17 we left at 11:30 am. Nearly all north and south bound traffic in Southeast Alaska passes through Wrangell Narrows. The passage is 21 miles long with over 60 navigational aids to help boats negotiate it successfully. The channel is dredged and only 300 feet wide. There is a lot of commercial traffic so pleasure boaters must stay out of their way because they are not going to look out for you. We found using our AIS was valuable because we could see if there were any large vessels coming towards us around a bend in the channel.
Petersburg
We got to Petersburg at 1:40 pm (2 hrs 10 min). We timed our arrival in Petersburg to be close to a slack tide because of the current that is so strong when you are trying to get into a slip. It is a delightful city that doesn’t have any of the large cruise boats so it is nice and quiet. We stayed 3 nights mainly due to arriving on a Saturday and having businesses being closed on Sunday so we needed to get to a marine store on Monday to pickup filters for our diesel heater which had stopped working. Unfortunately, changing the filters did not fix the issue. On Sunday night we had a wonderful Father’s Day Dinner at a local restaurant where they served a special dinner of braised beef short ribs and mashed potatoes. It was very yummy.
Like Poulsbo, Petersburg is a Norwegian town with a Sons of Norway fraternal organization. It was fun to walk around seeing all the Viking ship memorabilia.
North Harbor at Petersburg - this is where our boat was moored. The building out on the pier is the first cannery that was built here. To
A little creek that flows into the bay. This is a boat house and an old boat! Very quaint.
A view of the harbor when we came in. That’s the old cannery building on the right. Look at the beautiful mountain. Still lots of snow. That’s looking north.