The Alaskan Hand Map

The weather front passed through during the early morning hours on Monday wreaking havoc in Seward. Campers' tents were blown down, leaves and branches littered the ground, and streams overflowed. We knew we'd made the right decision in staying put for the day when we came across an outhouse that had been knocked down by the gusty winds.

Lori and I spent the day touring Seward. We went back to the Sea Life Center and to the Library/Museum. The Museum was closed but they were running a couple of movies about the 1964 earthquake and the history of the Iditarod trail in the auditorium next door. A good way to spend a windy rainy day.

Last night Sheila, Ray and Keegan came over and Sharry made a great chicken dinner for us. The dinner table discussion at one point turned to Alaskan geography, and Keegan used his hand to show us the relative positions of the Aleutians, SE Alaska, Bristol Bay, and points north. It is amazing how you can manipulate your hand to make it look like a map of Alaska.

This morning we are underway and headed south. The wind has died off, but there is some left over slop out here from yesterday's storm. We are out in Blying Sound now and have about twenty five miles to go until we enter the sheltered waters of Prince William Sound. It is starting to smooth out a bit as we leave Cape Resurrection behind.

The ladies are horizontal somewhere aft and Don and I are in the wheelhouse listening to a drama play out on the VHF. A small tour boat lost its port rudder right in the middle of the 1/3 mile wide pass between Cape Resurrection and Barwell Island. The rudder got stuck hard to port so he couldn't make any turns to the right. He was reversing the engines to try to keep the boat off of the rocks. We came through that same pass about an hour ago. It was sloppy, narrow, and full of logs and debris. Not a pleasant place to have rudder problems. Fortunately there was help nearby, and another tour boat is now towing the disabled vessel in to a safe anchorage. nearby.