Friday, August 17, 2018

The Barrier Islands

0900 position 54-46N 132-18W. At anchor off Hessa Island, Barrier Islands

Glass ball fever is contagious, and Matt finally caught it after watching Vicki and me find them. Yesterday morning he suggested that we dinghy out to the southernmost of the Barrier Islands to beach comb after breakfast.

It was a perfect day; light northwesterlies, no swell, a cloudless sky. The island looked to be pretty close on the chart, but we ended up powering almost three miles to get there. Once on the southern side of the island we had to thread our way through the small offshore islets and kelp to get to the beach. The kelp got so thick that we had to kill the engine and row in the final few hundred yards.

I managed to stumble in the minuscule swell getting out of the dinghy and ended up on my butt in the water. Damn, it was cold, but at least it didn't get into my boots. I continued on with a wet backside. The beaches were covered with debris, huge logs and driftwood, nets, crab pot marker floats, plastic balls, but no glass balls. After an hour of searching we moved west to the other southerly facing beach and tried there as well. It was a lot of fun exploring even if we didn't find any glass balls. I did find a cool three point deer antler. I have needed a good back scratcher since Lori left, and the antler should do the trick.

After returning to Thankful we pulled the hook and tried halibut fishing about a mile away in a deep spot. We each caught a couple of rock fish and Matt sacrificed some more herring.

The Barrier Islands are quickly becoming my favorite cruising spot. It is a maze of islands similar to The Bay of Islands, Fiji, but about the size of Vavau, Tonga. The two striking differences are that the Barrier Islands are not tropical, and there is nobody else here. We've been messing around in the area for two days now and have only seen one other boat off in the distance. The only sign of humanity, besides the beach debris, is the occasional aid to navigation.

Matt likes it too, so we decided to stay for a second day. While perusing the cruising guide, Matt found the following description of Hessa Inlet on the far eastern side of the Barrier Islands:

"Hessa Inlet is a remote, landlocked waterway where you are unlikely to encounter other boats. In many ways, this southern tip of Prince of Wales Island is the ultimate frontier of expeditionary cruising in Southeast Alaska. Only small, highly maneuverable craft with experienced crew should consider exploring here."

Hmmm. That sounded like team Thankful, so we decided to give it a try. First we moved the boat to a splendid anchorage just east of Hessa Island, then got into the dinghy and headed into Hessa Inlet.

We were entering close to slack high water, but it was still flooding and there were whirlpools and eddies that threw the dinghy around in the narrowest part of the channel. We came across a deer that was trying to swim across the channel. He saw us, changed his mind, and climbed out the water. Once through the fifty yard wide, quarter mile long channel, Hessa Inlet opened up into a huge body of water three miles long by a mile wide. We explored one of the beaches where Matt found his own deer antler and headed back out.

Our plan is to head back out into Dixon Entrance this morning and around the corner into Clarence Strait. We hope to get half way back to Ketchikan today so we can pick Vicki up there tomorrow evening. Unfortunately, the good weather ended during the night. It is foggy, drizzling, and the wind has come up out of the south. We are waiting for the tide to start to flood in an hour or so to go give it a try.

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