Juneau to Haines

After a 2 day break in Juneau, we had just 85 miles until the end of our trip. We were excited to get to Haines, but not really in a hurry to end our adventure. Our goal had been to get to Haines by September 1, but for the last month we pretty much assumed we would be a little late.

We paddled north out of Juneau, to go through the narrow channel on the north end of Douglas Island. In order to make it across the drying channel we had to catch the flood tide. We left at 10:00 AM, and rode the current all the way to the top of the reach. Just as we started to run out of water, we met the tide flooding in from the other end of the island. We tried to line our boats through the shallow water against the fast flowing water, but ended up just pulling up on a sand bar to wait awhile for the current to slow down. After eating some lunch, we got back in the boats and paddled against the slowing current, toward Auke Bay. By the time we reached Auke Bay it was already 5:00 PM, and we weren’t sure where we would find to camp around all the big houses, so we headed to the marina to see if we could find one more burger and a place to stay. As we entered the marina we found the strangest “boat” of our trip tied to the dock. Notice the cannon mounted on the front.

When we left Auke Bay the next morning we paddled past islands with beautiful beaches where we could have camped the night before, but then we would have missed the giant breakfast we found in town.

We paddled out of Auke Bay thinking it might rain, but the clouds quickly parted and before we knew it we were roasting in the sunshine and slathering on suntan lotion.

As we approached Bird Island, we ran into a crowd of whale watching boats and tour boats. A large group of humpback whales and killer whales were having a feeding frenzy. We had seen a lot of whales all Summer, but we hadn’t seen killer whales and humpback whales in one place. We floated among the boats watching and waiting for the whales to move out of our way. At one point, a pair of sea lions got into a skirmish with a couple of humpback whales 50 yards away. As I started to get worried about the flailing and splashing that was moving toward us, a pod of killer whales surfaced just 10 yards on the other side of Katey. It was crazy. We decided to leave the circus and paddle on to Benjamin Island. We found a beach with a great campsite in the trees on the south end of the island. We setup camp and crashed early after a long day in the sunshine.

On our third day the forecast was for south winds of 15 knots and we had visions of sailing over half of the 52 miles remaining to Haines. We put up our sails and sat back to watch the scenery.

The wind wasn’t strong, but we were able to sail at 3 to 4 knots for the first few hours. As we crossed Berner’s Bay, the wind picked up, but then when we reached the other side it disappeared. We paddled on for a couple hours, but the waves left over from the wind made for a bumpy ride and we decided to stop after about 20 miles. We pulled up on what looked like a nice stone beach and found a good tent site behind a stump.

The next morning I enjoyed the sunrise and whales feeding as I made coffee.

We had coffee time and Pop Tarts in the tent while Lil’ Bit wished he could be playing ball on the beach.

When we got ready to head out we realized the beach we choose was a mess at low tide. The water was cloudy with glacial silt, so we couldn’t see how far the stones went down the beach when we landed, but at low tide the beach was covered with basketball-sized rocks and slippery tide pools. We had over a hundred yards of slipping and sliding to carry our boats and all our gear to the water.

 By the time we got the boats loaded we had a good breeze blowing toward Haines, and we were able to start sailing right from the start. We sailed smoothly at 4 knots for the first 8 miles, but then the wind ratcheted up, and the waves started to crest.

Before long we were getting pushed around and it was clear we had too much sail. We headed to the closest point and tried to tuck into the rocks to drop our sails. Once our sails were down we were able to paddle along at 4 knots. We headed across a long bay and landed on the first good beach we could find to decide whether to continue on. We landed easily in pretty big surf, and ate some lunch.

The waves out in the middle of the canal were definitely building, but the wind was holding around 20 knots. Eventually we decided to reef our sails all the way down and continue on. We had to sail across the canal to a set of islands, then head along the western shore to Haines. With what seemed like tiny sails, we raced across the canal at 6 to 7 knots. We got swamped a couple times by waves that were 3 to 4 feet. When we reached the other side of the canal the wind kept blowing but the water flattened a little. We sailed on averaging 6 knots for the next 3 hours. Holy cow! We were going to make it to Haines easily! We rounded Battery Point and cruised the last few miles into the Haines marina. And just like that our trip was over.

It was a little sad but also sweet. No more camping in wild places, no more water-logged hands; no more whales, no more wet socks and feet; no more spectacular watery mountain vistas, no more lugging our boats and gear up and down the beaches. We spent most of the Summer camping in places few people see up close, and we had beautiful sunshine, warm weather, little rain, few flies, lots of wildlife, and plenty of time to rest when we needed it. It was as close to perfect as we could hope for from the BC and SE Alaska coast.

We’ll head from here to Fairbanks (a 16 hour drive) to organize our stuff and figure out what is next. This is the last play-by-play post of our trip, but I’ll finally have access to my iMac where I can better organize our photos and videos, and will post some highlights of the trip over the next few weeks.