{"id":515,"date":"2006-08-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/?p=515"},"modified":"2009-04-15T08:58:37","modified_gmt":"2009-04-15T13:58:37","slug":"s_logs-dashew-dashew277","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/s_logs-dashew-dashew277\/","title":{"rendered":"Warm Spring Harbor and Peril Straits"},"content":{"rendered":"
Teaching 8-year-old granddaughter Emma to navigate in the perilous Peril Straits.<\/div>\n

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Warm Springs Harbor on the southeast flank of Baronof Island is considered a must stop in this part of the world. There is a hiking trail which takes you back to picturesque hot springs of varying warm temperatures.<\/p>\n

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The state dock was full, so we anchored off the waterfall. As you can see in the chart above, the depth (shown in fathoms) is quite deep. At the very head of the bay, off the waterfall, there is a shallow spot. We dropped the anchor there, relying on the waterfall outflow current to hold us off the rocks.<\/p>\n

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The only fly in this ointment was the southeasterly wind, which was trying to offset the current and push our stern into the shallows. Given the situation, we decided one of us would stay aboard. Steve drew the short straw, so Linda, Elyse, and Emma headed ashore to explore.<\/p>\n

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Lest you think we make more of the rainy weather than is warranted, we present the photo above. Elyse is shooting the Olympus waterproof camera to record the scene, while Grandma drives and Emma stands by to lend a hand. Note that everyone is wearing a life jacket. We don’t do this in warmer climates, but around here, if you go into the water, your muscles begin to lose their effectiveness very quickly. The life jacket helps to keep you afloat, and also makes it easier to be dragged back aboard. They are all wearing rain gear tops, pants, and boots.<\/p>\n

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Emma has been wanting to explore tide pools. We caught this just right – low tide.<\/p>\n

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A nice addition for her collection – old enough so the crabs and other critters have cleaned it off and it won’t smell.<\/p>\n

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We’ve been using the plotter function of the Furuno 2117 radar on a continuous basis. We know if we follow the track out of an anchorage with the same or more tide, we won’t hit anything the charts (or we) may have missed.<\/p>\n

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Emma has been in charge of steering and throttles this week. She’s using the WH "Pilot Wheel" here to follow the radar track back out of Warm Springs Harbor. Note the bowl of nutrients near the Pilot Wheel. Popcorn is still an important facet of our watch keeping.<\/p>\n

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From Warm Springs Harbor to Sitka one has to transit Peril Straits (as well as some other very narrow waterways). This looks pretty tight on the chart, and the Coast Pilot doesn’t make it sound any better. However, the route is easy to traverse, and well marked.<\/p>\n

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Currents at some of the choke points were running four to five knots, happily in the same direction we were heading.<\/p>\n

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Here is a local mini-cruise ship. She is running here at 10.2 knots, which looks to us like a speed-length ratio of one (we’re guessing she has a 100 foot\/30m waterline length). Notice how cleanly she cuts through the water. OK, she may be a stinkpot, but it is nice to see a vessel like this working so efficiently.<\/p>\n

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We are always happy to see sailboats up here where there is so much power traffic. And these guys have the ultimate paint scheme – bare aluminum. Note the tiny pram hood over the entry to the interior. You have to be tough to cruise up her in an open cockpit sailboat – we softened beyond that point a long time ago.<\/p>\n

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We always keep a paper chart at hand of the area in which we’re cruising. In tight areas – like Peril Straits – we make a pencil note on the chart at critical points, on the assumption that at some point the PC-based charting system will lock up (and Nobeltec did freeze on this day). Emma has just learned how to walk off distances with dividers. We still use general coverage charts for checking mileage and doing our planning.<\/p>\n

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If it has been overcast most of the day, when the sun tries to pop through, it makes a real impression.<\/p>\n

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As we were finishing our passage through Peril Straits the sun and clouds put on a show. Our daughter Elyse snapped this and the photo below.<\/p>\n

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What makes this doubly exciting is the body of water the camera is looking at – the Gulf of Alaska. The first real ocean-like body of water we’ve seen in months. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Teaching 8-year-old granddaughter Emma to navigate in the perilous Peril Straits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dashew-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}