As of today, we've travelled 2473 nautical miles in 125 days (at about 6-7 nautical miles/hour). We are wrapping up this season with a run through Desolation Sound (with stop at our property on Quadra Island), Gulf Islands and San Juans.
Almost all of this season has been with the engine on, with short bits of sailing intermixed, which hopefully for the sake of the environment and our savings account will not be the norm going forward.
Here are the highlights of what we learned:
1. Five months is not really enough to 'see all the sights' in Alaska. And yet for us, we felt that we've 'done it enough'. We could only see so many glaciers. We prefer warmer weather. We've debated about our timing. Leaving early we had more foul weather, but we also had some of our most epic experiences. The snow-capped mountains, the low snow level and isolation were worth it. BUT...we loved the warm days in May, July and now August and would recommend going later. Instead of April - August, try June - October.
2. Being on the move almost every day can get tiring. In retrospect if we had just gone to Ketchikan, we could have enjoyed it very much. But of course, we would have missed out on Glacier Bay--FOMO would have kicked in. So we are happy with our itinerary, but going forward have to be more intentional about not trying to do so much. 700-1000 miles is enough for a 'season'.
3. Respect your ground tackle (anchors & chain). We love our set up. We slept good almost every night and we had some wild ones (there was only 1 night that I really couldn't sleep and it was blowing 25-30 knots all night, with strong currents and little protection from chop). After a long day, the last thing you want to worry about is drifting into a 'foreign beach'. We built confidence in our anchor alarm and that helped as well. We knew what to do if it went off. One night the anchor alarm went off -- because the battery in the iPad died. Well, that won't ever happen again. We learned that we prefer to anchor deeper -- if we have more room to drag, and can still get 3:1 scope. We prefer to not anchor any closer than 100' to a beach.
4. Become a student of the weather & tides. When you are on the move as much as we have been, every day is a different page in the tide & current book. Often you have to look at the weather for the place you are at and the place to which you are going. We use PredictWind religiously and have found the models that most accurately seem to be effective. We check the others, but find that consistently Predict Wind can be pretty accurate for at least a 24-48 hour window. The tide tables can be tricky. In Alaska, things aren't detailed like they are for say "Dodd Narrows". Everything is more directional. -- i.e. you might experience currents here, there may be an unmarked rock there, there might be big tides 2x a month. Many days you are dealing with tides that switch part way through a channel. This requires you to know what the tides might be when you start. channel, middle and end.
5. Starlink - It was so amazing to be able to talk to family and stay connected throughout the entire trip. It was great to be able to talk to people we've met along the way and compare notes and check tide tables. We used to have to hunt out wifi locations. I'm hooked and hope that it or equivalent never goes away.
We've had most everything work on the boat with only a few epic 'breaks' 1.) my wrist and 2.) our high output alternator that charges our batteries (which broke a few days ago--requiring us to make a beeline to home port to troubleshoot and repair). We are feeling fortunate and consider our 'stress test' of Okisollo capabilities to be a full success.
A few things that we need (read: want and/or don't need) before we venture further and to the warmer waters of the Sea of Cortez.
1. Need more solar -- We were able to maintain our power with running the motor about every 3 days. Solar kept up for the most part with our demand, but we would like to do better. We've been thinking about where we can cut back and/or reduce our demand.
2. Don't need so many clothes - We've been able to determine what we don't need on the boat and gone through every locker and weaned out what we never used during the last 5 months -- and couldn't imagine using and at the moment have this stored in the forward cabin. We brought WAY to many clothes!
So we are keeping 1/4 of what we brought! And will be looking at things that will be useful in more moderate climates. We had WAY too many blankets.
3. Don't need so many cooking things - I also found my cooking changed. I brought a bunch of spices and given that we were on the move so much, we were much less creative with our cooking. We ate great food -- it was just simple and not so fancy. I had imagined making bread all the time, but I didn't want to use the propane -- and now when its warm and my wrist isn't broken -- I don't want to use the oven. Its a lot of work for something that I'm not really good at.
4. Need different (and less) cruising guides for California and Mexico. I had collected a huge assortment of books over the last 20 years for the Pacific Northwest cruising outlining every anchorage, every restaurant on the water and every sea creature. We'll be taking these off the boat and lightening the load. I can identify a humpback now. I don't need 3 books to tell me how.
5. Need an upgraded auto pilot -- we love our auto pilot and we are too big displacement-wise for a windvane. We would cry if we didn't have it. So we are going to get a new one and keep the old one as a back up.
Dan has a list of about 30 additional things he's going to do when we get to 'home' port of Edmonds. I've got a list of about 15. Time for a 21 day sprint to the next leg! Onward!
Taking notes. Thank you and welcome home. :) (Angie)