2025-07-08 Glacier Bay Trip: Ketchikan to Juneau

I have been planning this trip for almost a year, and then it finally began.

I have been to Glacier Bay twice before, in 2010 and again in 2017.

I wanted to make one more trip there before I'm too old to make the trip in my own boat.

For the purposes of this blog, I am going to post blog entries in 3 segments: Ketchikan to Juneau, Inside Glacier Bay, and Juneau to Ketchikan.

My shipmate for this leg of the voyage was Jos Wolke, grandfather of Aiden, who is a neighbor and playmate of my grandson, Hayden, down in Federal Way WA.

Jos (pronounced "Yos") had a long career in the Navy, and then after that he was First Mate or Second Mate on many large vessels traveling all around the world. Currently he owns his own sailboat down in Florida and runs a pilot boat to deliver pilots to large vessels and to pick up pilots from large vessels. At one time he held an unlimited captain's license. He is extremely knowledgeable on all aspects of navigation at sea and boating, and he was an incredible asset to have with me on this trip.

We left Ketchikan at about 7 AM on the morning on July 8th, 2025. The destination for our first day was to be Wrangell. Here is the InReach track for that run of approximately 83 nm.

Ketchikan is down on the southern end labeled "Waypoint 1" and Wrangell is up on the northern end of the track.

We made pretty good time and by 4:30 PM we were moored in Wrangell's Heritage Harbor.

Faraway moored at Heritage Harbor.

A guy came in on a small skiff with numerous halibut and started cleaning them on the table at the end of our float. I resisted the urge to ask him if we could buy a couple of fresh halibut fillets. He was there for a long time, and I could tell he was getting fatigued.

Here are a couple of wide-angle shots of Heritage Harbor.

There is the Mariners' Memorial up at the far end of the harbor. There is a new addition up there since I was here in mid-April.

The Mariners' Memorial honors those lost at sea, or those who spent their whole lives or careers working on the sea. I have not been able to determine if all those honored here at this memorial are from Wrangell, or perhaps from anywhere in Alaska.

They have numerous plaques for those being remembered at this memorial.

The memorial is up on a little point which looks out over the water.

The next leg of this part of our adventure was to make the relatively short run from Wrangell to Petersburg. It is only about 40 nm, but you have to transit a narrow passageway between 2 islands that is known as the Wrangell Narrows.

Unfortunately, the Garmin InReach did not properly log the track for this portion of our trip, so I have tried to recreate it manually from the chart of the area.

In this map snippet Wrangell is down on the lower right area, and Petersburg is up nearer the top.

Transiting the Wrangell Narrows is a bit like traveling in a river. It is very narrow in most places and there are numerous navigational markers along the route. It is imperative to understand the currents in the Narrows and to time your transit according to those currents. Jos was an incredible help in doing these calculations and we timed our entry into the southern end of the Narrows almost perfectly so that we had favorable current on both the lower and the upper portions of the Narrows.

When we got to the Petersburg area we stopped for fuel before getting moored for the night. In Wrangell at Heritage Harbor, they have 2 very long floats dedicated to transient boats, however in Petersburg that is not the case. You have to call the harbormaster, and they will assign you a slip. They know what vessels are not going to be using their assigned slips for a period of time.

We were tied up in Petersburg's North Harbor by about 2:15 PM.

We had only logged about 39.4 nm for the day. We knew it was going to be a low mileage day, but we were pretty sure we could still make our deadline to arrive in Juneau.

Here is Faraway moored in the harbor in Petersburg.

The North Harbor where we were moored is in very good condition because it is not that old. A few years ago they moved all the vessels out of North Harbor and then completely rebuilt it from scratch.

They also have Middle Harbor and South Harbor, but those are typically used for larger vessels than mine.

We had a visitor just off our stern during our stay there in Petersburg.

Of course, both Jos and I were constantly checking the weather, and we became aware of a weather phenomenon called an "Atmospheric River" which was supposed to pass through SE Alaska at just about this time. It was supposed to be bringing very heavy rain and potentially very heavy winds as well.

We checked the weather closely and made the decision to stay 2 nights there in Petersburg just to make sure we didn't run up against the atmospheric river.

I had scheduled a couple of possible anchorages in Stephens Passage for the next leg of our trip as we turned north to head up to the Juneau area. But Jos and I discussed it, and we decided to do a pretty long day, skip the anchorages and head directly to a little place called Taku Harbor, which is only about 35 miles south of our destination, Auke Bay, which is a bit north of Juneau proper.

That run turned out to be about 90 nm and once again the InReach tracking does not show it as it should. It is such a long distance that I have to show the track in 3 segments.

This is the first segment where we came out of Petersburg into Frederick Sound. This portion shows our track to the "corner" at Cape Fanshaw.

This second portion shows our track north bound in Stephens Passage.

It started to get a bit rough on this portion of the trip. When it reaches a certain level, the autopilot cannot keep up and so we had to take turns manually steering the boat. The seas were not dangerous, just rough and uncomfortable. It was hard to move around the boat as we had to always have something to hold onto.

This is the 3rd segment of this day's progress.

Our destination was a little cove called Taku Harbor. There are 2 public docks there, one of which is quite lengthy. There is an old, abandoned cannery there which is fun to explore when the weather is good.

We quickly found a place to tie up for the night. We were a bit tired after battling rough seas for many hours on the last portion of the trip.

It was raining pretty heavily when we first got there so it was difficult to get any photos. But later on, the rain slackened off a bit and I was able to snap a few quick photos.

This is "Dauntless" out of Petersburg, one of our neighbors at the Taku Harbor dock for the night.

These are some of the other boats that were tied up there when we were there.

Here's a wide-angle shot showing all the boats at the dock.

This is just a quick shot of the old cannery from a distance. It is a bit of a walk to go over there and with the heavy rains we did not venture out much during our short stay here.

As you can see there are many old and rotting pilings. There is also quite a bit of old abandoned equipment and machinery parts scattered amongst the pilings.

The next morning, Saturday July 12th, we pulled away from the dock at about 7:15 AM. The weather was overcast, rainy and cool.

Unfortunately, the InReach track was once again on a break, so I tried to recreate our track for the day manually. Taku Harbor is down in the lower right, and Auke Bay is near the upper left. It was only about 35 nm for this day's run.

Statter Harbor in Auke Bay is about 50% reserved slips and 50% transient open moorage. There is a Petro Marine fuel dock there and we filled up before searching for a spot to tie up. The protocol here for transient boats is to just cruise around looking for a suitable slip that you can fit into. The earlier in the day that you arrive, the better your chances are to find a slip. It took us awhile, but we finally managed to find a spot and got tied up.

Here is Faraway in her slip at Statter Harbor in Auke Bay. We had logged 248 nm to get here.

One of the challenges here in Statter Harbor is to get plugged in to shore power. They have power pedestals placed every so often along the floats, but these pedestals only have limited plugins available, so sometimes it is hard to find an open spot to plug into.

The larger vessels usually require 50 Amp plug ins, but my boat requires 30 Amp shore power.

At first, we could not find an open spot to plug into, but later we connected 2 shore power cords together giving us 100' of reach and we were able to get plugged in. That just made living on the boat while we waited for the rest of the crew to arrive so much easier and more enjoyable.

I woke up at about 4 AM on that first morning there at Statter Harbor and the view was so amazing that I just had to grab my camera and snap a few pics of the sunrise in the harbor.

We had a couple of days to wait for the rest of the crew to arrive. I love looking at boats so I would frequently walk the floats. Since about half the harbor was transient there was constant action, and the boats were always changing. If you don't share my enthusiasm for looking at boats, you should skip this next section.

The USCG has a portion of one of the floats dedicated to their use.

There are several boat makers that try to imitate the lines and features of a tugboat but in a pleasure boat. Nordic Tug, Sundowner Tug, American Tug, Victory Tug & Ranger Tug are a few that come to mind. I think the "Little Toot" is a Sundowner Tug.

This is a Nordhavn called the "Meteor." We tied up next to the Meteor in Heritage Harbor in Wrangell on our first night out. It is not unusual to run into the same boats in different ports along the Inside Passage, in fact, it happens a lot.

Statter Harbor has a very wide floating breakwater on the outside of all the reserved and transient slips. The big boys hang out there. This is one called "El Rey," one of the smaller super yachts that were moored out there.

Hard to believe this is one of the smaller yachts out there, but you will soon see.

This the "Archimedes," a 222' $100 million super yacht. We first saw the Archimedes in Petersburg. It was tied up there briefly before moving on to visit the LeConte Glacier. The lady at the harbormaster's office in Petersburg was sort of bragging about all the moorage fees they got from her even though she only moored there for a few hours.

I suspect that with a yacht like the Archimedes they don't worry much about moorage fees.

This is the "Raven," a 58' purse seiner. They use that metal power skiff that is on the back of the boat to haul a large purse seine net in a big circle. Then the net closes at the bottom to trap the fish in a big "bag" of netting. While the big boat is processing all the fish in the seine the metal skiff attaches a long line to the big boat and helps control it since the big boat cannot maneuver when the seine is deployed alongside.

The Raven ran its generator all night long, which probably did not make it very popular with its nearest neighbors.

These next 2 photos are of the "Sea Ranger." It is a very old tugboat of unknown vintage that has been turned into a restaurant and appears to offer some rooms to rent. They had a plaque that showed a website but when I tried to visit the page it failed. It was huge, and very old. We never saw any customers in or around it, so not sure how the business is faring.

These are most of the whale watch tour boats resting in their slips at the end of the day. It boggles my mind how many whale watch tours went out every day and the number of tourists that went on these tours.

All of these boats and more not shown were active each and every day that we were in the harbor. Clearly whale watching is big business in Auke Bay!

This is the super yacht "Unbridled," a 191' vessel that was tied up just behind the Archimedes. Don't you just hate it when you tie up your 191' yacht and someone comes in and docks in front of you in a 222' yacht!

The bumpers for these huge yachts were the size of small cars. Jos and I were walking out there and Jos asked one of the crew members where and how they stored these huge bumpers. The crewman said they have a special room just for the bumpers. If they are going to be docking again soon, they leave them inflated and they have room to store them that way. If it will be a while before they need them again, they store them deflated.

This was one of my favorite local boats, the "Butt Ugly." I have to agree that the name was appropriate for this vessel.

And then of course we have the companion boat to the Butt Ugly, the "Fugly."

OK, I guess that's enough boats for now.

Jos and I had some prep work to do for phase 2 of our great adventure.

My daughter Jennifer, my grandson Hayden, and Hayden's neighborhood playmate Aiden (grandson of Jos) were due to fly in soon, so we had some prep work to do to make the boat ready for 3 more humans.