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June 15, 2009 – Icy Strait, Alaska
by Herb McCormick
Icy Strait, Alaska (June 14): After a four-day layover in Juneau that seemed to go by in about twenty minutes, the 64-foot cutter Ocean Watch was underway at 0930 today bound for the next scheduled destination, the port of Dutch Harbor-the dot in the exclamation point that is the Alaska Peninsula-by way of the open waters of the Gulf of Alaska. Shortly after leaving, skipper Mark Schrader taped a chart of the Gulf to the bulkhead in Ocean Watch’s main saloon, and after staring at it for the last half hour, I can think of only one thing to say: Good golly.
To those who’ve never been to Alaska but have given it some consideration, I have one short bit of advice. Come. Now. Drop everything and come now. The word “epic” does not begin to do justice to the scale, beauty and majesty of the place. On top of all that, at least judging by the several hundred folks who either helped us out, attended any of the Ocean Watch events at the local university organized by Theresa Svancara-who was also on hand to see us off-or stopped by to visit during our Open House on Friday, Alaskans are open, warm, funny, smart and engaging. Did I mention you should perhaps come and see for yourself?
We’ve had a pretty good look at the grandeur that is Southeast Alaska today on our winding tour from Juneau to the open sea. Our route has taken us from Juneau, out the Gastineau Channel and into Stephens Passage, up the length of Admiralty Island and around the Mansfield Peninsula, down the Lynn Canal skirting Chichagof Island, and into the tropical waters of Icy Strait. Just kidding about that tropical part. As I type, we’re just making our way into the Icy waters, and I can assure you, there’s not a palm tree in sight.
One of the more enthusiastic visitors to Ocean Watch during our stay in Juneau-all right, the single most enthusiastic visitor to the boat since leaving Seattle-was local sailor Steven Dahl, an aficionado of Bruce Robert-designed yachts, an IT specialist who proved very helpful in sorting out some software issues, and an avid singlehander who one day hopes to sail his own steel boat through the Northwest Passage.
Before departing, Steven presented the crew the gift of a book called Southeast Alaska: Names on the Chart and How They Got There, and during the course of our travels today, I’ve been regaling my watch mate, Dave Logan, with interesting tidbits on the many fascinating monikers one encounters while traversing these waters. We’ve had a grand time! On a perhaps related note, Logan is not exactly speaking with me at the moment, but he is sometimes a moody sort, and I am not taking it personally.
As I said, from Steven’s book I’ve learned some wonderful local history. First off, the great explorer, Captain George Vancouver, who passed this way from 1791-1794, sure must’ve had a lot of friends, or cronies, or guys he owed favors to, or something. Vancouver slapped a name on every point, headland, island and waterway he zipped past, or at least it seems that way. (Of course, all these things already had perfectly good names, given to them by the people who’d lived here for eons, well before Vancouver got here. Unfortunately, it never occurred to them to write them down.)
The Lynn Canal, for instance, was named after his birthplace, King’s Lynn, in Norfolk, England. The aforementioned Stephens Passage was dedicated to the honor of Sir Philip Stephens, the secretary to the British Admiralty, which was the equivalent of the U.S. Navy. One gets the notion that Vancouver was mortified that he might forget someone in the Admiralty, and ended up saying the heck with it, I’ll just name an island after the whole lot.
From the passage on Admiralty Island, one discovers that the isle is the third largest in Southeastern Alaska, measuring in at 1,664 square miles, and that “the state of Rhode Island is 1,214.” As an aside, and as a native of the wonderful little Ocean State, I’ve heard similar references and comparisons to some grand Alaskan feature about 8,000 times since arriving here. So, just for the record, so we’re all perfectly clear on the matter: We get it. You’re big. We’re small. It’s funny! Ha ha ha!!!
Ha.
Juneau was named after a Canadian miner called Joe Juneau who discovered gold outside town in 1880. I love the fact that a capital city in one of the great states of the U.S.A was named after a guy called Joe, though I’d have preferred it if they just went with his first name. There are lots of Russian names like Chichagof, owing to the fact that the Russians occupied Southeast for some seventy years. It’s been said that you can see Russia from here, though we haven’t yet.
Tonight we’re pulling into Elfin Cove for the evening, just shy of the entrance to Cross Sound, which will take us into the wide Gulf of Alaska. The plan is to have a good meal and a nice snooze, recharge the batteries, and head west in the morning. The cove was named after a small fishing boat called Elfin in 1935. Prior to that it had been called Gunk Hole, but then the fellow who owned the boat got married, and once the local post office was established, his new wife became postmaster. What happened next is no mystery. After all, who in their right mind would want to be the postmaster of a Hole called Gunk? As so often happens, the missus had the last word. The rest is history.
- Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreso
*This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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