We returned to Juneau and our boat after a very nice visit at home. We were glad we went home. We arrived to cold and rain in Juneau after nice warm weather in San Diego. It was a bit of a shock to be back in the cooler weather, but was actually not too bad. We departed to Juneau heading south for about a 7 hour time on the water. After about two hours our auto pilot failed, with multiple error messages on the LCD screen. We had to hand steer for about two hours. Now I know that doesn't sound difficult, but if you ask a boater what pieces of equipment are the most critical, what you would hear is that the engines/transmissions/propellers are number 1 and the auto pilot is #2. When you are on the water, you steer a specific compass course or courses to arrive at your destination. The auto pilot keeps you on this line, even if you have wind or current pushing you off to one side or the other. So, trying to hand steer a boat on a compass course is difficult and requires constant attention. Doing this for any length of time can become very tiring quickly. Fortunately after a couple hours I turned the auto pilot back on and it worked fine. Go figure. That evening at a very remote dock, (we were the only boat there) I tried to make it fail and figure out why it had failed. Nothing seemed to make it stop working again. When we reached cell phone service I called the manufacturer and they felt convinced the circuit board in the computer was bad. Well, to make a long story come to an end, we traveled for three more days without a failure. I did order in a new circuit board (expensive) for when or if it fails again.

As we moved south we encountered grey whales again. What a thrill to observe them. The closest we get is about 100 yards. HOWEVER, we had one HUGE whale pop out of the water about 50 feet from the side of our boat. It wasn't scary as they move very gracefully and we were just awe struck. It was spectacular. The wildlife in Alaska is why we like it here so much and we saw lots of it this year.

We arrived in Ketchikan on July 19th where we stayed for 12 days. If you recall this was our first city after we crossed into Alaska from Canada. We have joined the Ketchikan Yacht Club. We really like it here. The population is about 12,000 plus the 6,000-12,000 daily cruise ship passengers who arrive and depart daily. I have a very good friend, John Noble who lives in Ketchikan and besides being a very nice guy, he is also the consumate fisherman. John takes me fishing, and is patient with me as he tries to teach me the nuances of how to catch fish. I am learning fast. One day with him I caught my first King Salmon. What a thrill. It was about 12-14 pounds and fought a lot. As far as this kind of salmon this is on the smaller side. A more common size is in the 20 pound range and they can get all the way up into the 50 lb. range. But to me, my first salmon, this was huge. That night John BBQ'd the salmon and brought it over to our boat where we enjoyed eating fresh fish together. It was fabulous. We did the usual tourist stuff in Ketchikan, enjoyed walking around, eating meals out sometimes, and just having fun. We hated to leave there on the 31st heading south back into Canada. We arrived in British Columbia at the city of Prince Rupert on August 1st. Prince Rupert is a city on very hard times, lots of boarded up buildings, very depressing actually to see this. The bad economy has hit extra hard here. We feel sorry for the people. I'll post pictures next so you can enjoy some of the sites we have seen. We will have no cell phone or internet access for the next two weeks, so won't update until then.
Chuck and Margaret