Behm Canal | Walker Cove to Fitzgibbon Cove

Airship Goes to Alaska 2016

Reflected landscape at Walker Cove:

Also, those are bears eating grass, just below the AK flag on the bow:

We left Walker Cove yesterday morning just after 9am (and after getting 5 more Dungeness in the traps). It rained ALL night the night before. By morning the rain had mostly stopped but it was back to being extremely misty here in Misty Fjords. Foggy, even. The group of 6 boats traveling together (from the Roche Harbor Yacht Club) was also heading out this morning, and two of them were ahead of us as the rest of them untied their stern lines and peeled off from the very organized cluster. We were about half way out of the canal when we heard them on the radio….long story short, it sounded like as one of the boats was lifting their dinghy up onto their upper deck with their crane, the main crane cable snapped and the dinghy crashed down (the side of their boat?) and ended up floating upside down next to their boat. They said everyone was okay and it sounded like they were working to get the dinghy turned over. Eeeeek! How scary would that be? The crane’s main cable! Another vote for the stern davit!

The cruise up to Fitzgibbon Cove was just gray and rainy and not all that scenic. The wind was around 15kts behind us, and the current was with us so we were going a knot or two faster at our normal cruise rpm, but going the other way would have been a bit more uncomfortable.  View from our anchorage:

We anchored in about 50 feet here in Fitzgibbon, and Kevin put out the crab traps (there’s supposed to be great crabbing in here) while I picked the crab we had already cooked. Pretty soon (like, maybe today) we’ll start freezing some crab to use for less crabful times. I’d imagine the crab frozen in milk would be just about perfect for my newly found crab bisque recipe.

Pulling traps this morning got us 6 keepers! 

There are supposed to be tons of grizzlies here in the sedge grass meadow at the head of the bay…we saw one lone (large) male from pretty far away, but that’s it. 

The wind died down overnight, luckily. This cove might be more protected in other conditions, but certainly not these conditions. 

Here’s today’s map from Walker Cove to Fitzgibbon Cove (26 nautical miles, about 3 and a half hours):

And I know what you’re thinking…”Ooooh, hot springs!” but I believe it’s a private fishing resort, and not in fact, a place we’ll be stopping. Sad face.