Portage Bay, Alaska

July 6th, 2023

We left Petersburg this morning at 9:00 am. Last night we had a dock cocktail hour with several of our friends, Barb and Rob from “Harmony Bay”; John and Jeri from “Katessa”; and new friends who arrived on their 42 Nordic Tug “Noeta.” Marlene and I both commented on how much fun we have had in Petersburg and how friendly a place it is. We will definitely be back.

This is an iconic photo looking East heading out of Petersburg across Frederick Sound.

We anchored in Portage Bay,located on the south shore of Frederick Sound on Kupreanof Island, basically the opposite side of the mountain we overlooked in Petersburg. Kupreanof Island is the 13th largest island in the United States and the 170th largest island in the world. The island was first chartered in 1793 by James Johnston and Joseph Whidby, both of the British naval fleet and part of George Vancouver’s expedition. The island is named after the vice admiral Ivan Antonovich Kupeianov, governor of the Russian American colonies from 1836 to 1840. The largest settlement on the island is Kake, a population of roughly 600 people. The name comes from the Tlingit word for “daylight.”

This is a very large bay with great anchorage. It could easily hold over 100 boats or more. At present there are two anchored here with us in the bay. The entrance is skinny, and fairly shallow. As the books suggest, “follow the charts closely,” and we did.

I put out a crab pot and we will see if I have any luck. There are a lot of pots out so I am hoping that’s a good sign. Tomorrow we are officially going deeper into Frederick Sound hoping to see whales.

Late update: WTC!!! Where’s the crab. I put my pot out for several hours, near the shore where there were literally dozens of pots. And this is what I got. Clearly I’m doing something wrong. Crabbing is so easy in Anacortes. My friend Steve Brown says the problem may be that I need to weight my pots. The water runs rapid here, even in this cove, all the time. Maybe I’ll have better luck next time.