Karen was introduced to some real cruising by now including visiting different ports, scrutinizing the weather reports, evaluating potential anchorages, and just the day-to-day routine of sailboat living. Our aft cabin is basically our "garage" so not a space available for visitors. Her sleeping quarters were in the salon which is the center area of Soulstice to include an L-shaped settee and another sitting area directly across. Her bed required making every night and with take down every morning. It is quite simple of pulling out an extension on the settee where 2 additional cushions go and apply her fitted sheet with a nice cozy comforter on top. She is familiar with small space living having dry camped in a small camper for several months while Air BNB'ing her home for back-to-back Summers as well as comfortable with outdoor living.

She participated in the cooking on Soulstice and she is a terrific cook! She learned to deal with our top-loading fridge which can be a bit frustrating to find stuff, it requires a lot of digging around and pulling stuff out on the counter just to find one thing - ha! Additionally, learning to turn on the propane solenoid before lighting the stove and turning on and off our water pressure switch because our pump does not always pressurize. Those little idiosyncrasies you can have on a boat. She learned the Jabsco toilet routine but the inverter to change DC to AC we left off her plate to learn about.

She understood being thoughtful of our water and power supply and moving around in a tight space. We did appreciate her considerate nature of our sailboat but MORE importantly, we immensely enjoyed her fun nature and great attitude for adventure.

After Wrangell, we went through the Eastern Passage/Blake Channel and down to Thorpe Bay. After that we headed north of the Behm Canal, west side, and then down the east side, known as Misty Fjords Monument. Our adventures included lots of paddleboards in the anchorages where she succeeded at standing up on the paddleboard, graduating from a seated or knee position. Additionally, we hiked when trails were available and had some fun dinghy rides with fishing time. We fed her crab, salmon, and halibut. She is a pescatarian so we needed to keep up on our seafood provisions.

Our visit for the most part had incredible weather up until the end. The "end" was our last day to move closer to Ketchikan to get into port before a big gale. As we were on the move heading south down the eastern Behm Canal, Stephen noted the engine overheating!!! The gauge pointer was in the RED!! WTH? We immediately shut off the engine and went under sail. Luckily, there was some wind but not a lot.

He did a bunch of troubleshooting but no blockages on either end, intake, or outflow. Then we noted our coolant level was incredibly low which was odd as we always check and that has not been an issue before. He put coolant in and even had to put additional water to fill it up and after starting the engine back up we noted red coming out of the wet exhaust (outflow for the boat - should just be water). AAAHH! so stop the engine immediately and then we sailed.

Our intended anchorage to protect us from the SE winds turned out to have a reef and shoaling that was not charted. Another 1st for us! We had to abort the anchorage, which we planned to sail in and drop anchor as fast as we could but we then had to make a new plan QUICK! I did find another anchorage with the wind protection we needed but it was 10nm north and nothing closer to Ketchikan - Uggh! We turned around and attempted to sail north. Long story short we sailed to 0.1nm from the entrance of Wasp Cove when the wind completely died!

During this time, we did put out a Securite call and eventually a PON PON distress call to Coast Guard on VHF 16. We alerted them we were under auxiliary sail power ONLY and if the winds died we would need a tow. We had no cell service and VHF was very spotty and staticky. We used our satellite service, the Iridium GO, and did communicate with our buddy Matt in Soldotna AK, and with Coast Guard. Matt helped to middleman the communications and act as a sort of incident commander for us due to our poor VHF communication and even satellite calls dropping. We even asked CG about using HF radio but they no longer use it as their base as we could have used HF for an alternate communication method.

Coast Guard sent a RIB our way and they arrived around 2200. We were towed using our bow cleats with their Dyneema line about 120 ft behind the RIB. It took about 7 hours to arrive in Ketchikan at 0530 am and escorted to a loading dock/ side tie where we stayed as a disabled vessel for about a week. It dumped rain the next few days to make it even more unpleasant. Karen was an amazing trooper through all of this and kept a good attitude and was a great support for both of us. We were deflated her trip had to end that way.

To be continued in the next blog, the Soulstice repair.....

Transiting Eastern Passage/Blake Channel

Thorne Bay

Naha Recreational area/Roosevelt Lagoon Trail

Walker Cove

oh yeah- fresh dungies with butter and garlic!

Hangin' well with the East Coast crab eater professionals ( Stephen -VA and Me - MD) - yes we check your shells to make sure they are CLEAN - bahahaha!