“Apparently I’m afflicted, with a fairly common score, although I’ve attempted to fight it, it’s there forever more.

The trouble is my gypsy blood, the weakness in my heart, and every attempt to fight it, has failed right from the start.”  Francis Caldwell

We hailed out of Sitka in another pea soup fog, using radar to inch out and reverse our path.  We chickened out of traveling the outside though in retrospect we realized we could have easily managed that barren and beautiful coast.  We hoisted mainsail and genoa half a dozen times to catch the wind enough to belly the sails and give us momentum. We greeted more whales, seals, and a small bevy of white sided porpoises, and drifted slowly into Cosmos Cove for the night.  We were the only humans for much of the day and all of the night. 

We covered 70 or so miles but were content to just be on the water, solitude on a vast silvery sea.  We spied two purse seiners off the coast of Admiralty Island, one of the many islands in Alaska labeled with Important White Guy Names.  Tlinglit place names are descriptive such as Taan which means sea lion, (Prince of Wales Island).

Filtered light broke through as our coffee woke us up, the deck a toasty 65 degrees from that seldom-seen orb.  Two Black Tail Sitka Deer gingerly walked the nearby beach from our anchorage seeking to enhance their diet with mollusk or seaweed.  Just as quickly, the sunlight diminished, obscured by lacy veils of fog.  

We departed late, 9:00 am and headed back to Warm Springs for Tim to fly fish in Baranof Creek.  I think he wanted to attempt beating Brandon’s trout catching of 30 (or so) last week! 

Cosmos Cove, Baranof Island