Alaska
Route Planning
Sailing to Alaska: So Many Options, Such Little Time
Saturday, March 07, 2015TheCambrians
When we first arrived in the Pacific Northwest in October of 2008, we were overwhelmed by our
cruising options and had no idea where to go or what to do. In the end, we decided to take the “eating an
elephant” approach to our new cruising grounds and bite off a small section at
a time, building our way up to what we believed would be the icing on the cake:
Southeast Alaska .
It’s finally time to ice our proverbial cake, and that
brings us right back to where we started – feeling overwhelmed by our options.
I’ve been working on our routes for weeks now and
every time I think I’ve finally come up with the perfect way for us to navigate
through this maze of islands, inlets and channels without missing anything I
discover another “must-see” anchorage to add to our growing list and have to
start again.
The biggest question, surprisingly, has been
whether or not we should do the west coast of Chichagof and Baranof Islands to see Sitka (a city everyone raves about). As recently as yesterday, I’d decided that it
made more sense for us to stick to the inside rather than add on the extra
miles but we met up with some friends the other night, one of whom used to live
in Sitka , and he offered a strong argument for making the
extra effort. Time will have to tell on
that one, but I think I’ve been persuaded.
So, why bother?
Why not just show up and have a good time exploring? It’s a good question. One that can be boiled down to a simple
answer: charts!
Despite the fact that we have several chart
plotters aboard (Coastal Explorer, C-Map and
Navionics) and use them almost exclusively, we fall firmly on the “must carry paper”
side of the debate when it comes to charts.
So, if we don’t have the paper aboard, we won’t be going.
It’s not just about charting-up, though. There’s romance in planning a passage. To me, choosing where to go is one of the most exciting decisions you can make on a
boat: It’s where the dream of
cruising starts to take on a life of its own. Where anticipation takes root and begins to grow. And as frustrating as the process can be
sometimes, it’s where the fun begins.
For now though, it’s time to put away the cruising
guides and planning charts to start focusing on getting the boat ready. Like most years, we have several jobs we need
to do before we can drop our lines in early April and the days are falling off
the calendar a little too quickly!
Stops Along the Way
Here’s a short list of
some of the highlights for this coming season:
Ford’s Terror
Meyers Chuck
Follow Along
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3 comments
You're right about the amount to see. Here are our experiences from 2012 http://cruisingwithravensong.blogspot.ca/
ReplyDeleteThanks, Judy! I'll be sure to check it out. The more information we have, the better!
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