We pulled into Ketchikan around 18:00 on Monday. I had prepared a chicken enchilada dish earlier that morning, know that dinner time would be interrupted by docking and cargo ops. After jockeying the barge into place and getting her all tied down, the other AB and I went to work. We only had about 50-60 containers to unload and the unlashing went pretty quick. The full unload took about 5 hours and then we had about 8 or so containers coming back on ("backload") that were headed towards Anchorage. All said and done, we were in and out in about 6 hours and again heading north.
The weather was fair, just some thick fog here and there. The Gulf weather was reportedly calm, so we popped out into the big water at Cape Decision. Had there been heavier winds or seas, we would have stayed on the inland route north and popped out at Cape Spencer a few days later. Cape Spencer is the northernmost entrance to the inland passage.
It's now Wednesday, and we are into the Gulf heading northwest on a heading of 302 towards Cook Inlet. It'll take us a few days, but we are already making fast headway with the winds at our backs. To steam along at 10+ knots in the Gulf is good and we've been doing just that. Once into Cook, we head north for about a day into Anchorage. At that point, all cargo will come off and some backload will come back on. At this point, we aren't planning to stop anywhere else, so the trip back home should be a quick one. Everything can and has changed, so we've learned to be flexible and not count on anything to be solid until our feet are back on the docks.
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Hello Mike, I have read all of your posts to try and get a feel for what the Workboat Academy is like. I am figuring if the program is something I want to do. I have many questions about what to expect, and how I can prepare to start there. I live in Seattle, and would be very interested in getting together the next time you are in town. You can find me on facebook, my name is Colin "Hitch" Brasfield.
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