Petersburg, Alaska

Mountains with first sight of snow in very distance.

Above, a flying salmon... below, storm clouds approaching.

The route to Petersburg, Alaska.

There are 65 buoys and navigational warnings on the Wrangell Narrows.  Careful attention must be paid to stay within the green and red lanes, while not driving through the fishermen's nets which are stretched across the channel.  This would be the first and last time we saw the mountains above Wrangell and Petersburg. 

Later that night the rain clouds would descend and would not leave for another week. 

We stayed in the  Petersburg marina for 3 days while we waited for a storm to pass over.  The storm never showed up, which could lead us into a whole chapter on how not to let the VHF weather forecast freak you out unnecesarily. 

The marina was easily the most modern and economical marina we stayed in during our entire trip.  We would highly recommend others to plan on staying here and bypassing Wrangell, Alaska.  The two towns look close on the map, but you are unable to navigate through the little water connection between the two towns.  As a result you have to go through the Wrangell Narrows.  This requires careful timing of the tides and currents. 

If you time it correctly you will ride a late flood current 2/3 of the way through and then have the ebb current pull you the rest of the way through.  If doing it again I would enter the narrow with two hours left to go in the flood.  You should be able to do 8 knots with the current.