Wrangell to Petersburg

6 hours 43.4 miles
We can’t get enough of these clear sunny days. It is so different from last year when we had about 90% rainy days. Our trip through Sumner Straight was uneventful. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any whales. We entered Wrangell Narrows on a rising tide because that will give us a push. This 20 mile long channel is well marked with red (keep red marker to starboard) and green (keep buoy to the port) buoys the mark the channel. In 2007 we had to share this narrow channel with many fishing and cruising boats. This year we are only seeing small speed boats (mostly fishermen). There at least two fishing camps here in the narrows. This made our transit fun because we just went down the middle with a huge safety margin. We were going to request berthage at the South Harbor in Petersburg because it is new. However we decided to take whatever the Harbormaster dished out. We were assigned a slip in the North Harbor. We got in but it was not a landing that Capt. Phred was proud of. The rule of thumb is “any landing you can walk away from is a good one” applies here. This harbor is mostly used by the fishing fleet. There are very few cruising boats here. It actually reminds us of Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. However, it is the closest harbor to town. After we settled in the captain took a nap and Merlin and I went for a walk. Most of the stores were open on a Sunday. Merlin behaved very well in the stores (he can go anywhere except restaurants and food stores) until I was looking at some souvenirs and I turned around and he was playing with a stuffed toy he took out of a bin. Thank goodness he did no harm and I didn’t have to pay for it.