Alaska Itinerary Coming Into Focus

The first major cruising itinerary we will be embarking on is our trip into SE Alaska via the Inside Passage.  The actual itinerary for this trip has been nebulous until now and we finally have a good idea of where we will be going and when.

We first head North from Anacortes, WA on Sunday after the Jeanneau Summer Rendezvous ends in mid-June and check in to Canada in the Gulf Islands.  Then we’ll make our way north up through the Gulf Islands, Georgia Strait, past Desolation Sound, and along the coast, checking back in to the USA in Ketchikan, AK.   After that we’ll meander through SE Alaska islands and bays checking out the Anan Bear Sanctuary, various glaciers, hot springs, and more.

We end up back in Ketchikan around Aug 13th after cruising ~1400 nautical miles over 56 days.  We’ll be over 2000nm by the time we get back to Washington State.  Our plans for heading south back to mainland US from Ketchikan are still forming but we are generally thinking we’ll head down the west coast of Vancouver Island to see Tofino, some more hot springs, and whatever else we can find.  We may even get to meet up with a buddy boat for the Vancouver Island part of the trip.

Even though it’s not all in one shot, the southbound west coast passage will complete a circumnavigation of Vancouver Island for us which is on a lot of sailors’ bucket lists.   I’ve plugged the GPS coordinates of all of the known stops for this trip into Google Earth and attached the screenshot of that below.   Starting to get real!  Now if only I felt ready…