Novara - take 2- Kodiak to Mexico

Novara take 2 - Kodiak - 20 /5/15

20/5/15
Arrived back into Kodiak today after a long day in the air. Got up at 06:00, got ready and taxi turned up at 08:30 to take me to Oxenholme station. Picked up my train tickets and awaited the 09:12 to Manchester Airport........flight with Icelandair at 13;25.
All went well to the airport, got a trolley, for the 2 big bags and my small rucsac.
Meandered along to Terminal 1, dropped the bags and went through security, for a change no hassle form the security guys................little did i know it was all waiting for me across the pond.
Flight was delayed until 14:40, however hostess was sure i'd make my first stop in Rekjavik ok.
In fact we did, walked into the terminal and straight into the queue for the Anchorage flight.
Eventually i'm at the desk with my passport & boarding pass..................."wow".......have you been through security ?............."no ............i just arrived from Manchester".
 "Well you have been picked by the US customs computer for a random check"................yeah right............i get escorted by a very pleasant but extremely large Icelander to the US customs office. It's amazing how many flights there are through Iceland to the US.
The escort tells me every flight gets around 5 to 10 random checks from US customs..............trust it to be me !!!!! AGAIN
In we go, rucsac down for checking, stand on this bench..............what ???........yep stand on the bench so we can frisk you..............Gordon Bennett how amateur that is !!!
All's well, so i get escorted back to my flight.....................i'm now at the back of the queue............last on.
All's cool.....i'm on................with three seats to boot.....yyyahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhoooooooo.
At least i get some kip on the way to Anchorage.
US. Customs at Anchorage................here we go again.......go into that room please Mr. Morgan............gawd, what now.
Another grilling, what are you doing, where are you going, can you support yourself.................on and on it goes.
Anyway, the customs guy seems happy after about 30 minutes of grilling..............he's obviously getting all the right answers.
Welcome to the USA....have a nice trip......cool , thanks. He gives a visa until November 15th.
That's fine i'll be out on the 15th July, so no problems there.
Next......bags check.............no problems, i thought.
Think again dude, Customs guy stops me AGAIN..........."have any items of food in your bags?".........ermmmmm, no says i, well as far asi think i have'nt.
"It appears you have some apples in your black bag sir, can you open it please?"
Yeah, no problem, says i......................apples, what !!! Don't think so. Then he pulls out my foil wrapped bags (round one's) of tea bags..............."aha" he says..........."what's this"...tea i reply.
"Gee, Brits and your tea, yeah, it's tea !!"
I know it is says i.
"We thought they were apples"
"All good off you go"....................another storm in a tea cup averted !!!!!  LOL........get it !!!???

Now i meet Joe Bedford, his website is
do1adventures
............., he's cycling up to Fairbanks and the Arctic Circle.......then down to Patagonia and the Antarctic circle..........good dude..........i'll keep a track of him, we might meet up again along the way. He reckons it may take him 2 years, so we may well meet up again......cool.
Off to South Terminal to get my flight with Ravn to Kodiak, bit of a wait.........hey ho.
Good flight to Kodiak, very foggy though.
In about 22:30.............taxi !!!!
In boat at 23:00.......phew....knackered !!!! Terje welcomes me aboard Novara.
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loads of jobs on the boat, including, boiler, water pump .AGAIN !!! etc etc etc.
We then move the boat over to Town Harbour..................quite pleased with myself here..........never moored Novara up before..................went smooth as !!!
Noice.
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30th May.........Peter comes around to the boat, we have a place for you on the 13:00 flight to the south of the island, if you're interested............."does the Pope wear a funny hat "?? too right we're interested..........wow, just great..........mountains all covered in snow. We deliver post to South of the island and then pick up a fisherman on the way back, Paul Dungan from Homer........good craiche, came round to the boat later.

5/6/15
Fisherman gives us 2 crab, boil for 15 mins in saltwater & then wash in cold fresh.......get as much meat out as possible. Gorgeous !!!!!!
Kabola photo cell arrives, connect........boiler fixed......the unburnt fuel encompassed the dock in smoke.............whoops scotties
Stak paks sorted
Blew up Peter's battery charger last night..........DOH !!!!

14/6/15
Steve arrived in from France around 18:00.....made him a Salmon and rice..............fresh from one of the fishermen ..................just superb

 Some fishermen fixing their nets on the Town dock

Elephant seals basking on a pontoon in Dog Bay

I steer ua around from Dog Bay to Town Dock

A local Kodiak fire engine..................it's a clean machine.....

The WW2 gun battery at Abercrombie Point, about 3 miles outside Kodiak

Moss growing on the trees near Abercrombie

The Lost Blog - end of the NW Passage trip

The lost blog !!!
I've only just realised i never published this part of the blog from last year.
Very remiss !!!
25th & 26th Sept 2014
We do a few minor jobs on the boat, washing her down etc etc.
Go for walks and do some shopping.
Later we see a sea lion in the harbour looking for scraps off the boats, he does quite well !!!
We meet a guy called Paul, one of the fishing boat skippers, he gives us some good local information and says he would leave tomorrow to get to Homer. We look at the gribs and think it looks better on Sunday morning........we'll see tomorrow.
Heavy rain on the 26th

27th Sept
Lovely morning  this morning after all the rain.
Around lunch time after downloading some more gribs we decide to take Paul's advice and have a go at it. So we release all the lines about 11:30 and head out.
Not too bad for the first hour or so................then it starts...........port beam reach..25 to 35 knots and getting rough.
We carry on and it gets worse, we have a reefed main up on the aft mast, this suddenly blows out, the reefing line has snapped !!!! Blooming heck that's not good.........no second reef on the aft main now, it's impossible to run another line in these seas.
During the evening and over night it gets worse and the seas get bigger.............talk about a "sting in the tail" !!!
The Alaskan Gulf is being a bit of a sod !!!!

28th Sept
Still rough and windy.We had a text from Fred overnight .............Sunday NW winds ...40 knots .......oooooooooooooo joy !!!! We decide to carry on and see how it pans out. There are  a few bail out ports on the way, so we'll keep those in mind !!!
It gets rough and windy, however, we never saw any 40 knot winds..........yyyyyahoooo !!!!
Very slow going though.................quite a lot of 3 to 4 knot sections....................just big seas slamming into us on the bows...............not fun !!!
Above Foggy cape and just before we entered the Shelikof Strait proper, Steve decided enough is enough..............
"bear off, we're heading for Kodiak......we'll over winter there".
Best news ever, we were all getting a bit pi##ed off with it.
So off we go.........SE now for about 60 miles.......................good run....wind a bit up & down, but far more comfortable.

29th Sept.
We entered the channel between Kodiak Island and Aiaktalik island, just about 07:30..........the sky just showing the first signs of light. In the pilot book it says, " beware strong currents and tidal rips, rocks, kelp beds and shallows...........BRILLIANT......i'm at the wheel..............we're flying in at about 7 knots....massive sea behind us and around 25 knots of wind.........................
GORDON BENNETT !!!!! here we go..........into the channel, passed Russian Harbour.............blimey...........winds dropped, seas have calmed down.............blooming easy peasy this (mind you we had timed it just right with the tides, they were on the ebb and flowing out at 1.5kn).
We flew through....9.2 knots at times............tide carried us of course.....brilliant we're out on the east coast of Kodiak Island.......wind good, sea calmish, brilliant sunshine...........all is good !!!
It's fairly barren up the east coast of Kodiak, however, there are some cool looking fjords on route. We may well come and have a look around these next year when we get back. Kodiak should be in our sights on my watch from 20:00 to 22:00. Then that's it the end of the voyage for this year folks.....................LOL !!!!!
We entered Kodiak harbour at 23:00......ok a touch late. We moored up and gratefully got into bed....after a few beers to celebrate.......of course !!!

30th Sept
Busy day today, taking down sails and generally clearing the decks ready to winterise the boat. MacDonalds for coffee.....only wifi we could find....honest Gemma !!!