Rod Stewart’s 1971 hit, Every Picture Tells a Story, lends itself as a metaphor for Jupiter and her Crew’s naive voyage of discovery in Alaska and British Columbia during the past months. During nine years along this coast Jupiter has proven to have many close encounters of the blurred kind. Blurred from rain on the windscreen and fog in the foreground, but also obscured by too little time and constant motion.
Wayfinding is the easy part of coastal voyaging, but fathoming the lives of creatures, the experience of people and the ambiguities of history and geology remains within a seductive twilight. Mariners challenge the depths of field, voyaging beyond the sharp focus of the familiar toward the indistinct promise of the undiscovered.
Catalyst
June 20: When Jupiter arrives at a port an adventure unfurls. The assignment of a slip lies with the harbormaster; neighboring vessels and relationships that result are in the greasy hands of fate.
Directed to South Harbor in Petersburg we find ourselves moored alongside a beautiful vintage vessel christened Catalyst, built of Alaskan yellow cedar, with a plumb bow and an experienced admiralty anchor. Coming aboard as engineer is Daniel, who worked on Jupiter years ago.
Soon a watch-your-step tour of Catalyst begins with engine rockers and well-oiled everything. The ship, built in Seattle in 1932 as an oceanographic research vessel, was called into service to hunt submarines after Pearl Harbor. She is still propelled by her original 6 cylinder 8×10 Washington Estep diesel engine coddled by her crew, while astounding visitors. Today her mission is to expose wide-eyed visitors to the marvels and mysteries of Southeast Alaska.
Daniel takes enormous pride in this original engine that requires a dedicated engineer and barrels of oil to keep her clanking.
Jupiter and Catalyst, generations apart, share a finger float in Petersburg, Alaska.
Whaling
July 12: This has been a slow summer for bears, but a bustling one for whales. Humpbacks appear everywhere, rolling for shallow water feeding. We occasionally observe unihemispheric slow-wave sleeping, known as logging.
An afternoon is spent in the small tender bobbing amongst the washy rocks outside Jupiter’s anchorage. The vedette is a humpback that surprises all and rolls close alongside, unconcerned. This leviathan’s exhale smells warm and fishy, and we are eyeball to eyeball.
The Carving Shed
July 7: Friends join Jupiter at Hydaburg, Prince of Wales Island. Dreary, wet weather drives everyone inside the well-known Haida Nation carving shed overlooking the Sukkwan Strait. We find renowned brother carvers Joe and TJ Young busy creating a new totem pole.
The well-lit shed is warmed by a woodstove, redolent with red cedar, awash in wood chips. Woodworking tools ancient and modern are everywhere. A magnificent bare tree dominates the space. The ambience feels equally mysterious and overt.
Joe and TJ are pleased to answer many questions and offer insights into Haida culture, their own heritage and the exacting art of monumental pole carving. The brothers are at the pinnacle of artistic and technical skill, have worked together more than twenty years and completed numerous totem poles.
Many indigenous settlements across Southeast Alaska and in British Columbia provide carving sheds for native artists restoring and creating poles and other carved artworks. Native people are eagerly stacking future cultural legacies on those of the past.
Love Birds
It is tempting to anthropomorphise when human contact is mostly two aboard Jupiter. Surely birds are loyal and in love.
Glaucous-winged Gulls showing heart.
Oyster Catchers catch oysters together with their specialized bills.
Barn Swallows rest on the bow rail after sweeping Jupiter’s windscreen for spiders and flies.
Great Blue Herons are seasonally monogamous so every year there is a “getting to know you” period defined by elaborate courtship rituals.
Puffin Bay
July 29-31: Jupiter proposes a shortcut from Sitka to Alaska’s eastern islands by way of the Pacific Coast of Baranof Island. A reasonable three-day offshore forecast is found.
Jupiter begins Day One along 25 miles of a smooth water routing via Dorothy Narrows, First Narrows and Second Narrows then another 25 miles of open sea from Aspid Cape, where Jupiter’s log simply notes Rough, to North Cape where 4-5 confused seas – squalls is penned. No further entries are possible until the boat reaches Third Kekur – a massive columnar rocky stack near the entrance of Sandy Cove where anchorage is found for the night.
After the Day One forecast betrayal, Day Two promises nothing. The concept of only 22 miles along the coast lures Jupiter to make a bid for Puffin Bay.
As we depart Sandy Cove the log notes Entrance bar: 6-foot rollers at 9-second period – incoming tide. A further 7 miles along we are off Second Kekur tossing about in two large converging swells in sets – winds NE at 12 knots. By late morning Jupiter finds First Kekur with 8-10 foot swell – BIG seas. Winds NE 20 knots.
After miles of bad business, Jupiter approaches Puffin Bay inlet where the on-shore winds, an incoming tide and all the Pacific rollers join forces. This malign confluence adds an extra mile of navigational improvisation under protection of a rocky headland in order to find a way to clear the inlet without experiencing Surfaris’ 1963 instrumental, Wipe Out!
Puffin Inlet is deep and wide, inviting Jupiter and all the witchy waters to scroll 2 miles to the head of bay where no anchorage is possible except at the head in Puffin Cove. Approaching the narrow recess the crew, eager to anchor after the troubles of the day, is shocked to find a small sailing vessel called Sundew swinging centered within the small lagoon. How did they get here? Apparently happily settled in before the gale suspended further travel.
Tenuous anchoring is found outside of Sundew’s swing circle where an afternoon of vicious williwaws and blasts of rain torment both vessels. Day Three, filled with regret for previous inconsistencies, is windless, with Jupiter’s wake creating the only disturbance.
Raven
Raven occupies a central place in indigenous history. Raven is simultaneously a creator, transformer, trickster and teacher. He is clever, curious, vain, deceitful, greedy and perpetually hungry. Raven has an extraordinary range of sounds including knock, bark, rattle, scream, whistle, bell, gurgle, snap, and he can mimic other creatures and even human speech.
Raven often boards Jupiter for a ride of some distance. Jupiter’s Crew does not mess with Raven.
The Simulator
May 26: A tangential connection leads us to the University of Alaska Southeast Maritime Center where we visit the waterfront training facility. Practical vocational labs and equipment provide applicative learning for merchant mariners and Coast Guard personnel.
The building houses a “full mission navigation bridge simulator” for many vessels including Coast Guard Cutters, one of which is piloted through the Tongass Narrows at tactical speed by Jupiter’s Captain.
No mines, attack aircraft, blockades, foreign adversaries, fires, fishermen, or icebergs prevent the helmsman from crashing through Ketchikan’s congested waterway. The virtual reality of dangerous sea conditions causes operators to brace themselves.
Hidden in Plain Sight
Sighting wildlife is a constant goal aboard Jupiter, but despite photos shared of spy-hopping whales and great churlish bears, this is rarely easy. Often the first evidence is movement, and a still observer benefits from patience.
Unperturbed by passing kayakers, a speckled seal dozes on a speckled rock in speckled light under a cedar canopy.
So remember, every picture tells a story, don’t it
Rod Stewart, 1971
Every picture tells a story, don’t it
Every picture tells a story, don’t it, woo
Every picture tells a story, don’t it
Foundering
Two years on the crew revisits Bill’s fissiparous floathouse within LaBouchere Bay. The structure is decomposing into the shallows, destined to offer the indistinct promise of the undiscovered. Intersection at Port Protection.
Experiences, not appearances, create a story. Each scene has its moment, but a larger tale lies in the surrounding context and chronicle. The peripatetic narrator arrives naive and impulsive, but departs knowing both the thrills and deficiencies of exploration.
But it’s always wicked good fun! Thanks for joining in.
2026 By the Numbers
- 2877 NM traveled
- 121 nights aboard
- 350 hours on the engines
- Countless days of rain
- 2,395 usable light hours (includes daylight and twilight) averaging 16 hours / day.
