Day by Day to Alaska -- An Adventure Guide
Author: Dale R. Peterson
Aboard a 21 foot Bayliner Trophy model 2159 with an ‘Alaskan bulkhead’ (see picture below) Dale Peterson casts off from just south of Bellingham WA in 1994 and in 23 days travels solo through Canada to Sitka Alaska and back – 2500 miles! Dale is an experienced power boat skipper and with proper preparedness – minding safety first – gets up before dawn (calmer weather conditions) and travels at flank speed (20 plus knots!) coursing through the famed Inside Passage stopping each evening after around a 100+ miles. Dale’s book also tells of eight major trips north, two trips around Vancouver Island, and four trips to the Queen Charlotte Islands.
Dale provides map sketches showing one to three days of the route through the Inland Passage. So helpful to keep the reader on track and to gain a sense of the immense distance Dale traveled on the water in a short period of time. The Bayliner was fitted out with over a thousand pounds of gear and staples just to keep up the relentless pace consuming food, water, and gasoline. Dale includes the spare parts inventory, tools, first aid kit, extra engine parts, spare propeller and dozens and dozens more items listed in the ‘Reflections’ chapter. Dale had an extra engine to push the boat, an 8 hp outboard mounted to the Bayliner’s swim step (both to gingerly enter shallow bays and limp to engine help when needed) AND a 2hp outboard for his little Bombard inflatable dinghy carried on the cabin top. He also had radar and GPS onboard.
One of the most forgotten and least understood essential items for cruising is some sort of heating device for a small boat. Even in the summer season in the great Northwest – especially between the 50 th. tand 60 th. parallels – it cools down rapidly when weather from the Pacific Ocean passes through. Even though this coastal area is considered temperate the high humidity dampens down everything and can produce a bone chilling cold as heat is evaporated from the body. Dale cobbled together a neat solution. He sketched a plan for a stovetop heater that vents to the outside. It is made from 1/8 th. inch aluminum and fits the top of his Origo 4000 alcohol stove and looks a bit like a shoe box. One can even cook on top of the heater while it’s working. “The result is a heater that uses an existing cook stove and sets up it seconds. It heats like a cozy old wood stove in the corner using clean fuel and venting moisture to the outside.”
Dale is extremely through and generous with his information. All the necessary chart numbers are given, out of the way hidey holes to anchor are shown, the lists of equipment and the chapter “Safety, Tips and Observation (Philosophy)” are most worthy -- and so much more -- makes this small boat adventure book a good read.
Far away coastal places tugging at your mooring…? Nakwakro Rapids, Namu, Ocean Falls, Butedale, Bishop Bay Hot Springs – all and more are documented in Dales’s book “Day by Day to Alaska”
This book published on-demand in cooperation with Trafford Publishing or seek at your favorite pre-owned book store.
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