The unexpected week in Alert Bay
Article 1 of 5 of highlights of our trip to Alaska
Alert Bay: The Week We Didn't Plan How a two-day stop became the soul of the voyage
Endless Song — Alaska Voyage 2025 | June 1–8, 2025 Every sailor knows the feeling. You have a plan. The plan says two days. And then something happens — a broken part, a fraying wire, a community that pulls you in — and the plan dissolves. Two days becomes a week. And the week becomes one of the defining experiences of the voyage.
That's Alert Bay. We pulled into Alert Bay on June 1st, 2025, intending to stay just long enough to address a nagging alternator issue and a stuffing box that had been weeping more than we liked. The town sits on Cormorant Island, a short ferry hop from Port McNeill on northern Vancouver Island. It is the traditional home of the Kwakwaka'wakw people, and it is home to the tallest totem pole in the world — 53 metres of red cedar, carved in 1973.
Allison and James, good friends who we met through their awesome YouTube channel @AllisonandJamesSailing also live in Alert Bay. Much of our Alaska adventure was based on their video series. Give them a view, Subscribe and help them get to 50k subscribers.
The Alternator Regulator
The charging problem had been lurking since Victoria. Our Balmar 100amp alternator— was being managed by a Balmar external regulator that had developed a fault. Without reliable charging, our battery bank couldn't be kept topped up, which meant the watermaker, the navigation electronics, and the autopilot were all hostages to a temperamental circuit board. After days of diagnosis — made considerably easier by the generosity of fellow cruisers Allison and James, who lent us parts from their own boat — we identified the regulator as the culprit. A replacement was sourced. The installation worked. We had charging.
The Stuffing Box Adventure
The stuffing box — the seal where the propeller shaft exits the hull — had been leaking at a rate that wasn't dangerous but wasn't comfortable either. The fix requires flax packing: a traditional material that compresses around the shaft to create a seal. For some reason 1/4 " Flax packing is not something you find easily in northern Vancouver Island. The solution was a four-ferry odyssey to Sointula on Malcolm Island, where the good people at Tarkanen Marine had what we needed. Four ferry hops in a full gale. The water was thoroughly unpleasant. The packing material was worth it. Installing the packing was, after all the worry, almost anticlimactic. Friend James came aboard and supervised. What we'd feared would be a gusher turned out to be barely a trickle. The job took an hour. The stuffing box was fixed.
Community
But Alert Bay gave us more than mechanical salvation. It gave us a week of unexpected community. Friends David and Trina drove the length of Vancouver Island to bring us replacement Starlink cables. We ate well, drank good wine, explored the village, visited the U'mista Cultural Centre with its extraordinary collection of repatriated Kwakwaka'wakw regalia. This centre slone is worth driving up island to visit. It leaves one in awe of what was and saddened about how the first nations were treated.
Leaving Alert Bay at last
Refreshed, repaired, and ready for Cape Caution "It's been a fantastic week at Alert Bay. Just the unwind we needed. Sorted out a lot of issues. Fixed stuff that had broken. Ate great food and drank good wine with friends." By the time we left on June 8th, we felt like different sailors. The mechanical anxieties that had shadowed our departure from Victoria had been resolved. The boat was solid. The crew was rested. Cape Caution — the great psychological gateway to the north — lay just days ahead. We were ready. We'd go back to Alert Bay in a heartbeat.
