Looking toward the head of Sukhoi Bay.
Chart 16640 and 16648
The crossing to Cape Douglas from Homer, or from Seldovia or Port Graham on the south side of Kachemak Bay, is direct. If weather conditions allow, Mount Douglas is visible towering above the cape all the way across. Of course, electronic navigation is recommended regardless of the weather, which can change several times during a single crossing.
Approaching Sukoi Bay from Cook Inlet.
Sukoi Bay is a small inlet, well sheltered from all weathers except easterly. The name means “dry” in Russian, and the upper half of the bay is very shallow, studded with big rocks, and goes partly dry at low water. Lava flows formed the bay; basalt columns line the right (east) side of the entrance and the bottom is rocky. The best anchorage is past the row of rocks on the left side of the entrance, in about 2–3 fathoms. This provides shelter from most north, west, south and southeast weather.
Columnar rock on the north side of the entrance to Sukoi Bay.
On the south side of the Cape Douglas peninsula is a small, semi-enclosed unnamed bay that provides shelter from west, north and northeast winds, with depths of 8 fathoms sloping up to 1 fathom at the head.
Aside from the rugged landscapes and towering mountains behind the coastline, another striking feature to anyone coming from the richly forested Kenai Peninsula is the dearth of trees. The Cape Douglas area is almost entirely lacking in conifers and even deciduous trees are small and sparse. There are some scattered spruce on the Shelikof coast but they soon disappear. There is more arboreal ground cover farther to the north on the Kamishak Bay shore but still nothing like the rich forests to the east of Cook Inlet.
Bears have been demolishing this drift log.
The route west (actually southwest) from Cape Douglas entails long exposure to the open waters of Shelikof Strait. While it is possible to find some shelter from west and north weather tucked up to the beach in places like Swikshak Bay and Hallow Bay behind Ninagiak Island, there is no real all weather shelter until Kukak Bay. Westward from Kukak there are numerous bays and inlets, but not all are suitable for anchorage due to water depths, submerged obstacles, and poor holding ground. Be aware that even in summertime, some atmospheric conditions produce extremely strong winds that pour down through the valleys from the Bering Sea into the Gulf of Alaska, making anchorage in many of those bays tenuous at best.
The remainder of the route down the Alaska Peninsula to False Pass and the Aleutians may be described in a future chapter of this online publication.