Entry Date: 05.07.2016, at 07:10:12 hrs (local)

Dutch Harbor - Seward

Scary encounter

It is time to say ”Good Buy” to Dutch Harbor. We leave the dock just before three o´clock in the morning and still dark. We have to leave at this inconvenient time in order to reach the Unalga Pass at slag tide. The Unalga Pass is one of the smallest and narrowest passes between the Pacific and the Bering Sea. Of course we assume that all the big vessels would use one of the much wider passes.

Our calculation proves correct and we are right at slag-tide in the pass. At the narrowest location Lutz sees in the twilight a dark buoy with a bright orange flashing light on top in front of us with a radar echo. But what is that? The buoy moves toward us! And fast! Only now he realizes the buoy is in fact a huge submarine. It passes us on our port side with high speed toward the North and disappears later into the Bering Sea. That was a scary encounter! We fail to understand why this huge submarine picks the narrowest pass in this area.

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