The Crew
Your Alaska born captains Murray and Phyllis Tate are licensed USCG Master Merchant Mariner holders for decades. The Coast Guard requires two licensed captains for vessels that stay away from port more than 12 hours at a time. We have to pass extensive yearly Coast Guard inspections to meet safety, knowledge, seaworthiness, and man-overboard requirements to ensure your well-being.
Another Coast Guard Inspection
Murray returns to Nuliaq.
Captain Murray Tate is a congenial third generation Alaskan who hails from Petersburg, Alaska and a long-time boating family. As a Washington State University Civil Engineer graduate, he is a licensed Professional Engineer in both Alaska and Washington. He has been a commercial fisherman; owned his own commercial building construction business out of Fairbanks, Alaska for 20 years; and has lived, built and traveled by land, sea and air over much of Alaska from Ketchikan to Prudhoe Bay. He has been operating Nuliaq Alaska Charters out of Valdez since 1985.
Phyllis Tate was born in Fairbanks and has also lived, worked and traveled extensively throughout Alaska her entire life. In rural Alaska, she was both home schooled and sent to boarding school. She attended the University of Alaska in Fairbanks where she majored in Business Administration and Journalism. She worked in the petroleum, airline, environmental and banking industries. She was also a weather observer, grocery store owner, and part time teacher in "bush" Alaska. She is an active private pilot with an instrument rating, who savors her summers cruising on Prince William Sound where she paints and often takes reference photos for later watercolor paintings.
Congratulations, Captain Phyllis!
Previously, Murray and Phyllis operated a 56-foot WWII landing craft hauling freight on the Yukon River and Norton Sound for Murray's construction projects. Together they have made several trips across the Gulf of Alaska as well as brought boats from Washington to Alaska.
Murray and Phyllis spend a good part of the winter in Fairbanks, but they also own a beautiful 2-story log home built by Murray on the shores of Lake Minchumina where dawn breaks over Denali. There, they like to spend part of the winter taking advantage of the quiet days by pouring through recipes for their next cruising season when they are not stoking the fires, hauling water, reading, sewing, painting, writing, listening to music or traveling by snowmachine to visit friends in Lake Minchumina.