Ketchikan to Wrangell via Kasaan, Alaska

So, as expected, we spent our day in Ketchikan doing mundane civilization chores. I have received some feedback from readers about this, so I will refrain from telling you how many loads of laundry we did, how many were white and how many colored. For those of you who find this a disappointment let me know and I can provide an addendum. I will point out that we had the lowest tide of the year, and climbing up out of the marina with all of our dirty laundry was a major physical challenge. The weather was the typical Ketchikan day of cloudless blue skies and warm sunshine, temperatures in the low 70’s. We stayed in the north end of town, and didn’t have any cruise ship tourist experiences.

Bar Point Basin, Ketchikan, AK

We had hoped to go out to dinner at an excellent restaurant right at the top of the dock, but it was closed on Sundays. As a poor substitute we walked a half mile or so toward downtown to eat at Ketchikan’s best Mexican restaurant. We were somewhat encouraged when we called to see if they were open, that the man on the phone had a strong Spanish accent. In typical Alaskan fashion it was a Mexican/Italian restaurant with a huge menu covering both bases. In Prince Rupert, which is nearly Alaska, we saw a Greek restaurant, painted blue and white with stereotypical Greek motifs. In smaller print it said that they also served pasta, pizza, Indian, Southeast Asian and Sri Lankan food. Got to make a living I guess. At any rate this Mexican/Italian place was packed with locals. The walls were painted as faux marble with columns. The ceiling was blue and had a recessed dome, all painted with putti and local people in classical costumes and poses. It was really a riot. We ordered two different kinds of fajitas, which were quite good. Overall a surprisingly positive end to the day.

So, on Monday, June 24 we were clean, provisioned and ready to go. After breakfast at a yarn shop/art gallery/gift shop/coffee shop we bade farewell to Ketchikan once again. Our first stop was for fuel, which proved to be a small disaster. The details are not important, but the final result was, due to a rapid sequence of poor decisions by me we ended up with a gallon of diesel fuel sprayed all over the cockpit. Most fuel docks here are set up to quickly provide hundreds of gallons of fuel to fishing boats in the shortest possible time. We are a bit obsessive about our fuel, and run it through a filter to remove water and particulates. This is a slow process, and challenges the lower limit of fuel delivery by most fuel docks. Anyhow, I screwed up, and a considerable mess ensued. The young man running the dock was very helpful and sympathetic, and he earned a good tip.

We left the fuel dock and immediately were in the midst of Tongass Narrows craziness. The ferry to the airport was about to leave in front of us (recall the Bridge to Nowhere), Fishing boats were coming and going, floatplanes were taking off and landing, some barely clearing our mast, a massive cruise ship was occupying most of the available space. We just carried on and squeezed our way through. The lowest tide of the year comes along with the highest tide of the year, and every log that had washed onto a beach in the last twelve months was now happily afloat. It was a slalom course all day, dodging wood ranging from 6 inches to 4 feet in diameter. We stayed alert, didn’t use the autopilot, and emerged unscathed.

We next crossed a fairly large body of water called Clarence Strait (after the Duke of Clarence for you history buffs). The forecast was for south winds in the morning and north winds in the afternoon. Either way promised a good day sailing. Well, we crossed at noon, and had no wind at all. We did have some excitement when my inflatable life jacket suddenly decided to inflate. It is designed to inflate when submerged in water, but I suppose all of the rain finally got to it. Why it went off on a warm sunny day is hard to fathom. At any rate it was a startling event. Shortly thereafter the exact same sound reappeared, and we couldn’t believe a second one had gone off. Then we noticed this humpback whale that had surfaced immediately behind our boat and exhaled, producing the same sound as the life jacket. Much more fun to see the whale, though it was equally startling. The whale raised its flukes and dove, followed a few moments later by a companion. A nice antidote to the tensions of Ketchikan.

Tanks on Barge, Clarence Strait, AK

As we crossed the strait two tugs passed by, each pulling a barge carrying two large steel storage tanks, each about 100 feet high. It certainly emphasized a weakness of the Alaskan economy. I can understand why they have to import automobiles and asparagus, but I think that you could find people in Alaska capable of welding together steel plates to make storage tanks, but here they were hauling them up from Seattle. Alaska seems to ship out oil, fish and wood pulp, and import everything else.

The wind returned as we entered Kasaan Bay on Prince of Wales Island, and we were able to sail for a while. Prince of Wales Island is the third largest island in the US. I knew that Hawaii was the largest, and as a child of the East Coast, I assumed that Long Island, NY must be number two. Well, number two is Kodiak Island in Alaska, followed by a string of other Alaskan islands. Long Island is number eleven. Prince of Wales Island has been heavily logged in the past, and is notable for the extensive road system. Most of Southeast has a very minimal road system. Somehow I expected the island to be relatively flat, and was surprised to see rugged, snow covered mountains looming ahead of us.

Fishing Lodge, Saltery Bay, AK

Our plan for the day was to try and find an old Haida village, abandoned over 100 years ago. The Haida live primarily on Haida Gwaii (The Queen Charlotte Islands), but a few villages are located on southern Prince of Wales Island. As we approached the area of the village however, the wind really picked up, making a search untenable. Native villages were situated in places with excellent access by canoe, but generally do not provide any protected anchorage for deep draft sailboats. We headed south into Saltery Cove. There is a fishing lodge down at the head with protected anchorage in the midst of a large collection of rocks. Unfortunately it was high tide and the rocks were all lurking unseen. We fired up our computer/GPS combo, and were able to sort it all out and find a good though deep anchorage.

Tuesday morning we raised our anchor, and went in search of Old Kasaan, the abandoned village. We knew generally where it was from various sources, but there was nothing visible from the water but trees, and there was no good place to anchor. We were both a bit pessimistic about the whole operation, but Jean went along with my hopeful plan. We finally anchored in a spot with good protection from wind and seas, but it was in 70 feet of water 100 feet from a rocky shoreline. We then rowed the dinghy to a spot that looked somewhat more promising than the otherwise rugged and inaccessible shore. Climbing up the bank through the underbrush and beating through the bushes we got back into the more open spruce forest, and after some searching did, in fact find a few house posts.

Mortuary Poles, Old Kasaan, AK

We returned to the gravel beach and walked down to a spot where there was a small mound without many trees on it. This turned out to be a midden, and behind it we found a 30-foot house beam still sitting on two posts. That was pretty exciting. We followed a deer trail for a bit, and eventually came across eight mortuary poles. One had the remains of an eagle carved on the top, and three had unrecognizable cap pieces that may have been wolves, bears or killer whales. Returning to our dinghy we realized that a large moss-covered log we had previously walked over was in fact a fallen totem pole. We found the remains of four or five longhouses in all. This turned out much better than anticipated, and was a great experience.

We got our anchor back up, but let me assure you that a 35 pound anchor hanging from 70 feet of chain weighs quite a bit. We motored back out of Skowl Arm, and got some wind to allow us to sail up Kasaan Bay. The most notable feature here was the huge clearcut mountainside looming above the native village of Kasaan. When Alaska lands were sorted out in preparation for building the Prudhoe Bay pipeline, many huge national parks, wilderness areas and wildlife refuges were created. Also the natives were given ownership of large areas of land. Most of those native lands in Southeast were quickly clearcut, in significant contrast to the National Forest lands which are largely intact. It makes you wonder about the myth of Indian respect for the land.

Bear Memorial Pole, Kasaan, AK

We were headed to the village of Kasaan (also known as New Kasaan). The old village we had found this morning was abandoned towards the end of the 19^th century, and the inhabitants moved to this new village in order to find work in a copper mine, the logging industry and a salmon cannery. When the cannery closed in the 1950’s most everyone moved to Ketchikan. Now it has a population of about 40. In the 1930’s the CCC did a project here. They went to Old Kasaan, and removed the totem poles that were still intact, restored them, and placed them in the forest a quarter mile out of town in New Kasaan. They also carved reproductions of the poles that were in bad shape. The place they installed all of these had a ruined longhouse and totem that they copied and erected in the same spot.  Alaska has many totem parks of this sort, but this one is completely noncommercial, and way off of the beaten track.

Back Potlatch Ring (Flying Groundhog) Pole, Kasaan, AK

Our guide book warned us about the sorry state of the docks at Kasaan, so we were surprised and delighted to tie up at a brand new wonderful dock. The town also had a brand new water treatment plant, and a brand new health clinic. The state oil money tap must have been directed here in the past year or so. The next great surprise was to look out and see a cruise ship headed in to dock here. It was a small 60-passenger ship from Sitka that specializes in visiting out of the way spots that are inaccessible to the large cruise lines. Still, it seemed huge to us. It turns out they come here two or three times a month in the summer, and we just happened to be here on one of those days. Our first thought was dismay, but we quickly decided that this was an interesting encounter. We enjoyed watching them dock this behemoth on our tiny dock, we spent a half hour talking with the captain, who encouraged us to leave our boat in Sitka for the winter, and gave us the name of someone to contact.

Whale & Man-of-the-Sea Pole, Chief Son-i-Hat Whale House, Kasaan, AK

We walked along a boardwalk and trail along the waterfront, through people’s yards and off towards the totems. This mini cruise ship visit is a new venture for the town, and the trail had been spiffed up with new gravel and fancy new bridges. Apparently the residents had been briefed on proper behavior as well. As we walked along someone’s driveway a truck pulled up with a couple having a fight. She got out and stomped toward the house. We nodded and said hi, and she responded “Hi, how are you? Welcome to Alaska,” and then went in the house and slammed the door.

Chief Son-i-Hat Whale House, Kasaan, AK

The totems were nicely placed in the forest, and we encountered them one by one as we walked along. The ship passengers were just leaving the longhouse as we arrived, and we chatted with quite a few of them there, and on the walk back. There were folks from England, Australia, and exotic locales such as New Jersey. The longhouse fronted on a beach in a delightful spot. On the way back we had a chance to talk with the young man who had been one of the tour guides, who was very proud of his Haida heritage. They had a carving shed we could visit as well. All in all this was a very good day. We almost had not come over here, thinking it would be a lot of effort for a dubious experience, but it has all turned out very well.

The ship sailed off to the Misty Fjords, the town settled back to quietude, and we settled back in our boat for dinner. During the night there was a lot of wind bouncing our boat and grinding the fenders against the dock, so we didn’t get a great night’s sleep.

Kasaan, AK

Wednesday morning we awoke to a calm day and cloudless blue skies. Unfortunately we are still having the large tides associated with the summer solstice, and it wasn’t at all clear that we had enough water to leave. So I took Schooner on a long walk around town while Jean talked with Zach, the local peace officer. I met Zach briefly on my way back as he was scurrying off to find out who was shooting off firearms in the village. Welcome to Alaska. A man from Saltery Cove arrived in his boat to do his weekly mail pickup, and we talked with him for quite some time. He wanted to know about Schooner, as his wife had been watching him through her spotting scope yesterday morning when he and Jean were on the beach, and thought she might like to get a dog like that. The result of all this unproductive activity was that the tide came in a bit, and we were able to get out of the harbor without running aground. For the second time this trip we encountered deer far from shore swimming to some greener grass. This time there were two of them swimming side by side.

The forecast for Clarence Strait was 25 knot southeasterly winds with five foot seas in the morning, dropping to 15 knots and 3 feet in the afternoon. In anticipation of this we had gone through the trouble of hoisting our dinghy up onto the deck. Towing a dinghy in large seas is an invitation to all sorts of troubles. Well, when we arrived there in the late morning it was dead calm with a low gentle swell coming off of the ocean.  So we motored north up the Strait until just after lunch when the wind came up a bit from the southeast. We got the mainsail up, but before unrolling the jib we realized that it was blowing much harder than we had thought, so we put a reef in. We then unfurled a small portion of the jib, since the wind seemed to be still increasing, and a few minutes later put a second reef into the mainsail. By now we were being pushed along by the promised five foot seas, and steering the boat took all of our concentration. It soon became apparent that we needed to furl the mainsail completely, and run on just our ¼ jib. Having accomplished that (easier said than done), we found that the small bit of jib was way too much, so we rolled it down to about 1/10 of its size. The boat was now doing OK with a lot of effort, the seas were all whitecaps with the tops blowing off of them, and we realized that somehow we had gone from dead calm to a full gale in about half an hour. This was a completely new experience for us, and let me tell you, we were more than a little tense. We finally made it into the lee of a point headed into Thorne Bay on Prince of Wales Island, and the conditions ameliorated from horrendous to just plain bad. When we finally got into the protected channel to Thorne Bay it became calm and flat. What a relief. When we got a chance to check the weather on the radio they said they had modified the Clarence Strait forecast from 15 knots to gale warnings! The lighthouse in the strait was reporting sustained winds 35 knots gusting to 45. For those of you who are not sailors, believe me that is a lot of wind. For us, 15 knot winds provide a nice exhilarating sail, and 25 knots is approaching our limit of what we feel is still possible for us. The energy of the wind increases as the square of the velocity, so 45 knot winds are nine times more powerful than 15 knot winds. We had things pretty much in control for the two hour ordeal, but it did require a lot of mental and physical effort to get through it. Today made the feared crossings of Queen Charlotte Strait and Dixon Entrance seem like casual events. The positive side of events like this is the real sense of achievement we feel from having successfully met such a challenge. It also increases our confidence in our ability to meet other challenges. In addition, the fact that the two of us can act so well as a team is very satisfying. Neither of us could have done this alone.

 Schooner & Jeanie, Thorne Bay, AK, Jun 2013

Thorne Bay was the largest logging camp in the country back in the days when the federal government was subsidizing the Alaskan timber and pulp industries. Now it is a quiet place with a population of about 750. We spent some time talking with a character who had sailed across the Gulf of Alaska in his steel schooner with his wife and dog.  Their two sons live on Prince of Wales Island, and they are thinking of living on their boat here for a while rather than back in Kodiak or Seward. He had a large bag of salmonberries, and told us all sorts of boasting stories about his living off the land and his wildlife adventures. He had a gun strapped to his chest to protect him from bear attacks while picking berries here in town.

The other dock character was a small little man on a tiny cute powerboat called Tuffy. He turned out to be a marine lawyer from Tacoma travelling on his own, and was a remarkable talker. He advised us that if Bruce and Elaine have any troubles with their insurance company, we should threaten to file a salvage suit. We are apparently entitled to half the value of their boat due to saving them from imminent loss of their boat and lives. After dinner we walked all around town, and there really wasn’t much to see. The library was open, and groups of kids were climbing trees and playing in the park, but otherwise everything was closed. The one café doesn’t open until 10 in the morning, so that eliminated any thoughts of eating out for breakfast. The post office/sundries store has a dock in the back so you can pick up your mail by boat.   

Thursday we awoke to another sunny day, took showers, bought some groceries, and headed back out. Thorne Bay was a welcome harbor from yesterday’s weather, but I doubt that we will return here. One interesting aspect of the bay is the large number of float homes moored in the various coves. These are houses built upon a raft of logs, tied to the shore with cables. When you want to move, you get a tug to pull you to your new address.

Clarence Strait, AK

We reentered Clarence Strait with some trepidation, especially as the wind picked up as we left the protection of the bay. It turned out to be pretty nice out there; the wind was enough to sail for a bit, the waves were small, the sky blue. We had a short day on the water, crossing the strait to a place called Meyers Chuck. The entrance was a bit tight, but once inside it was completely protected. We tied to the government dock, sat in the warm sunshine and admired the picturesque homes scattered around the cove and clinging to the rocks. There are about 40 houses/cabins here, mostly owned now by folks who are only here for the summer. There is no way to get here other than small boat or float plane. There seems to be a good sense of community here, and the people we met were very friendly. We walked a trail past houses and through the forest to a rocky beach.

Meyers Chuck, AK

Along the way we asked a woman if she knew Dave Perry, and she said of course, and told us how to find him. Dave was someone we knew when we kept our boat in Charleston, Oregon ten years ago. We had learned through mutual friends that he was working for the Alaska ferry system, and had a place in Meyers Chuck. We followed another path through people’s gardens and eventually found Dave and his companion Jackie loading crab and shrimp traps onto their boat. It was fortuitous that they were there, as their plans had changed due to a work schedule snafu. Dave works two weeks living on the ferry, and then has two weeks off. He does some commercial fishing when he is not on the ferry.

Meyers Chuck, AK

We decided to stay another day in Meyers Chuck, enjoy the warm sun and visit with Dave and Jackie. We spent most of the day walking the shore and forest, hanging out on the boat reading and relaxing. We did disassemble the compass to try to find a mysterious engine rattle without success. We put the dinghy in the water and rowed around the cove looking at the various interesting places. We rowed to Dave’s dock and went up to see the cabin he is in. It is one of the older ones, built by a boat builder in the 1920’s of squared timbers. The walls are solid wood. It has only three rooms, a living room, a kitchen and a small bedroom. It has a lot of built in cabinets and is very attractive. The whole place is maybe 300 square feet.

Dave Perry's Cabin, Meyers Chuck, AK

We got together on our boat for some snacks and drinks, and eventually returned to their place to barbeque some meat for dinner. Their neighbor Snapper came over and filled the evening with stories of someone who spent time in Meyers Chuck as a child. Snapper had been a tugboat captain, a fisherman, and run a salmon tender, so he had a lot of good stories to relate. All in all this was a very good day, though we didn’t make any progress farther north. It finished in a fitting way with a spectacular sunset.

 Sunset, Meyers Chuck, AK

Saturday began with some more blue sky, but it deteriorated as the day progressed, and turned into an intermittent drizzle. We were headed up Ernest Sound, and had to put on our serious foul weather gear. This was the first time we had used it in three weeks. We are once again out of any evidence of human habitation; nothing but trees, rocks and snowy mountains. During the entire day we saw one commercial and one sport fishing boat and one huge motor yacht flying a British flag. It was a great day for Dall’s porpoises. We saw three groups just swimming along, and on three different occasions other groups came along to play in our bow wave – one group of about six for half an hour. It is always thrilling to watch.

Forest Service Cabin, Frosty Bay, AK

We anchored in Frosty Bay on the east side of Cleveland Peninsula, off of Seward Channel. The sport fishing boat we had seen earlier was there, with two guys and a dog setting up for the weekend in a cabin maintained by the Forest Service. They provided some entertainment in their attempt to get firewood. They attacked a large tree that had floated up at high tide with their chainsaw. The first cut freed the trunk from the roots, and the trunk promptly rolled down the rocky shore into the water. They then came over with their boat to get a line on it, towed it back to the cabin, tried to get it out of the water, etc. Very amusing. The rain picked up a bit, and we spent the late afternoon relaxing in the boat, much to Schooner’s dismay. He was ready for a walk. Rowed ashore and chatted with the two guys who were old friends from Corvallis, Oregon now living in Alaska. I got the usual stunned reaction when they found that we weren’t doing any fishing. Most people we talk with seem to have moved here mostly so they can go fishing. They manage to find some sort of job to support their fishing habit.

Brown Bear Fishing, Anan Creek, AK

Sunday started out sunny, but clouded up as the day progressed. We went up Bradfield Canal and anchored in a deep exposed spot off the delta of Anan Creek, next to the huge British yacht we had seen yesterday. It was a very calm day, so we felt OK about leaving the boat there for a couple of hours. We rowed ashore to a trailhead, and were met by a Forest Service ranger. He chatted with us, made sure we weren’t carrying any food, and gave us instructions of how to act if we encountered a bear. We then hiked a half-mile boardwalk along the estuary and creek to an observation platform at a set of rapids. Along the way we met the crew of the British yacht headed back. There were at least a dozen relatively young people working on this private yacht, taking it north to meet the owner at Glacier Bay. That looks like it could be a fun job.

Brown Bear Fishing, Anan Creek, AK

The platform at the end of the trail provides a place to watch bears fishing for salmon. The bears are habituated to people, so go on about their business without paying much attention to them. There were three more rangers and half a dozen other boaters there. There were also about four black and two brown bears interacting with each other and trying to catch fish. The salmon run had just begun about one week ago, so the fishing was not yet easy. The black bears tended to stand in the shallows, patiently watching and waiting for a fish to come near enough to grab. The older brown bear waded out into the water and had much better success. The younger brown bear was only three years old, and was fishing for the first time without help from her mother. She was a riot, as she dashed about from spot to spot, doing belly flops into pools full of fish, and generally spending a lot of effort to catch very few fish. The bears crawled all around the platform, separated from us by a three foot wooden fence. It was really quite remarkable, and it was also clear that they had very little interest in us; they could very easily have jumped over that fence, but there were no salmon in there. I expect the fence was installed not for protection, but to keep the people from bothering the bears. When we were ready to leave one of the rangers radioed back to see if any bears had been on the trail, reminded us that the young brown bear was down where we were headed, and if she approached us just talk to her, and don’t run away. We saw her, but she was not on the trail, so we made it back to the boat without incident.

Mountains Above Aaron Creek, Blake Channel, AK

We then continued up Blake Channel on the east side of Wrangell Island. The snow covered mountains became very craggy and picturesque, and we finally anchored alone in a nice spot called Berg Bay. The bay was filled with a surprisingly large number of crab pot buoys. It also had an unoccupied Forest Service cabin at the head. There was a boardwalk trail that took off from there, climbing up through a muskeg dwarf forest, and eventually down to a huge grassy meadow. Schooner was in heaven running through and rolling in the grass. He, of course, was left behind on the boat when we hiked up to see the bears. The trail apparently continued for eight miles going up into the alpine country, but we weren’t up for that big a hike.

Berg Bay, AK

Trail from Berg Bay, AK

On Monday morning a fast boat came zooming in to check its crab pots. After a short walk we raised anchor and headed to Wrangell. In contrast to our recent mornings we awoke to low clouds hiding the mountains. About half an hour into the day, while I was below and Jean at the helm, a torrential rain shower passed over us, leaving Jean completely soaked to the skin. Once again we turned on our engine heater and confirmed that was one of our best investments made prior to the trip. The day became sunny, and homesteads began to appear as we approached Wrangell. There were also a long series of clearcuts that appeared at the same time.

We moored in the new boat basin south of town. The advantage of this is that the docks are beautiful and well protected. The disadvantage is that we are a mile from town, and there is nothing here but a fish processing plant. We walked into town with a couple from Olympia, WA. The route was not entirely scenic, and had more traffic than we liked, so the introduction to Wrangell was not a good one. Based upon the research we did and the people we have talked to, Wrangell was one of our top choices as a place to leave the boat this winter. It gets much less rain than Ketchikan, and less snow than anyplace other than Sitka. The docks are brand new, there is lots of room, the people are friendly, and there is a wonderful man here who you can hire to watch your boat. We were stunned when we discovered that there are no available slips in either the new or the downtown boat basins. It seems that Petersburg is remodeling one of their docks, reducing supply, while simultaneously doubling their fees. This led to a large exodus of boats, and most of them ran down here to Wrangell and filled it up last month.  They do have some space in a basin five miles south of town that is reportedly old and decrepit.

Front St, Wrangell, AK

This was a depressing turn of events, and we had a glum walk back to the boat after a short walk around town, pondering the fact that showers, groceries and laundry are all a mile away from our boat. Along the way we stopped at the grocery to buy some seafood for dinner, and found that it is not possible to buy seafood in Wrangell. What is the major industry in Wrangell? Well that would be fishing, but they ship it all away. What does everyone in Wrangell do for fun? Well that would be fishing. So nobody but the rare non-fishing tourists like us would ever buy any fish, so nobody sells it. It’s enough to turn one into a fisherman, but then you’d have to go fishing. I stopped at the fish plant near the boat, and stood there surrounded by thousands of pounds of salmon, crab and halibut all on ice, fresh out of the water, and they would not sell me any. We had burritos for dinner.

Chief Shakes House, Wrangell, AK

Tuesday was a dry and sunny day. We slept late, made a fancy breakfast, and then walked downtown. It didn’t seem as far as it did yesterday. We went back to the harbor office to ask some more questions, and found a sign “running errands, will return soon.” While waiting around we walked over to an island that has a Tlingit longhouse that was just rebuilt and rededicated a little over a month ago. The totem poles have been lowered for restoration. It is interesting that these Tlingit totems are carved in a very different style than the Haida poles we saw in Kasaan. The Haida ones seem more creative and artistic. The longhouse is usually closed, but there is a cruise ship in town today, and it was open for tours. A native woman invited us in as they were going to do some traditional singing, dancing and story telling. So we spent almost two hours in the longhouse watching, listening, and eventually dancing. It was a pretty low key event with pleasant people.

By the time we emerged, the harbor office was back in business and we got more information about the winter moorage situation. We then had lunch on the waterfront terrace of the fancy motel in town, enjoying the sunshine, and watching cruise ship passengers. Fourth of July activities have begun already, and we spent some time watching contestants try to climb to the end of a greased pole leaning out over the water. There was $200 at the end of it, and if they were lucky they managed to give up and get back to the dock before slipping off into the water. The $200 looked pretty safe to us. We called the highly recommended winter boat watcher, and agreed to meet him at our boat, so walked on back. He felt that the old boat basin south of town was a perfectly safe place to leave the boat, and since we won’t actually be here, the inconvenient location and aged docks aren’t all that important. We agreed that we would try to get down and look at them tomorrow.

A large powerboat on the dock near us has a home port of Hoonah. This is a native village near Glacier Bay, and another possible winter location. In the past on the internet, people recommended it highly, but we had heard some negative things on this trip. The Hoonah boat had a giant Schnauzer on board, so we went over with Schooner as an ice breaker and interrupted their cocktail hour. The woman we talked with could not say enough bad things about Hoonah. The old harbormaster retired, replaced by the worthless son of the mayor, the marina is falling to pieces, and she would not leave a boat there under any circumstances. She had one more year on her contract there, and was very anxious to finish and leave.

So tomorrow we’ll check out the other boat basin, probably go to the museum, and maybe hike up the hill behind town. Then we’ll stay for the July 4^th activities before moving on, headed towards Petersburg.