Post # 7 - From Sitka, Alaska, Sunday August 7, 2011

Entry # 7:  Begin at Bartlett Cove  (Glacier Bay), on July 29, 2011

Hardly had we bid farewell to our children and grandchildren when Joel Tranum arrived (same plane), to join us on the ride to Sitka.  We had a great Dungeness crab dinner at the Glacier Bay Lodge, and in the a.m. headed off to do some reprovisioning in Gustavus.  Joel and I headed to Pep’s Packing, a place where the sportfisherman bring their catches to be frozen and packed for the ride home to wherever.  It is also the place which has won the most prizes in Alaska for its smoked salmon and halibut, and that is what we were after.  Pep’s is about ½ mile down a dirt road off the main drag through town, but we found it o.k, and loaded up.  Then we hiked back out, flagged down the lodge van going by, picked up Pam at the grocery and headed back to the boat.  By now the lousy weather had become bright sunlight with some lingering low fog which gradually dissipated.  Bummer for the kids!

Our destination for the day was Dundas Bay, which is still part of the Glacier Bay National Park, but out of the restricted area.  Along the way I tried to fish again, based on the advice from the folks at the Bartlett Cove dock.  No luck, so we wound up deep into the reaches of Dundas Bay very much alone, looking up at Mt. Fairweather and its range.  The water temperature was a balmy 52 degrees, so Joel insisted on going in to prove a point.  Hot showers felt very good thereafter!

Dundas Back Anchorage - Mt. Fairweather

In the morning the weather had shut down again, as we headed South across Cross Sound at the entrance to the Pacific Ocean, to tiny Elfin Cove.  A cruise ship went by us close in the fog, and JACA rolled heavily in the oily calm ocean swells.  Elfin Cove is a reminder of what many South Coast Newfoundland communities might have been like, had the fishing remained in some form.  Totally disconnected by land, this small community (17 permanent residents last winter) comes alive in the summer with an influx of sport fisherman to the 8 or so small lodges that cater exclusively to them.  Perhaps 150 or so folks are there at any moment, fishing from small boats owned by the lodges, as well as a small fleet of commercial fisherman who unload their catches daily onto a waiting collector boat.  There are no roads and no motorized vehicles at all: only wooden walkways clinging to the steep walls of the forest and small structures clustered around.  You can walk around the whole place in 15 minutes.

We tied up to the “free” transient dock, a sturdy facility at the outer end of the town, next to the seaplane float.  A new feature at the dock is 30 amp power, so we tracked down the operator of the Elfin Cove Power Company, working on the roaring generators that do the job.  No problem – we were hooked up in no time, with a steep hookup charge.  The planes bring and take away a steady stream of clients for the lodges, generally coming from Juneau.  I wandered around looking for someone to take me out in a small boat for a couple of hours to learn how to catch a salmon.  Dennis appeared, and the three of us hopped in.  Within two hours we’d caught two “pink” salmon that Dennis deemed unworthy and threw back, a small bass that also went back, and two nice big Coho salmon for the fridge.  I got my fishing lesson; Pam got a filleting lesson, and we were happy campers.  No wonder folks come from all over to do this!



Downtown Elfin Cove



Elfin Cove Public Dock

We stayed the night in Elfin, and spent a good deal of time talking to a variety of people, all of whom had differing points of view about what the place was all about, had, been and should be.  Some of the “locals” decried the burgeoning fishing lodge business.  Virtually all lodges are owned by people “from away”, who come in the spring and disappear in September.  Since all the floats are built, paid for and owned by the State, the community has no power over them.  The lodges get free use of them for their numerous day fishing boats.  Because the place is not a legal entity, no-one pays any real estate taxes.  Not a bad deal for a lodge owner.  But the community owns the tiny power company (all housed in a building the size of JACA’s cabin), and it can and does charge a lot for the power.  From an outsider’s point of view, it is the lodges that are keeping this community alive and, on the surface at least, prospering at some level.  But no one denies that there are many fewer fish out there than there used to be.  Who knows what this will look like 50 years from now.

From Elfin Cove we headed down the Lisianski Inlet, which is an inland shortcut to the first part of the “outside” ride to Sitka, on the western side of Baranoff Island.  About 12 miles down the inlet is another tiny village, Pelican, which, like Elfin Cove, is a totally isolated boardwalk community snuggled into the encircling mountains.  Until two years ago, however, there was a fish packing plant here that employed 100 people, so Pelican on the surface is a somewhat larger establishment.  It boasts the status of a legal town, complete with a tiny town hall and a mayor.  The packing plant, owned by a Native American investment company, has closed.  So now much of residential Pelican is for sale, and the place is struggling to find its own direction.  The boardwalk, water, power and float infrastructure is amazing and extensive, but right now only about 70 residents are here. Except for a couple of small fishing lodges, and a reasonably good fishing season for the few local commercial fisherman, the largest current employer is the school system, which exists for a total of 12 kids.  Intrigue abounds among the locals.  It didn’t take long to hear stories ranging from the imminent reopening of the plant to the plot of the investment company to turn the entire town into a resort for the tribe that owns the facility, evicting everyone else along the way.  As everywhere in Alaska, all this happens in a dramatic, spectacular setting.



Downtown Pelican



We left Pelican early morning to catch the slack ebb out of the Lisianski Strait into the Pacific Ocean.  Otherwise it can be pretty wild, and in the fog and rain we weren’t anxious for that.  All went well, we threaded our way through the rocks in the “inside passage” and finally were out in the Pacific swell for about 15 miles, headed to Goulding Harbor, a “must see” on Frank Kibbe’s list.  It was nice to feel a rolling platform under my feet again.  Some whales and multitudes of sea otters around us – one mom and her pup were as inquisitive about us as we were about her – see the picture!

Frank had told me to anchor in the “second pool”, which looked o.k. on the chart, except that there was a large rock at the entrance.  We worked our way in, slowly, trying to avoid the rock which was visible at half-tide, and when the depth got to 1’ beneath the keel I went fast reverse.  Eventually, after poking and pushing around a little, we made it into the pool and settled down in about 30’ of water.  It is a gorgeous place, typical of the West coast of Baranof Island.  A dinghy ride up into the third pool, where the big salmon stream flows out, resulted in a great bear sighting: a large juvenile grizzly was feeding on a grassy island at the head of the island.  He heard us, then about 100 feet away, stood up on his hind legs to see us, watched us for a while, and then went back to eating.  Ultimately he swam to the nearby shore, while we headed up the river as far as we could go in the dinghy.  Salmon were jumping all over the place, and when we got to a point we could go no further, there were hundreds of them swimming around and underneath us, waiting to proceed up the rocks in the stream.  An amazing sight!

I was concerned about getting out of the pool in the morning around the rocks in a much lower tide, so we went out to the first pool and anchored in a lovely small cove by a gurgling outflowing stream.  More swimming.  Then I read Frank Kibbe’s diary from the year before:  he’d hit the rocks that we’d so nearly avoided.  We laughed about it on the sat phone the next day, and all he could say was “Oh shit. I told you the wrong pool!”  Next time he’s here he’ll have the map. 

Frank also recommended another salmon stream in Lake Anna, a few miles down the coast, so we headed there also.  On a rising tide, we dinghied up to the head of the stream, close to the outlet, where there was a short waterfall with lots of water cascading over it.  In the water we could see literally hundreds of salmon massing in front of the falls.  As the tide came up so the fall was a little shorter, the salmon started to throw themselves up, trying to get to the small pool above.  Most came tumbling back down, but a few made it to the first small pool.  Trouble was, it was even worse going for them to the next area, and we could see a few of them struggle onward, in their inexorable drive to return to whence they came, spawn and die.  It is an extraordinary sight – what is it that drives them?  What is it that drives us?



One falling back - unsuccessful jump!



Eagle waiting to pounce on Salmon



Salmon massing to jump up falls

To avoid a big tide rip in the morning, we slipped out of Lake Anna at slack tide, and wound up in Double Cove for the night.  It reminded me of finding Duck Harbor on Isle Au Haut in the fog: a rocky coast in a rolling sea, and you don’t see the entrance until it is almost too late.  But it was calm and peaceful in there on a rainy night.  The forecast for the next day had been consistently bad: small craft warnings, rain etc., but the wind velocities in the forecast were diminishing gradually.  Since this was the day we’d planned our “outside” run down to the Sitka area, we were paying close attention.  Finally the forecaster said that we’d have 15 kts out of the Southeast (adverse) shifting to the Southwest (fine).  So we headed out early in a rolling calm for the 20 mile run down to Salisbury Bay.  The Pacific does roll a lot, even in a flat calm.  The wind duly came up from the SE, and we slogged our way into it, anything loose below having already flown somewhere.  Then it went SW, and we had a fine sail in typical Alaska weather: a cold rain, very limited visibility, and a 4-6 ft sea from a variety of directions.  That night we anchored in a cove off of Peril Strait, about 20 miles north of Sitka, on the cruise ship route.  Peril Strait is supposed to be full of Orca whales, so we took the dinghy out to the narrows, which sport 7 kt currents and large standing waves, to have a look.  Even at a respectful distance, it was a nasty bit of water.  No orcas either, so we headed back to JACA.  Surprise, another boat was in the cove, a converted 42’ Alaska fishing boat to a nice, comfy cruiser for a couple from Seattle.  He was clearly a dedicated fisherman, with more gear on board than most fishing boats have.  We stopped to chat, and wound up with a whole bunch of freshly caught and cooked Dungeness crabs, which made a great dinner.  Pam made some chocolate chip cookies, and I took some over for a thank you offering.  Not a very fair trade, but at least an effort to repay some Alaska generosity.

We were now a day ahead of schedule, and decided to explore some of the islands to the south of Sitka.  So we powered right by the town, and wound up in Samsing Cove, which is one of several about 5 miles south of town.  It is a lot like Maine, except that snow covered mountains are around you, and at the mouth of Sitka Sound sits Mt. Edgecombe, which an old volcano, with snow still dripping down its sides.  It was a pretty good day, so we saw more of all of this than usual.  Pam and I took the dinghy exploring in the little islets, and came upon a small sandy beach – very rare in these parts.  It looked like the Caribbean, with blues and greens in the rising tide.  Moreover, the water was a hot 57 degrees, which is about the same as Roque Island.  So off came the clothes and in we went, albeit briefly.  The sun dried us off.  Perhaps in time we will be like Darwin’s discoveries on Terra Del Fuego:  humans running around naked in the dead of winter, covered only with grease.

Mt Edgecumbe guarding Sitka

Now we are tied up at the marina in Sitka, preparing for the next leg.  Mark and Joanne Woodward arrive shortly to take the places of Joel and Pam.  I’ll miss Pam terribly.  It has been wonderful to have her on the boat these past seven weeks.  She’s my best friend and companion, a marvelous cook, and a calm, steady and competent shipmate.  One couldn’t ask for more! 

It may be another two weeks or so before the next post.  We are headed South on the outside of Baranof Island, in the open Pacific, and then Southwest to the West coast of Prince of Whales Island.  There, at the small town of Craig, I'll have another crew change and prepare to head back to British Columbia.