Jeff's Log ~ Saturday, September 13th, 2008

Saturday September 13, 2008

I just realized that I had forgotten to write about Elfin Cove, and that would have left out what is possibly the neatest small town in America. The whole town is built around a boardwalk system that is their highway. One section had the roots of the trees exposed, and I could see the way the roots anchor the trees to the rock. The government maintains it and all of the docks. Everybody in town knows everybody else. Of course, the main occupation is fishing, so every life in the area is involved in fishing one way or another. We refueled upon arrival at a very solid floating dock. We had to wait for a little while because the girl working there had just washed her hair, and it had to get rinsed and dried.

After fueling, we moved over to the transient dock, and rafted up on a fish boat. The owner’s name was Geoff, and he was quite a quiet, nice guy. One of the other boats down the dock gave us a beautiful Coho salmon as a welcome gift. Geoff filleted it for me, which was very nice of him. I gave him a few beers for his effort. I walked all the way around town on the boardwalk, and stopped at the general store. The shopkeeper’s name is Joanne, and she told me in conversation that she was fifty six years old. I couldn’t believe it! She looked to be in her late thirties. She said she looked so young because of the Allute heritage, and the fact that she never spends any time in the sun. I made my purchases and returned to the boat with a rare treat, ice cream. I spent the rest of the time before dinner chatting with the neighbor, Geoff, and enjoyed the warmth of his boat. He has a diesel fired stove that provides warmth as well as cooking. We had a great dinner with the marinated Coho being cooked on the grill by yours truly, and Pat made garlic mashed potatoes. After dinner and ice cream, we watched some more two and a half men, and retired.

Enroute to Juneau, Alaska

Yesterday was a cold, miserable, rainy day and we made our way to Hoonah, Alaska. It is a neat looking town as the approach is made from sea. An old cannery is the first thing that you see, and it has been restored and made into a visitor’s cultural center where the native Indians do a show and sell tribal things for the cruise ship passengers. Unfortunately, I was not able to get pictures because of no life in camera batteries, but I will try to get some e-mailed to me. Sorry about that. We tied up on the municipal dock, and I went to register as usual. The ranger’s name was Paul; and he was very helpful with getting necessary phone numbers.

There were two choices for dinner. One was a pizza and deli type place, the other was a lodge about a mile away. The deli had no alcohol, the lodge of course did. Well, you can probably guess where we had dinner. The taxi to the lodge is charged by the person. It is five dollars for the first person, and four dollars for each additional. The crew thought that that was outrageous, but we took the taxi to the lodge anyway, as it was raining. The special was barbequed ribs, and we all had that. Food was OK, too salty for my taste, though. After dinner, the crew all walked back to the boat, and Scott took the cab. The driver beeped his horn as they passed.

I was glad for the walk, as that was the only way I would see any of the town. Jon and I kept going past the boat to see what “downtown” was like. It is a very tiny town, and it did not take very long at all to walk the length of it. All of the stores were closed, as it was after 1700. Most of the housing is either mobile homes, or manufactured housing. There were a few very nice homes though. We returned to the boat and the hearts championship was retained by Jon. Then it was lights out, so that we would be fresh and ready for the trip to Juneau.

This morning was coffee as usual, with the lines being thrown at 0800. On the way out of the harbor area, we were met by a couple of playful seals who were cruising by us looking for their breakfast. It was a very quick passing, as they were going the opposite direction. At about 1030, we are actually under sail, and just passed a small island filled with sea lions, the odor as we passed was pretty bad. We did not stop for pictures because we were sailing rather quickly on a brisk southeast wind.