7/3/11
Hoonah, AK
Miles Travelled: 23
We had a lovely morning chatting with Katie and Carl and seeing their wonderful boat, MOM. It was designed by Brent Swain and is an origami boat…flat sheets of steel are cut into shapes that, when welded together properly, make a boat without frames. Cool design and beautiful execution. Katie and Carl were fun people to chat with. They left down south (Lopez Island , I think) on Earth Day (April 22) and the only plan they have is that they don’t have any plans. Sounds just wonderful to me!
We left Funter Bay around 10:00. For lunch we had smoked sockeye that we picked up in Petersburg and it was yummy! The boys had a good nap, but Lars woke up a little too early when things got quite rocky and rolly on our way to Hoonah. We were in an area where the wind and tide must have been opposing in Icy Strait and it got pretty uncomfortable. Fortunately it was short lived and soon we were outside of Hoonah and tried to reach the Harbormaster on the VHF radio, but no one answered. No problem, we have cell service and a phone number for the Harbormaster’s office! Tor got someone on the phone and was assigned slip B10 which was a bow in starboard side tie. Due to the way our boat backs up, we prefer a port side tie and so Tor thought we would see if we could back into the slip and left the fenders and lines set up for a port side tie. We pulled in behind the breakwater and couldn’t see any labels on any of the docks or slips…what the hell? I had been on deck to help dock the boat, but the boys had just woken up from their naps and are used to getting milk, so they were unhappy and screaming about it. Tor told me to just go down below and he would take care of it. There still were no labels on any of the docks or slips, so eventually Tor pulled into what he thought was the correct one, beautifully reversing into it singlehandedly I may add, while I was down below breastfeeding the boys. However something wasn’t right…we were hanging out into the fairway by about 6 feet. So he decided to call the harbormaster back on the cell phone…that’s when he noticed that he had called the harbormaster in Skagway, not Hoonah! They were expecting us at a marina about 89 miles away! The wind must have flipped the page in the guidebook and he dialed the wrong number. I made sure to call Skagway back to let them know we wouldn’t actually be there. Oops! (Tor’s note: embarrassing. But precisely why VHF radio, which is line of sight, has advantages over the ever increasing cell phone use on the water)
We got it all figured out and finally pulled up to the correct dock. Then we went walking to see town. While we were here we wanted to have a halibut pizza at one of the local restaurants, and experience the 4th of July festivities which we have heard include a parade and a multi-generational egg toss. We went walking into town to find the place to get the halibut pizza and try and get the skinny on the 4th of July festivities. Turns out that the restaurant was closed because it’s Sunday, and that they celebrated the 4th of July yesterday on the 2nd of July!!!! They changed the schedule to accommodate cruise ships, originally I misunderstood and thought they changed the 4th of July to the 2nd of July because a cruise ship would be in on the 2nd, actually, it was moved to the 2nd because NO cruise ships would be in town and all of the families would be able to partake in the festivities and not have to go to work. We were SO disappointed to miss the 2 reasons we came to Hoonah. There are supposed to be fireworks tonight (might I point out on the 3rd of July!), but they are quite a ways out of town and by the time it actually gets dark around here, they must happen at 11:00 pm or so. Needless to say we aren’t going.
We were definitely feeling like Hoonah was a bust, and we were hungry and so were the boys. We all got a little snack and Tor stayed at the boat with the boys to cook dinner. I went to wash a load of diapers and get a couple of things at the grocery store. I got a chance to chat with a couple who live in Port Ludlow and have been coming up here for 9 summers on their 32’ Nordic Tug.
We all felt a lot better after dinner and can laugh about our disappointing day in Hoonah. It does seem to be a neat town and hopefully we’ll see it again and can try that halibut pizza! We will head out of here tomorrow and head toward Gustavus. It’s actually a good thing that our plan to stay in Hoonah for the 4th of July was stymied, because if we stayed here it would make our day getting to the park and into the first anchorage a very, very long one. Gustavus apparently has a 4th of July celebration, so we hope to partake in that. We do however have a backup plan, because we have friends who got seasick tied up to the dock at Gustavus, ugh. Gustavus is not a natural harbor and they don’t have a breakwater. If Gustavus doesn’t look like a good place to stay the night, we will head into Excursion Inlet, or anchor on the north side of Pleasant Island. We shall see what happens tomorrow!
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