Point Retreat at the intersection of Lynn Canal and Saginaw Channel is a busy place. As Thankful approached the point yesterday we came first upon a fleet of trollers working the shore for king salmon. We could see a number of them pulling in fish so we also stopped to give it a go. The current was carrying us north past the point though, so fifteen minutes later we had left the trollers behind and were now drifting into the next set of boats that were watching humpback whales bubble feeding off of the point.
There were about a dozen whales working as a group to force their prey to the surface. All of the whales would disappear for a minute or so, then come bursting up en masse with their jaws agape. Thousands of seagulls fed on the bait fish that the whales had forced up. The whales would sit on the surface swallowing, breathing, and reorganizing for another minute and then repeat the process. The commercial whale watching boats competed with each other to get closest to the whales, and many of them were well within the 100 yard minimum legal distance away.
We pulled in our fishing lines and powered away from the madness and into the Saginaw Channel. It was like entering another world. For the past couple of weeks Thankful has been traveling in wilderness. We'd pass other boats occasionally and come upon a small village or outpost. Even Sitka was relatively tame. Once in the Saginaw Channel on a sunny Sunday afternoon though, things had changed. Planing speedboats were everywhere stirring up the otherwise glassy waters. Planes and helicopters flew overhead. Houses appeared along the shore. We were approaching Alaska's capital, and it was a busy place.
The traffic continued to increase as we approached Auke Bay and the speedboats heading into and out of that busy port swerved to avoid us.
The two outermost floating piers in the harbor are fist-come-first-served transient docks with room for about a hundred visitors. The harbor staff doesn't even attempt to assign slips; there is too much coming and going. We found a choice spot with a power hookup (most slips don't have power) and grabbed it. I wondered how they police the place to ensure all the boats pay for their moorage. I found out early this morning when I saw marina staff walking around and recording the names and numbers of all the boats in the harbor.
Last night we found a bar overlooking the harbor that served food and was located above a self-serve laundromat. Perfect. The ladies were kind enough to manage the laundry between beers. Matt and I needed the rest after changing Thankful's oil earlier in the day.
After dinner we wandered the docks and admired the eclectic group of boats moored here. They ran the gamut from small derelict wooden fishing boats to 200+ foot mega yachts. There were a lot of local boats but most appeared to be visitors from points south like ourselves.
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