The mighty Thankful is now on a mission to get north for our appointment in Glacier Bay on 24 July, so we are spending a couple of long days headed in that direction. We motored up Chatham Strait for eight hours before we got tired and looked for a place to hole up for the evening. Pavlov Cove looked good on the chart, but we found three other boats in there when we arrived, too crowded for our tastes, and headed further into Freshwater Bay in search of a more secluded anchorage.
A mile further along we found Cedar Cove, a beautiful spot protected by a couple of offshore islands. We had it all to ourselves. Matt thought it looked like crab territory so he put out the trap while Vicki, Lori, and I went hiking on the offshore islands. We figured the chance of a bear encounter would be lower on the small islets than on Chichagof. Bear encounters remain high on the list of our concerns. Lori read in the cruising guide that Chichagof Island has the highest concentration of brown bear in the world, up to two per square mile. No wonder we've seen so many.
After our hike, Matt and Vicki deep fried the fresh halibut we got the day before. It was quite a production to set up the deep frier, bread, and cook the fish, but was totally worth the effort.
Matt's instincts were good, and this morning we found three large Dungeness crab in the pot. We were dealing with the crab on Thankful's poop deck when peaceful Cedar Cove was invaded by a fleet of a dozen or so kayaks. The paddlers all jealously eyed Thankful as they passed.
As we departed this morning we found what looked like a National Geographic tour vessel, the kind that carry about eighty passengers, anchored in Pavlov Cove with the rest of the fleet. It was clearly the source of our kayak invasion.
Today Thankful is headed for Hoonah, a town on the north end of Chichagof where we will prepare for our assault on Glacier Bay. Hoonah is a small native settlement that has a marina and stores where we can provision.
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