This morning we awoke briefly at 3:30am to what seemed like a bright and sunny day. Problem was, it was 3:30am. We went back to sleep and woke up some time after 6 and decided to get an early start. Meyers Chuck at 7am when we pulled out:
Nice and calm at Meyers Chuck, but pretty snotty out in Clarence Strait. Probably 3-4 foot seas…luckily, we were only in a for a little bit before we headed back inside to take the scenic route to Wrangell.
We saw a couple humpbacks on our way. We actually still slowed (we aren't so jaded yet) but didn't follow them to get any better photos than this:
We took the inside Zimovia Strait route. Gorgeous scenery along the way:
Approaching Wrangell:
We got a spot on the long dock at Reliance Harbor (the older docks, closest to town) and headed into town to explore. We took a walk around Shakes Island first. Shakes Island is a very small island reached by a pedestrian bridge right here near the docks at Reliance. There's a replica of the Chief Shakes tribal house, and a bunch of old totems under cover. It's hard to find any good information about any of this stuff online, strangely, but here's the website for the place. Chief Shakes was the title of a Tlinget chief, and there have been maybe nine different "Chief Shakes" (kinda like the pope!)
Tribal house entrance:
The Civilian Conservation Corps built the original house in 1940 with help from members of the community in Wrangell. A dedication ceremony was held after the project was complate and Chief Shakes VII (Charlie Jones), and his family used the house intermittently until his death in 1944.
The original house had weathered a few too many Wrangell winters, and was restored and reopened in 2013.
Here are a bunch of shots of the totems under cover. I wish I could find more information about these!
Orca:
Seal/sea lion:
You can get a good feel for how these totems are covered on the island in this shot:
I'll keep researching and let you know what I find out. I assume since Chief Shakes was Tlinget that these totems are also Tlinget…but I've yet to find that out officially.
We are back on Airship now doing a little work and cooking dinner. Tomorrow we'll meet up with our flotilla friends Lanette and Ron (from the Krogen 48, Cabernet) at the entrance to Wrangell Narrows around 11am and maybe go through together to Petersburg.
There's a ton of "fish action" going on around here…salmon and halibut coming back from the charter boats and being cleaned here on the dock's fish cleaning table. We stopped at the marine store in town and picked up some halibut tackle. We happened upon a guy shopping in there today (the checker connected us when we asked about what to use for halibut fishing). He was an older gentleman named Harold Bailey, who seriously seemed to know his shit. He helped us get outfitted (aka took pity on the newbies) so now we are equipped to fish for salmon AND halibut. Thank you Harold!!
Dinner tonight is going to be pappardelle carbonara with an arugula salad. Weather's lovely and we'll get an 8am start tomorrow morning.
Here's today's track (52 nautical miles, 7 hours 23 minutes):
