We left Hole in the Wall for Point Baker, but decided to stop in briefly to check out Port Protection. We found some dock space on the community dock, and took a dinghy over to the main dock to check out the store and the village.
Port Protection has somewhere around fifty residents, but I think we only saw two or three of them. The buildings are connected by boardwalks through the woods, and at the top of the dock is the main community building which houses a small market (inside of which are the furnishings of a small diner, but the diner has been closed for over a year), a post office/laundry room, a small liquor store, and and office of some sort. There were a few guys installing some new internet (well, HughesNet Gen 4, so not the newest generation) on the roof while we were there, but that’s about all the action we saw in Port Protection.
Onward to Point Baker.
We found Point Baker to be far more charming that Port Protection. We found space on the state dock (free) right in front of the Point Baker Community Building and quickly went to explore. Point Baker is all docks and walkways, no roads. The Community Building houses a post office on one end, a fire department on the other end, and a shared space in the middle with a radio, a television, a small exchange library, a fridge, and quite a few photos on the wall of the Point Baker area at different times in history, along with notable locals and some fish stories.
Further down the dock main dock is a small laundry facility (cold water only) some showers (not sure on the cold/hot part of that), a small convenience store (beer, chips, snacks…mostly geared toward fishermen heading out for the day), a nice bar, and a cafe. We stopped in the bar for a cold beer and spent an hour or so chatting with the owner, Judy. She was a neat lady and had some great stories (and seemed to like ours as well). A fun afternoon! The bar and restaurant are both open until 6pm (unless there are hungry fishermen in (they’ll stay open longer in some cases), and the bar has live music on Friday nights (and is open later).
We hopped in the dinghies and went to explore the narrow waterways between Point Baker and Port Protection, and found a nearby bay that appears to be where sad boats go to die.
We visited with a few locals, and before the diner closed we went in for an early dinner of solid diner food: jalapeno poppers, burgers, and fries. Just as we were finishing dinner, the “HughesNet Dinghy” arrived from Port Protection, with another load of satellite internet gear to install. (Point Baker is getting new internet as well!)
Back out on the dock, we met up with two other boats we knew (Norm and Beth on S/V Sarah Jean who we last saw in Taku Harbor, and Tom and Caroline on their Nordic Tug 42 called Silver Bay, out of Wrangell) and had a fun, social evening on the dock.
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