Day1
Last summer, Chris, Dru, and I undertook a three day camping trip to Icy Strait, stopping briefly in Gustavus to refuel along the way.  This summer, Chris and I decided to take another boat adventure and visit a few towns neither of us had seen before--Hoonah and Tenakee, both on Chichagof Island.  Dru accompanied us again in the Little Bitty.  Saturday morning Chris and I pulled the boat at Douglas Harbor and launched it again without incident at North Douglas (an entirely different experience from last year) at around 10:30.  We ran into some pretty good SE seas coming up Saginaw Channel, then met up with Dru in the lee of Barlow Cove.  We huddled for a bit, Dru kindly lent me an extra mustang suit, then we took off to see what Lynn Canal had to offer.  Contrary to expectations and the weather forecast, Lynn Canal proved to be pretty calm, so we booked it across to the Chilkat Mountains side; mid-way we lost sight of the shore in the fog, but it soon reappeared.  The seas built more and more the farther we got from Admiralty, but never really slowed us down.  It was a bit more unpleasant heading sound along the shore, steady 2-3 footers with occasional 4s, that slowed us considerably.  Sheets of rain drifted sideways along the shore.  It was a relief to reach Howard Bay around 1:00 and slide in behind a few of the islands there in calm water.  We refilled our fuel tanks from jerry jugs and had lunch (Chris and I ate cup-o-noodles from water in my thermos).  Not wanting to head right back out into the seas, we decided to take the shortcut between the small islands and the eastern edge of Couverden Island.  This not only shortened the distance, but brought us shelter from the swells for some time.  At the southern end of Couverden we entered back into unfortunate seas, and water got all jumbled up and ugly as we turned and passed between the tip of Couverden and Rocky Islands.  Just past Rocky, though, the swells came on our stern and began to lay down.  Chris pointed out that Dru was some distance behind us, so I said we'd slow down and wait for him, adding glibly "as soon as we find a whale."  Apparently I made a motion with my head that caused Chris to look to the left, where he spotted a humpback whale entirely in the air.  I just saw the splash.  Welcome to Icy Strait!  This whale proceeded to tail lob once, then pec slap repeatedly, breaching again as we picked up speed and headed toward Port Frederick. 

The seas continued to let down as we crossed Icy Strait and the sun came out such that I had to strip off some of my layers to cool down.  Strangely, we hit chop from a west wind coming down Icy as we neared Port Frederick, and even more surprising, we were back into 2-3' seas as we entered Port Frederick!  So much for a camp sanctuary in a calm port.  Thankfully, we didn't have far to go.  We passed Icy Point (an old cannery converted to a tourist destination) which I'd like to explore some time, then continued along the shore until we reached Hoonah.  Dru stopped to gas up again while Chris and I pulled up toward the inner harbor I'd read about, passing an island just outside with a Tlingit graveyard; interesting totems and what appeared to be grave houses or other monuments were visible.  I wanted to admire them more and maybe even explore a little, but we didn't have time, and I was a little anxious.  It's a new experience for me heading to a harbor I've never seen before, and a little unnerving!  Thankfully, the transient float was the first one we approached and once tied up I asked a friendly couple who'd come down from Canada where we could fuel up.  They told us where the Hoonah Trading dock was at the bottom of the Ace Hardware pier back outside the harbor.  We wandered up the ramp to the harbor master's office to check in; he wasn't around, but his cell phone number was taped to the door, so I called him on my cell phone; he was working on his own boat and would stop by later to pick up fees.  It was about 3:30, so we wandered around town a little, stopping at the school to enjoy the really interesting totem pole there, then heading west along the main street.  It was Saturday afternoon and almost everything was closed (we were hoping for food or hot drinks).  We wound up at the Hoonah Trading grocery store and took a look around, noting that the fuel dock was open until 5:30.  Dru headed back a little earlier, and we took our time wandering down the Hoonah streets, enjoying the old style houses and Tlingit memorial plaques.

By the time we returned to the harbor, Dru had talked to the harbormaster and we had the all clear to go with no fees, since we weren't overnighting (like I said, I'm new to all this!).  We left the harbor and headed back out into the chop to the Ace Hardware dock, where there was no protection from a southeasterly (the name "Hoonah" is often translated as something along the lines of "sheltered from the north wind").  First we tied up at the wrong spot, which I realized once I got to the top of the ramp to find the fuel guy.  No one was around, so I popped in the Ace Hardware store (oddly narrow and elongated, located on the pier) and the clerk called a fuel attendant.  I scoped out the other side of the pier and found a dock that was closer to the fuel hoses and that better matched the description of the boaters we'd talked to.  It was just as well, as the dock we were at was perpendicular to the seas and rocked badly.  Not to say that the other dock was much better!  Dru got beaten around pretty good while we fueled, but Chris was there to hold the Ronquil off a bit.  We filled up our empty jerry jugs, then my onboard tanks, then I got to climb the vertical ladder all the way up to the top of the pier to pay (it was low tide).  The whole thing was a bit harrowing with the wind! 

From there we headed south down Port Frederick in search of a save haven for the night.  It's pretty exciting and a little nerve-wracking to boat through entirely new territory!  We passed a few nice looking beaches, but decided they were just too close to town.  I saw a cozy bite on the map at Burnt Cove, but thought it might be too far down (we were pretty tired and hungry at that point).  Suddenly an island appeared ahead and we realized that we were much farther along the Port than we realized.  On the left was a gorgeous little cove protected on three sides (mostly from the south) with a view of Hoonah in the distance.  The place seemed perfect--calm water big enough for anchoring and a long beach bordered by beach grass for camping.  The bite was formed by a point curling out from the east side of Port Frederick, wide enough so there was substantial forest at the back of the cove as well as a narrow strip on the west edge of the cove which ended in a reef that curved into the cove and offered additional protection.  We dropped all our gear off on shore and Chris started packing it up the long beach while I anchored the Ronquil.  Dru then picked me up and came to shore, pulling his anchor up the beach in preparation for the rising tide.  We were still another hour out, but Dru planned to spend the evening on shore with us, then sleep on his boat. 

When I got back to shore, Chris showed me an area between the beach grass and the edge of the forest that appeared to be the bottom of a dry stream or possibly an area that floods at extreme high tides.  In any event, it was dry and there was little vegetation there, and it was secluded behind beach grass that grew on a little mound above the intertidal zone.  The beach wasn't an even grade down to the water, but undulated in a series of dunes reminiscent of glacial moraines.  Chris started setting up the tent there while I got ready to cook dinner and browsed the woods for dry firewood.  The inside of the forest was flush with dry wood, including the lower dead branches of spruce trees and stacks of downed alders.  I quickly had as much as I could handle and carried/drug it down to the beach.  We were in brown bear country, so we picked a flat area well below the high tide line to cook dinner and enjoy the evening.  When Dru came ashore we lit a fire, drank wine, and cooked creamy mac and cheese for dinner (Dru ate lukewarm Chef Boyardee).  For dessert we treated ourselves to International Coffee's French vanilla mix....delicious.  The view was stunning, the cove was perfect, and we were all in a pretty good mood.  The term "idyllic" was thrown about more than once.  We scavenged for one more load of firewood before the evening was over and Chris and Dru drug a huge driftwood log over and started burning that as well.  As the light dimmed, Dru headed out to anchor and sleep for the night; Chris and I waited for the tide to float the glowing embers from the fire (which had begun to sizzle out from below long before the water reached it on the surface) before retiring ourselves.

Rainy ride along the Chilkats	Hoonah graveyard totem	Hoonah's main street
Hoonah Harbor	Debbie on the fuel dock ladder	Dru and Chris at Idyllic Cove
Dru's drying socks and dinner	View from the cove toward Icy Strait	Idyllic Cove on the way out

Day 2
The next morning Dru came in to shore around 8:00 and brought our food back with him (we'd sent it to the boat to discourage hungry bears from coming by).  Chris and I had oatmeal and orange juice for breakfast (and more ridiculously delicious coffee drinks), then he struck the tent while I packed up and brought the boat ashore.  The morning was overcast, but considerably less windy, and we headed out on a calm sea.  Outside Port Frederick we reconnoitered and decided to swing by the Sisters Reef and try halibut fishing.  Chris joined Dru on the Little Bitty when they got in position; I tried to tie up to them, figuring I'd drift to the end of the line and be able to stay in close proximity, but my boat refused to keep its distance and kept creeping back to the Little Bitty.  We finally cut me loose and I drifted nearby, relaxing and trying to snooze a little while they fished.  Chris soon pulled up a small halibut and released him, then Dru did.  I think I was about to drift off to sleep when I was called over for another fish--Chris had brought up a gorgeous quillback rockfish (brown with bright yellow blotches and a very quilly dorsal fin).  His swim bladder did not protrude, so we were hopeful he might live and decided to cut him loose, figuring we'd pick him up if he floated.  It took a long time to get the hook out of his mouth, but when he spashed into the water he disappered immediately, so we hope he went down.  Soon we all got a little hungry, so Chris came back to the Ronquil for lunch, dropping his line in the water while I made a sandwich.  He immediately caught another chicken halibut, which I had the honor of not-so-gracefully releasing.  After that we stopped fishing for a bit and had lunch!

Since they hadn't had any luck with large halibut, we decided to continue on our way and try our luck somewhere else.  We zoomed toward Point Augusta, Chatham Strait, and more new territory for me (passing a lovely whale on the way).  It's fun following along on a chart and figuring out where you are as you go!  At Point Augusta (the corner of Chichagof Island between Icy and Chatham Straits) 15 seiners were clustered up fishing.  We passed False Bay with its gorgeous, round, blue mountains that reminded me of the Taku, then past Iyoukeen Cove, and eventually around the point into Freshwater Bay.  Dru and Chris wanted to continue halibut fishing and my dad had told me I should check out Pavlov Harbor, so we headed in that direction; they stayed out in the larger bay to fish, while I snuck into Pavlov--which is a very small harbor--and over to the large creek in the corner that drains into it.  Fifty yards up the creek was the wide waterfall he'd mentioned (that flows over a dam) and at the right of that a fish ladder.  A brown bear wandered under the falls on a wide, rock shelf in shallow water.  I slowly approached and discovered a deep water channel along the right of the creek and followed this in within 50 feet of the shelf.  I anchored up and admired the spot.  All along the other side of the creek fish were jumping--constantly, sometimes multiple fish at once, once two in perfect sync with each other.  It was alive with fish, and I suspected coho.  My dad had told me that coho run up there, though his stories had focused more on the density of dollies at the base of the falls.  I'd forgotten to bring along the salmon I'd planned for dinner the second night, so hoped to catch a dolly to make up for it.  Once in position, I started casting.  And casting and casting, with nothing to show for it.  I did get better looks at the leaping salmon (some quite close) and became relatively sure that they were cohos.  I admit I began wondering if I could catch a coho instead of a dolly...

And then one struck, and immediately broke the line.  I tested the drag and discovered that it was quite tight, so I loosened it way up and put on a spinner lure.  About three casts later I had another strike and this time the fish began dragging the lure around.  After a while I was worried that the drag was too loose (remember I've never done this before!), so used a pause in the action to tighten it a little.  He snapped it off.  I put another lure on, loosed the drag back up, and started casting again just as Dru and Chris showed up at the mouth of the creek.  I waved them in and got another strike just as they finished tying up the Little Bitty to the Ronquil.  This fish took my lure all up and down that creek multiple times for several minutes--it was wonderful, the zip of the line taking off, the reeling it in, the flash of silver under the water, the excitement of it all.  Finally the fish tired, came alongside the boat, and Dru netted it--a gorgeous, big, coho.  I bonked her, cut her gills, and Dru bled her in his net while I took it all in.  My first coho!  I've heard people talk about how much they enjoy fish that fight and so on, but I'd never really experienced it myself; it really is incredibly fun.  Which is not so say that I didn't feel bad and uncertain about putting the fish through the discomfort of fighting for its life, but harvesting/slaughtering of any sort is inherently unpleasant, and I took this fish with gratitude and humility and thanked it profusely.

After that I was due for a break, so Chris started fishing with his pole and Dru with the old trout pole (with small, brittle test and a broken tip).  Both got fish on right away.  Chris's came first, so I landed it, then Dru's came close, but managed to break the line by swimming under the motor.  It was all pretty exciting.  On that note, Dru went out to try his hand at trolling and Chris and I continued to cast as the tide dropped.  We probably cast for another couple of hours, with fish jump action fluctuating, but definitely less than when we'd arrived.  As the water level dropped (this was still very much intertidal), the fish more obviously gathered in pools on the opposite side of the creek, especially in a pool just at the base of the rocky shelf.  We pulled the boat up as far as we could so Chris could cast into it.  Chris had some friendly dollies follow his lure in repeatedly (all small) and caught one once.  When calling me up to watch his dolly friends, he also managed to catch a darling little sculpin.  We both got nibbles on and off and eventually I hooked another coho on the old trout line.  I was especially cautious with this fish, as the line was small and brittle, and gently wore him out until, amazingly, we landed it.  Another gorgeous fish!  Chris soon caught another, which played with him quite a bit, but just as I was about to bonk it I realized that it was a pink, so we released it.  We'd seen small groups of fish underwater, which I think were also pinks. The whole time we fished, the brown bear I'd seen earlier wandered around on the rocky shelf or on the shore nearby.  It was a wonderful afternoon.

Eventually Dru came back from trolling and we drifted out just as we were at risk of grounding.  In the deeper part of the channel we saw dozens of fish swim by.  It was already late afternoon and we were tired and anxious to find a beach for the night, so we headed out of Freshwater Bay and into adjacent Tenakee Inlet.  Not far inside we came up on a group of zooming Dall's porpoise and, after driving by them a few times trying to entice them to play, stopped and watched.  They zoomed for a bit, then mostly slowed down, but continued to surface all around us.  I fumbled around with the hydrophone and discovered that it had been turned on at some point which had drained the battery.  I had a spare, but changing it out necessitates some delicate work with a tiny screwdriver and four tiny screws.  But, the porpoise were still all around us and I wanted to hear what vocalizations they were making, so I opened it up, only to rip the wires apart trying to get the battery off.  We watched for another minute and then moved on.  There were quite a few cabins on shore, but we soon found a lovely, uninhabited beach right across from Tenakee.  We followed the same routine as before, dropping Chris and the gear off, and then anchoring the Ronquil and bringing the Little Bitty to shore.  This was a much steeper beach, and Chris pitched the tent at the edge of the beach grass.  We built a fire and I cooked one of the cohos and stove top stuffing low on the beach some distance from camp on Chris's camp stove.  As we sat around the fire, the sun set at the end of Tenakee Inlet in a golden glow that became more dramatic and spectacular as it sank.  Tonight's word for the site was "heavenly," inspired by the shafts of golden light cascading from the setting sun.  We all turned a rosy yellow glow as we watched it.  We'd reached the beach at around 8:00 pm so we were all pretty worn out.  Dru took all food and cooking supplies on his boat for the night to discourage bears (we were still on Chichagof Island).

My first coho	Chichagof brown bear at Pavlov Falls	Chris fishing Pavlov (bear on shore to the right)
Pavlov bear	Coho	Dall's porpoise
Tenakee Inlet from camp	Watching the sunset	Sunset down Tenakee Inlet

Day 3
The next morning I awoke to a stiflingly hot tent.  Exhausted, I managed to drag myself up at 7:30 to seek the cooler air outside.  It felt like Mexico!  The sky was blue, the sun was already hot, and I was on a beach!  It was a glorious morning.  Dru came in a little later for breakfast, then took me back to my boat while he pulled his empty crab pot (empty except for a starfish) and Chris struck the tent.  I picked up Chris and the gear and we all crossed the inlet to the small boat harbor in Tenakee.  The town of Tenakee was, not surprisingly, a pretty neat place.  We walked along a jeep trail 50 yards to the edge of town, which essentially consists of one street along the water with houses on either side, and a few here and there a little up the mountainside.  The sunny walk along the dirt road observing the small gardens, creative doors and ornaments, old gable buildings, and funky decorations was entertaining.  We passed the bakery, the public restroom (the sign pointed down a boardwalk on pilings that ended in an outhouse over the beach), the hot springs, and the Blue Moon Cafe.  We walked to the end of the buildings, then turned around in search of a restroom and food.  I wandered out to the outhouse with Dru to see if it was for real; it was.  There was no bottom to the outhouse, but there was fresh toiler paper, reading material, candles, and a garbage can full of used toilet paper.  Only a little self conscious, I peed onto the beach (it was about 15 feet off the ground), then we explored the little general store with its very antique looking shelves.  Although our time was too limited to try out the hot springs, I poked my head inside to take a look (it was during women's hours).  There was a large anteroom with benches and a door in one corner to the springs.  The door opened onto steep concrete steps that descended about five feet to a concrete room about 12'x12' with a rectangular pool in the middle.  It looked very inviting.  Then we were ready for food.  There were two options, the cafe and the bakery; the cafe was in a building partially below street level and looked a little dark, so we elected to try the bakery.  This was a bright, cheery building with an alluring array of fresh items written on a white board.  I was attracted to the vanilla plum pudding pie, which I ordered along with two biscuits; the boys had much heartier meals with fresh, delicious bread. 

At that point it was getting on in the morning and we still needed to fuel up and get back to town (and start preparing for more adventures the next day), so we wandered back to the boat harbor, exploring the trail up the mountainside to the city park on the way.  This turned out to be a pretty, somewhat overgrown trail that zigzagged up the slope and into a flattish meadow of soggy, brilliant green grass with a couple of benches surrounded by trees; it was actually a very pretty little spot in the sunshine.  Unfortunately, we couldn't linger, so we made our way back to the harbor and took off for the fuel dock closer to downtown.  Unfortunately, it sported no convenient dock.  We transferred Dru's jerry jugs to my boat while waiting a long time for a 22' C-dory to depart, then pulled up against the pilings.  A brisk chop made all of this awkward, but we managed to get tied up and Chris helped make sure we didn't bang against the pilings too much.  The attendant lowered the hose down and we filled all the tanks, then she lowered a bucket on a rope into which I placed my credit card.  She sent it back down a few minutes later with a credit card receipt to sign; pretty slick.  We soon gave Dru's tanks back to him and headed out of Tenakee.  Unfortunately, we went straight into an unpleasant chop and I sought small relief in Dru's wake.

I was a little heartened by the fact that the wind was coming up Tenakee Inlet, suggesting that it might still be heading up Chatham Strait from the south (and therefore would be behind us shortly); unfortunately, I was wrong and we turned into more chop in Chatham and began a long ride north.  Initially the seas calmed (so much so that I made a comment to Chris about how I'm surprised that seas are often much worse in smaller bodies of water that I think should be more sheltered), but it didn't last long.  It was only a 1-2' chop, but enough to slow us down; Dru was having trouble with his gas cans, too, and had to stop often.  As we approached False Bay, I saw a big cluster of blows in the distance and a stationary small cruise ship and knew we were in for a treat.  We approached the area slowly, heading for a zodiac packed with orange-clad tourists; suddenly they were completely focused on us, which was a bit unnerving until I realized that we were right in front of the whales.  A huge group of bubble net lunge feeding humpbacks had surfaced behind us.  We shut down and watching them regroup and finish their breathing cycle, all the while heading in our direction and getting impressively close.  We watched these whales for another half a dozen or so lunges, hunkering down next to the zodiac to minimize the impact of the boats on the whales and to avoid finding ourselves in photographs.  The C-Dory we'd seen at the fuel dock in Tenakee was there too; they and the zodiac had hydrophones hooked up to speakers, so we got to hear the chilling screams of the whales before they surfaced.  This may have been the largest group I've ever seen, though I kept forgetting to count flukes when they dove.  There were, without a doubt, at least ten (being very conservative), and maybe as many as 15 or more.  They were moving back and forth along the shore just south of False Bay; the last time we saw them lunge they'd turned around and were heading back south in our direction and lunged about 50 yards in front of us, then swam in our direction as they dove, winding up perhaps 40-50 feet away with the final flukes.  It was spectacular, and we left on that note.  Pulling away we heard the screams over the hydrophone, but glanced back to see the whales apparently abort the lunge and surface normally.  I'd been hoping for some more whale activity on the way home, and was tickled with the encounter. 

From that point on, the seas calmed until it was relatively flat by the time we passed Point Augusta.  Dru and Chris were interested in halibut fishing again, so we found Hanus Reef and I dropped off Chris with Dru.  Unfortunately, Dru's depth sounder was malfunctioning and a westerly swell was coming down Icy Strait, plus it was getting on in the afternoon, so we finally aborted and headed home.  The Little Bitty and the Ronquil parted ways at Point Retreat and Chris and I made it back to the dock around 5:00.  We pulled the boat without a hitch and went straight to launch it at Douglas for our departure to Snettisham the next day.  Then we headed home, showered, and immediately got to work again while waiting for a pizza to be delivered.  In addition to packing for the next day, I needed to process our cohos, which I did first thing.  The fish were gorgeous and I got a chance to use some of my pre-cut bags that I'd prepped for Sweetheart Creek along with my brand new vacuum packer.  I'm getting better at filleting and the portions, neatly vacuum-packed, look fabulous.  It wasn't long before I ran out of energy entirely and quit for the night, only to pick it up the next day on the way to Snettisham.... but that's another story!

Tenakee across the inlet from camp	Tenakee	Tenakee's public restroom
Tenakee Harbor	Lunge 1	Lunge 2