Elfin Cove

(Karen writes)  We spent a pleasant rest of the night on the docks at Elfin. The naked man did not reappear, and it did take us a while to go back to sleep. We were up about 6:30 to be ready to meet Captain Gary from Fishmasters at the inn. It was a lovely morning – we could see the mountains in the distance that had been enshrouded with fog the previous day. They were snow covered, but only visible up to a certain height, where clouds hugged them and covered up their craggy tops.

Fishmasters is a nice lodge. The kitchen and living area has a fabulous view and the décor is really nice. The comfy couches were tempting, but fish were waiting for us.

 

Leaving Elfin Cove in hunt of halibut

These dedicated fishing boats get to the hot spots fast and make a great, open, stable platform from which to fish

Captain Gary is from Petersburg, but certainly knew where to take us for halibut near Elfin Cove! It was a glassy, calm morning and we first headed for Earl Cove, past “million dollar rock” that clearly claims expensive boats at anything other than low water. Unlike yesterday, the currents were fairly tame, and Earl Cove was quiet. We saw sea lions fishing and a whale breaching and swimming about as we jigged for halibut.

A beautiful morning for fishing

Bob had a strong desire to go halibut fishing. We’venever done it before, so it was a new experience. Compared to salmon fishing, it’s a lot of work!  You anchor in about 150 feet of water (give or take) and use a rod with a long line and a weight at the bottom. Baited with grayling and herring, you drop the line until it hits bottom and then “jig” it off the bottom to capture the attention of the halibut. Oh yes – there’s also a chum bag dropped off the boat to stink up the bottom and attract the fish.

The jigging is definitely an upper body workout, at least for me!  We had some nibbles, but not too much action. However, it was so pretty out and there was so much to watch (whales, porpoise, etc) that we didn’t mind too much. Still, after about 2 hours, we decided to move onto greener pastures.

Karen and Captain Gary discuss fishing strategies

We can’t tell you where we went next or we’d have to kill you (or Captain Gary would). Needless to say, we headed out to lumpier waters and found a sweet spot where Bob hooked a 60lb (54”) halibut. Watching him fight to pull that fish in was amazing. He was whipped when it was done. Once Bob got it close to the boat, Captain Gary harpooned the halibut to make certain it did not escape as he worked it in to the boat.  It was quite an undertaking.

Captain Gary was having a much fun as Bob

We kept fishing and caught 5 quillback (we released one as we had reached our limit of 2 each) and I caught a China rockfish (yellow and black). I also caught a 10lb halibut, and it was enough of a workout to reel that one in that I needed help from Bob. We also just got the fish in the boat before the sea lion made an appearance in hopes of snagging my fish. This sea lion was really brave, he clearly associates small boats with yummy halibut or salmon, and he was circling us like a shark, waiting to snag his lunch. Luckily, he was skunked, or we’d have been really disappointed!

Bob tries out the lazy man's way to jig after his workout  with the 60 lb'er

Look at my fish!

We also saw a small group of Orca while we were at the undisclosed halibut hole. This was the first time we’d seen Orca in Alaska, so that was a nice and unexpected bonus of our trip.

Back at Elfin Cove, Mark and Gary took good care of us. The fish were filleted by the red-headed twin boys working at Fishmasters for the summer. They gave me the ear bones from Bob’s halibut and one of the Rockfish – people make earrings out of them and I know just the right person in Philadelphia to do that for me! They are small, white, irregular shaped bones, about the size of your small fingernail.

Big Fish

Bigger Fish

The staff at Fishermaster's Inn make quick work of turning our catch into fillets

Fishmasters brought over halibut filets for our dinner – with one fillet from Bob’s big fish and one from my small one, so we could do a taste test and see which we preferred. The rest was portioned out nicely and put into vacuum bags and frozen for us, along with some Rockfish fillets. Even after eating a big chunk for dinner and giving Captain Gary some, we ended up with 35 pounds of FISH to eat!

We went into town and did a little provisioning at the cute general store, and then walked back to the boat and ran into Gary, who made us a CD with pictures from our fishing trip and also some he has taken so far this season of the area. What a great thing to do! We had beer aboard Arctic Starand chatted for a while before he headed back to Fishermans. We also watched several float planes come and go as well as the pilot boat, Endeavor. Apparently ships not of US registry have to have these pilots aboard to “guide” them out, and they get to the cruise ships and back using the “pilot boat”. Seems like a sweet deal – the pilot boat drops them on the Elfin Cove dock and then a float plane picks them up and takes them back to their base in Juneau? Oh yes…the dock was full of fishing vessels, we were the only pleasure boat today, and then Go Fish, a Uniflite pleasure boat from Juneau owned by some really nice Texans rafted alongside for the evening.

All in all, a great day—and the halibut was superb. Personally, I liked my little fish best, but maybe that was pride of ownership?

Hoonah to Elfin Cove

Forty five miles to Elfin Cove. That was our plan for today. After yesterday’s perfect sunny weather, we did not know what to expect today. The forecast was noncommittal on whether or not we would have sun.

The sun greets us as we follow a fishing boat past the Hoonah breakwater

Outside the breakwater is all of Hoonah's working harbor

There's a place for everybody at Hoonah

The fuel dock is on the right of the photo

Ferry dock on the left. Hoonah breakwater on the far right.

As it turned out we were blessed with sunshine and unlimited visibility. All of a sudden there were massive snow-capped mountain ranges in sight on all quadrants. We enjoyed a fair passage with winds on the bow at 10-15 and current running in our favor.

The quintessential S.E. Alaskan "skyline"

Two boats left Hoonah at about the same time as we did and trailed us up to Point Adolphus, after which they headed to Glacier Bay. We saw a few humpback whales in route but as we approached Point Adolphus, we spotted many in the distance making themselves known with blows and splashes.

Point Adolphus is known for its whales and we hoped it would not disappoint today. A few boats were drifting around the point and we joined the fleet. While we saw six or so animals feeding leisurely, they were not very showy. After 45 minutes we continued on, although I got a great picture of a sea lion chomping on some fish.

A sea loin enjoys a lunch of fresh salmon

Our route took us through North Inian Pass, which is known as a place of winds and disturbed seas. The seas were a little confused as they spilled past the islands. The most interesting phenomenon was the clouds that cascaded off the islands and formed a fog bank as they reached the water. We had sun on the boat, blue skies in one direction and fog in the other. Alaska can certainly dish up some interesting weather combinations.

Elfin Cove, our destination, is a unique harbor. The public docks are outside the cove proper. There is a 100 foot long public dock with no services. We managed to get the very last spot, so we felt ourselves very lucky as there are not many alternative anchorages in the area. People on the dock grabbed our lines and made us feel welcome.

Elfin Cove is all about fishing. The inner cove is ringed with fishing lodges and homes all connected by a boardwalk. There is all manner of buildings: lodges, houses, gift shops, a post office, a salmon smoker and much I am certain we missed. The big news was that the Cove Lodge and the Coho Grill burned to the ground June 19. The remains of the buildings were quite a sight and one can only imagine the fear and panic fire brings when every building is so close to the other. We heard that the blaze occurred in the early morning and that everyone pitched in to help keep the rest of the town from going up in flames.

Next to the public dock sits a large fuel dock and a dock for the fish buying boats. Water and fuel can be had at this dock (unlike in Tenakee and Hoonah, it’s a floating dock, which is much nicer for us). I’m certain it exists mostly to serve the fishermen who come in to sell their catch to the fish buyer and then continue back out to sea.

With at least four fishing lodges that I counted, there was a lot of activity in the afternoon. Four seaplanes came and went, dropping off and picking up guests of the lodges. The lodge boats came in with their catches of the day. And because the King Salmon fishery was closing tonight at 11:59 tonight, the fish buying boat (St. Jude) was active all night with its cranes and deckhands offloading salmon and loading ice back into the holds of the working boats. Karen and I enjoyed watching the action, as it wasn’t something we’d seen before. The St. Jude worked through the night until the closing and midnight.

We made plans to go halibut fishing through Dan of Elfin Cove Lodge. Dan’s lodge was totally booked, but he hooked us up with Fishmasters (the neighboring lodge) and Mike and Captain Gary. Mike of Fishmasters was great – we made our plans for a half day of Halibut Fishing, and he walked us up to the General Store (that we hadn’t found on our earlier walk!) so I could buy a fishing license.  We set our departure time for 8am, and hit the sack by 10.

At 3:30am, we heard a loud knock on the outside of the aft cabin. Typically, if anchored, that means you’ve dragged into someone else. In this case, being that we were on a dock, we thought it meant that someone had arrived (yes, it’s so light out at 3:30am you could easily move around) and needed to raft to us. I got up to help, only to find that there was a man on our boat asking where the breakfast he had heard about was. I told him it wasn’t on our boat, which seemed to disappoint him a good deal. Did I mention he was stark naked? Karen couldn’t stop giggling when I came back and told her. Welcome to Elfin Cove!

North Bight

Today was a relaxation day. The weather was low and wet. While we talked about taking the kayaks out, the wind and rain never let up enough for us to venture out. We spent the day looking for bear to no avail. Karen read another five books on her Nook and I completed a few more blog posts. We did spot a humpback feeding up at the entrance of the Bight, just northwest of Chimney Island. Perhaps the highlight of the day was more “Alaskan Reality TV”, or should I say “Alaskan Reality radio”. We would keep the VHF on channel 16 and alternate between listening to the activities on the “Hoonah Harbormaster” channel and the “North Bight Neighborhood” channel.

The harbor at Hoonah is fairly active, so there are lots of comings and goings to listen to. You get a feeling of the personality of the harbor and the people who come and go. We did find out that a cruise ship was in town today. That was disappointing because we thought it unlikely there would be one in town tomorrow when we wanted to go see what goes on at Icy Strait Point, the purpose-built cruise ship “destination resort” at Hoonah’s Icy Strait Point.

As for our neighbors in the North Bight, they would exchange tidbits about how the crabbing is going, or maybe do some trip planning. “Where are you going next”, or “Have you ever been to”, or “Aren’t we lucky to be out here doing this” are the topics for discussion. It’s a great way to pick up some local knowledge.

The big news came later in the day, when we found out that one of the boats had lost the generator section on his new gen-set. They took one of the tenders and go to Hoonah to get a cell phone signal so they could call the dealer to arrange for a repair. The good news was that the dealer was making arrangements to get it fixed under warranty. The bad news was that they were going to have to go to Juneau for the repairs. That’s a lot of backtracking.

Sometimes you feel a little guilty when you’re out in this wonderful wilderness and you stay inside the boat all day. Other times you realize you cannot do it all and a “day off” recharges the batteries for future adventures. Today was definitely a “recharge day” and though we were a little stir crazy, we had fun nonetheless.

Dinner on a rainy day

Pavlof Harbor to Neka Bay

Today we have a long trip planned. It’s 46 nautical miles from Pavlof Harbor to Neka Bay. One of the characteristics of Alaska is there are not a lot of anchorages. Therefore some legs, like this one, are such that the “next” suitable anchorage is 5-6 hours away. We try to keep these long days to a minimum, but sometimes you cannot avoid them.

We leave Swamp Fox in Pavlof Harbor

The waterfall on the river that feeds into Pavlof Harbor

The wind was as forecast from the south, and our heading was north, so it was a comfortable ride. We passed a couple of boats heading in the opposite direction and they were bouncing their way into the waves.

After passing Point Augusta, we found a small fleet of seiners. Not nearly are large as the last fleet we negotiated, this was a less complicated navigation challenge. We also passed a small group of pleasure boats fishing. Some trolling for salmon, the other were stopped and fishing deep for halibut.

 

I l0ve to watch play amoung the mountain tops

A few humpbacks made an appearance but they were mostly just traveling by and not feeding ,so there was no reason to stop and observe.

Karen and I traded helm duty on a two hour shift schedule. This makes the passage much easier for each person.  However, when things get busy,as when transiting the seiner fleet, we both are at the helm to maximize the number of eyes.

Our course to Neka Bay takes us right past the town of Hoonah, so we took a small detour into the harbor to get a preview. We plan to return there in a day or so to partake of the reported fabulous Halibut pizza.

The first thing you notice as you round the point into Port Frederick is “Icy Strait Point”. This was the site of an old cannery operation in Hoonah’s heyday. The cruise ship industry has created a large recreation area out of the operation. The passengers are entertained with tours, native displays, long walks to town and around the point and, I’m sure, other opportunities to part with additional cash. Normally I do not like having a cruise ship in port when I am, but as this operation is only open when the cruise ship arrives, I hope they are at Hoonah when we stop there. I would like to play tourist and see what it is all about.

Icy Strait Point

An hour after leaving Hoonah, we approached Neka Bay. There are three fingers that make up Neka Bay. The main bay is too large and open for us. The south bight looks just perfect for us, but there is not enough published information for us to try the narrow and shallow entrance narrows. That leaves the North Bight as our destination.

Six boats were already there anchored in four rafts.  The rafts were dispersed along the north shore leaving us a nice spot at the head. All these bays are lined with crab pots, so the exact location of our anchor stop was centered among the pots ringing the head of the bight.

Our neighbors in North Bight

The bight received one more boat a after we arrived. The sailboat that had been shadowing us for the half of our trip anchored in the small indent on the south shore.

To satisfy our curiosity about the South Bight as a possible anchorage, we launched the dinghy despite it being cloudy and misty, and proceeded to work our way into the bight. The South Bight is really beautiful. Protected on all sides with steep mountains all around and fed by numerous streams. There is even a waterfall on the south side. It was high tide, and we were able to work our way over the drying falls at the head and explore the mouth of the stream in the northwest corner.

As we reversed course, we spotted the dinghy from the sailboat working its way toward us. I steered a course to them and we exchanged greetings. They asked if we had seen any bears. “No” was our reply, but they had seen a couple of cubs playing in the North Bight when they entered earlier.

Just before we worked our way out of the South Bight, we noticed what was either a very large black boulder or a very large opening to a cave about 200 feet up the side on the mountain to the south. An eagle was flying in the vicinity of the cave, but didn’t enter.

We would love to come back here, but without a sounder on our dinghy, we did not have a chance to take depth readings. However, my assessment is that with a high tide of 6 feet or more, I would make an attempt to enter. There is a 5 fathom hole plotted on the charts that would make a great anchorage. Something to look forward to on our next visit. If any of our readers have more information on the South Bight of Neka, let us know and we’ll share it on this site.

We continued our exploration by circumnavigating the North Bight. This area is also fed by multiple streams and is flanked all-around by what appear to be perfect “bear beaches”. Karen has worn out her eyes today searching for the elusive critters. I think we’re a little too early for the salmon runs and the bears are just not out and about on the beaches.

The sun tries to make a comback in North Bight

I multitasked during dinner preparation. I made orange-glazed salmon with rosemary potatoes and prepared curried chicken salad so we had lunch for tomorrow ready to go. A little extra work makes for a more leisurely day to follow. We hoped that the other boats might set off fireworks, but we didn’t see any preparations, so we headed off to bed.

The clouds fight back and strat to dominate to heavens again

Tenakee Springs to Pavlof Harbor

We were back at the Party Time Bakery precisely at 8 am when the doors opened. They promised me pancakes today and that was what I had on my mind. Our timing was mostly driven by the fact that the fuel docks open at 10 and we wanted to be there when they turned on the pumps, because the tide would be going down and we wanted all the extra “tide” we could get to avoid the aforementioned bolts and stuff. Karen had the same egg, ham and cheddar breakfast sandwich and my pancakes were just what the doctored ordered for a rainy morning. I ordered a bowl of the corn chowder to go and Karen took a piece of chocolate torte back to the boat. We also made a quick 2^nd stop at the Mercantile to grab a few more items.

Arctic Star getting ready to cast of from Tenakee Springs

Tenakee Springs docks sits behind a floating breakwater, but the fetch can still get in.

The fuel docks at Tenakee are not floating. The fuel hose is dropped over the side of the pier. Depending on the tide, that can be a long drop. Opening time, 10am, was only two hours from low tide so not only was the distance from the pier to our decks on the order of 20 feet, but the pilings that are revealed at low tide are barnacle-encrusted with a few protruding metal bits exposed.

In anticipation of the hazards on the pilings, we lined the port side of Arctic Star with every fender (9) on board. As it turned, out the wind was such that we were held off the pilings for most of the 45 minutes it took to take on 400 gallons of #2 diesel.

 

Bob fuels Arctic Star in the rain

Eve, the fuel mistress at Tenakee, is a doll and helped us through the process, calling out target fuel quantities as we approached our limit. Luckily, we got to the fuel docks just at 10am, and I felt sorry for the boats that were hovering just off the docks as we took on our large load of fuel. However, the $1400 sale probably made the day for the economics of this small town.

I had been admiring the hoodie sweatshirts worn by the staff of Alaskan Seaplanes during our stay at Tenakee. At the Bakery, one of the staff came in for coffee, so I asked if they sold the hoodies. They did and both Karen and I came away with a practical reminder of our pleasant stay at Tenakee.

As you walk the “path/road/main street” on Tenakee, you’ll pass a number of resident dogs lying along the path, each in front of their masters’ doors. Most of they are grey haired older dogs, and most are friendly and are happy if you reach down and pet them because getting up is almost too much for these senior citizens. On our stroll back to the docks, I noticed a large fellow I had seen a couple of times. He looked just like the others I have petted, large, old, part wolf and a bit forlorn. I bent down and as I started to let him give me a smell, he tried to take a bite out of my hand. I was quicker than he was as he bared his teeth and growled, but he was not able to muster the energy to stand and pursue the attack.

We were cold and wet from being out in the rain, as we left the boat for breakfast and then spent the whole time on deck for the fueling process. Once the fenders were stowed and we were underway to Pavlof, we turned up the boat’s heat in an attempt to feel warm and dry.

Pavlof Harbor is a short (15 mile) trip to the northwest of Tenekee, in  Freshwater Bay. We did spot a humpback making his way SE as we rounded the point into Freshwater Bay. Pavlof is known for bear, so that influenced our decision to make it an overnight stop. We arrived at low tide, perfect bear viewing time. However, we never did see any of these elusive critters. There is also an interesting waterfall at the head of the stream that runs into the bay. Normally we would launch the dinghy and go exploring, but the previous time we spent out in the rain earlier today dampened our desire to brave the wet and cold yet again.

As I was preparing dinner, I spotted Northern Songapproaching the Harbor. I made a call to the bridge and we exchanged greetings with Mike and a few updates on travels and bear sightings. We had not talked with them since we visited the boat in Port McNeill last September.

Northern Song sits in Pavlof Harbor

The rain finally stopped as we went to bed and the harbor was flat. About 2:30am, I was awaked by the sound of the wind blowing. I made my way to the helm and checked the wind direction and speed. It was south at 10 to 12 knots. We were holding well and the winds were as forecast, so it was back to bed.