Friday, June 23 - Monday, June 26, 2006 - We were assigned a slip in North Thomsen Harbor, one of the last remaining for the weekend. Spent our time in Sitka touring, shopping and getting caught up on email and the web site in between the rain showers. We have not had a sunny day since Glacier Bay. We ran into Bob and Cheryl Klein (Kasekuchen) and made plans for dinner Friday night at a wonderful restaurant, Ludvig's Bistro. We all had purchased tickets for the last night of the Sitka Summer Music Festival. The concert was classical music and after the dinner and a couple glasses of wine, the two Bobs decided to return to the boats and Cheryl and I walked into town for the concert. The concert was held in the Harrigan Centennial Hall and the stage sat in front of a wall of windows that framed the bay and the snow capped mountains. The rain had stopped and a bit of sun reflected off the mountains making the music a bit more magical. Sitka is the fifth largest city in Alaska and I think one of the most charming with a population of approximately 9,000. It reflects a mix of its Tlingit, Russian and prospector heritage. Even though it is a cruise ship destination, it is not wall to wall tourist shops like Juneau and Ketchikan. We had planned on Sitka being a good postal pick up point, so we had my daughter send us two months worth of mail and magazines. Our wonderful friend, Todd Rosenberg, mailed us our SAT phone and in true Todd style not only tested it but programmed in the numbers for the Coast Guard, both Washington and Alaska numbers, and the US Forest Service. Thank you Todd!
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 - The extended forecast for north of Sitka is rain, rain and cooler temperatures. We decided that we are tired of wearing our winter clothes and are going to begin to head back south. We departed Sitka at 8:30 after fueling up and headed back up the Olga and Neva Straits through Serguis Narrows and into Peril Strait. Our destination for the evening was Appleton Cove at the entrance of Rodman Bay. We followed in two other boats in to the cove and found two other boats already anchored as well as about 40 commercial crab pots in the preferred anchor area so we opted for the other side of the cove in front of the forest service cabin. We dropped the dingy and one of our crab pots in hopes of catching dinner. We are definitely seeing more pleasure boats in the waters than we had in the previous weeks. We did have fresh crab for dinner and our choice of anchorage provided us with some great bear viewing that evening. We watched a mother and two cubs foraging in the grassy meadow for over an hour. On the opposite shore we spotted three other brown bears doing the same.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - Raised anchor at 5:45 am and departed Appleton Cove and continued south down Peril Strait and into Chatham Strait. Our destination was Warm Springs Bay on the east side of Baranof Island. The community of Baranof is located at the head of the bay along with a 100' waterfall which provides power for the residents and store. There are natural hot springs and the water has been piped into soaking tubs located along the boardwalk at the head of the dock. We arrived at 10:45am and were able to find a spot on the state maintained float. The waterfall coupled with the tide generated a fair amount of current which was was in our favor by pushing us into the dock. We found one of the residents, a wood carver who specialized in Tlingit masks working on the dock. We set off to explore the area and enjoyed a latte at the coffee bar in the store. A 42' Grand Banks, Gypsy, later joined us at the dock and we invited Dave and Heather Ballaine over for cocktails and hors devours. Dave and Heather were from Bainbridge Island and had participated in the Grand Banks Tour and were also working their way back down south.
