Our overnight passage from Ketchikan found us in foggy waters during breakfast. We ate with JC, who had just finished speaking with Meghan and Isla in Phoenix. All is well there. We didn’t drop anchor until 10am, and the tenders started transporting passengers ashore. No dockside here, as Icy Straits/Hoonah is even smaller than Ketchikan. As our kayaking wasn’t until this afternoon, we stayed on board through lunch at noon, then took the boat into shore. I’d been watching the resident whale, “Eddie,” lazily swimming around the ship on his way out of the harbor, but it was pretty tame stuff. Once ashore, we checked out the kayak place to make sure we knew where to go. Having some time to kill, we took the local nature walk, a half-mile stroll.
Buoyed by this trek, we took a pic to commemorate the feat.
Time for the kayaking. Loni and Alia decided to hike over to Hoonah, which is around that point behind my right arm. That little white dot is a car going along the road. A chat with some locals convinced them to take the shuttle, as there had been bear activity recently. Hoonah is a village of 700 Lingit native people, with 1 general store, 1 hardware store, and 3 churches. Loni reported later that the driver stopped to talk to an older man who had survived a bear attack the year prior, right in town on some steps between streets. Yikes. She and Alia spent the afternoon watching 3 master carvers at the Tribal Project Center, building a tribal house that will be installed near Glacier Nat’l park where the tribal lands once were. They were carving red cedar totems that would hold up the roof. Hmm. Saw something very similar in New Zealand with the Maori. Here, elders will sit around a pole with their hands on it, and describe to the carvers what visions they see, then the carvers create their images accordingly. They showed off their wooden hats and the drums and rattles they use when singing, and even gave the gals some sample songs. Afterwards, Loni and Alia made to return to the dock area, and noticed that the wind was now blowing hard and . . . what was that waaaay out in the bay that looked like struggling paddlers?
OK, back to “time for the kayaking.” Our instruments of torture awaited in a polite row, and the henchmen fitted us in with spray skirts and instructions. Is JC feeling for a steering wheel?
In the bottom pic of the collage above, we have just pulled in for our mid-way (and only) stop of the trip. Up til now it has been fairly easy going, not too fast a pace, and with a mild tail wind. Hmmmm. Almost idyllic as the scenery glided by.
At one point, the guide asked if we wanted to check out his crab pots to see if he had caught anything. It was only a minor detour, but we’d have to up the pace a bit afterwards to get back on time. Everyone agreed to give it a go. Once we got to the crabbing area, he yanked up a few pots before finding anything. He then needed some assistance, and Mike volunteered.
Yeah, that’s a pretty nice catch. Mike is grinning, but he wasn’t having any part of handling the critter. We then headed back. Remember that mild following breeze that made coming out so pleasant? Well, it now was a brisk wind smack in our faces all the way back to the launch shore. Hey. This is supposed to be a celebration of my 70th birthday, not an invitation to a heart attack. I am proud to say that I kept up (mostly) with the pack, all of whom were decades younger, until the final mile or so. I was absolutely bushed. At that point, a motor boat of the kayak company came out to see if anyone would like a tow the rest of the way. Clearly, this was not their first rodeo. Pride lasted a nanosecond, and I raised my paddle. They tossed me a rope and I hitched my way back to the beach. The boyos, meanwhile, decided to make a race out of it, so the three of us were equally exhausted when we rolled out of the kayaks onto the sand. OK, so far I’ve hiked and paddled. The rest of the trip, I’m ridin’. But, you know, the pain was worth it. This was a day any dad would kill for.
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