Some of the group departed Pavlof Harbor around 6am, and the rest trickled out and were underway by 7am.
This morning the clouds had disappeared and the sky was bright blue! No bears (still) but that’s okay. We’ll be back when the fish are running and there will be bears.
Right as we were rounding North Passage Point from Freshwater Bay into Chatham Strait, we spotted a humpback near shore, splashing around as it lunge fed. Fun!
The wind picked up as we entered Chatham, but conditions were overall pleasant, and the view as we turned west into Icy Strait on a day with weather like today just can’t be beat. The weather in SE Alaska notoriously obscures the Fairweather mountain range, but today they were in full view — a rare treat. Mount Fairweather is the tallest at 15,300 feet!
Evenstar 42 had more Dall’s porpoises surfing their bow and we managed to snap a couple photos:
This weather!!
We rounded Hoonah Point and caught this little otter hanging out as we made our way into Hoonah Harbor.
There’s just one cruise ship in town today, the Viking Orion, which is actually good because that means some of the shops and carving shed will be open, but the town won’t be bombarded with SO many people.
Hoonah (in Tlingit spelled Xunaa) is a largely Tlingit community on Chichagof Island, with a population of just over 900. It’s always a fun stop for us, and we’re glad that we had the chance to add it to our itinerary this trip.
Andy the harbormaster worked hard to get us all spots (with less notice than he likes) and we appreciated it greatly. A sunny day in Hoonah is a perfect day to visit!
We all made our way out to Icy Strait Point (about a 2 mile walk) to ride the gondola up to the top of Hoonah Mountain. Not to be passed up with a clear sky!
The carver wasn’t busy with a cruise ship group, so we stopped to chat with him and learn a little about the current projects. He said his boss is usually there also, but the boss said “back in five minutes” a couple hours ago, which meant he left to go fishing.
We were told that the three figures on this bench are the carver’s three sons:
Walking through town out to the point, the St. Nicholas (Russian) Orthodox Church sits up the hill on the right:
The photo below shows the main facilities at Icy Strait Point. These buildings were originally home to The Hoonah Packing Company, built in 1912, which was one of eight canneries operating in the area during the early twentieth century. This was Hoonah’s major industry at the time. It’s now part of the native-owned Icy Strait Point and houses tourist shops, an art gallery, a cannery museum, and a couple restaurants. (Around the point, there’s a zip line and the gondolas to the top of the mountain).
The first gondola (the green one) is free, and cuts through the forest and over a giant intricate ropes course that looks quite fun, but we’ve never seen anyone using it.
We spotted a deer in the grass below us (not on the bingo card):
Next, we got tickets for the Skyglider (the red gondola) to go the rest of the way to the top of Hoonah Mountain, which is normally $50 per person, but when they learned that we weren’t on the cruise ship we got to pay $21.50 per person instead.
The steepness of this gondola line is hard to capture in photos, but we gave it a shot:
At the top, we took in the view, walked around a bit marveling at the engineering that went into building this thing, and spotted tomorrow’s anchorage…Couverden Island Cove, just across Icy Strait. The distance visible from up here on a clear day is fantastic!
Alicia and Gregg from Evenstar 42 and Greg and Laurie from True Grit had done the gondola already when we arrived (they got an earlier start this morning from Pavlof), but we got this group shot of some of us: L to R Brian and Adrianne from Evenstar 55, Laura and Kevin from Airship, Julie and David from Dog Star, and Scott and Lisa from Impulse.
On the way back down the mountain, more deer! This time a mama and her very little baby!
Back at the point we strolled through the cannery museum and some shops, then walked back to town, ending up at Fisherman’s Daughter for a late lunch/early dinner. Beer-battered halibut and chips (with jalapeño tartar sauce), and a couple milkshakes….delicious!
Another great visit to Hoonah!