June 30 & July 1 – Stedman Cove to Baronoff Warm Springs

Large Humpback surprises us beside the boat

Start of the dive for a meal

Note the barnacles growing on his tail

My New Favorite Boat Name

Dave's Talented "We were here" Sign

Lots of rafting going on here

Canadians in Alaska on Canada Day

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The group still enjoying a soak!

Humpback next to the boat

A sunny day with a few high clouds greet the refreshed boaters. 10 miles up into the big city of Kake – Population 700. Their claim to fame is a 132 foot totem pole. The tallest in Alaska! We take a few photographs and decide that the day is to nice to be tied to a city dock. 40 miles across Fredrick Sound, we head to the “Warm Springs.” Enroute, we stop to photograph a pod of humpbacks that are literally within touching distance. At the entrance to Baronoff Warm Springs there is a baby humpback (around 30 feet long) scratching its belly along the shore and having a “Whale of a time”.

We arrive at Baronoff to find about 25 very large seine boats both anchored in the bay and rafted 6 deep to the dock. We manage to talk Dave into squeezing on the dock and both Sambuca and Shaman raft up. Dave is a bit skeptical about mooring with all of the rowdy fishboats, but turns out that they are mostly family boats and are loaded up with young kids and young adults. We have dinner, a few obligatory drinks and both Shaman and Sambuca have lights out by 10:00 pm. Not Oceanaire, Dave and Penny go up the mountain for a midnight dunk in hot springs (they call them warm, but they are darned hot). We had seen a T-Shirt in Ketchikan that says “We don’t Skinny Dip, at our age, we Chunky Dunk!” – we thought that was a good saying for all of as we hit the warm springs the following day.
July 1 – Canada Day – warm, Sunny and the lone 6 Canadians wake up to the fishboats singing “O Canada”. They learned it by watching hockey they tell us a few jabs about our bad hockey teams and bad fishery and we get on with the business of the morning. For their thoughtfulness of “O Canada”, Betty makes up a huge round of Caesers for Breakfast, both for the group and the captain and crew of the “ F/V Quandry”. What very nice folks we have met on Canada Day in Alaska. We pack up a pitcher of Fruity drinks and Margaritas and take the ½ mile walk to the warm springs. We have now voted these springs to be the finest we have visited yet. The walk up the boardwalk is worth the huffing and puffing. You are greeted by two very large pools that are literally within touching distance of a waterfall. A most enjoyable soak and then onto the business of checking out the drinking stamina of the “F/V Quandry”. At days end, our liquor cabinets are now depleted but what a hell of a good time was had by all. Dinner at 10:00 pm and off to bed (without bed spins) we go.
The next morning, the fleet pulls out (seiners) to ready themselves for the opening on Thursday. We will be well clear of this as it sounds like a bit of a punch up. We were amazed that the evening before, all the boats are partying together and everyone is getting along just fine, to be told by Captain Tom that Thursday will be a real melee. Boats running into each other, all jockeying for the prized fish in Chatham Channel with a limited time to catch them in. He said it quite succinctly, “blame the game, not the players”. A local at the dock in Baronoff said that in all the years they have been coming to their property, that this was the first time that she had seen Fisherman and Yachties having a good time together. We’re not quite sure why this would only be the first time this has happened? Captain Tom tells us for the Fourth of July, there will be 180 seine boats at the springs……time to let the boys have the place to themselves. They will most certainly have earned it.