Day 33 - Hoonah

We head out at 9:00 am Alaska Time (not 7:15 am like Dave Time) after rousting all of the fisherman to untie their boats from our boats. It felt kind of good rousting them all up with their pounding heads! Its calm and rainy through South Inian pass which we are trying to hit at slack tide as the currents can go up to 6 knots and with the ocean swell coming in from the Gulf of Alaska, there have been known to be 15-20 ‘ standing waves in this pass. We luck out until we hit Point Adolphius. The wind is now 20-30 knots and the tide converging on this point make for a rough couple of hours. Lots of things flying around in the cabin, but its all I can do to sit in my chair and hang on. The dog is terrified and the cat is laying flat under the bed with all four paws splayed, claws dug into the carpet, to keep from bouncing in the air! Cats can experience zero gravity too! Its too bad that its so rough as there are at least 30-35 whales bubble feeding in the riptide inbetween the large waves. Mike is busy dodging whales and tide lines of kelp and puff kelp and the inside of my boat sounds like its breaking to pieces. I manage to get some good shots of Ladner Lass pounding through the rough water and we are thankful when we make it into calmer water behind Hoonah Island!
There aren’t a lot of people around in Hoonah, they must be all snuggled up inside with their wood burning fires. This town boasts one of the largest “ziplines” but the weather is too nasty to see about going on the zip line this trip. There’s not much too this town, except for the marine store at the head of the ramp at the marina. The boys make a beeline for the store and the ladies make a beeline for the grocery store. Getting your boat fueled up here is a unique experience. Due to the huge tide fluctuations here and the absence of a floating fuel dock, the towns only fuel dock is way up in the air on an anchored dock. The fuel attendant lowers the hose from about 25 feet up and there a ladder that you can climb to go up and pay. We opt to pay in cash as Mike is afraid of heights and it’s a long way down if I slip. We opt to have the bucket lowered with our bill and we put the cash in the bucket to pay our fuel bill. In all of our years of boating, we have never seen anything like it! This morning low tide was a minus 3 with a high of 14.5 feet, a 17 foot swing, makes for a long drop of the fuel hose!