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June 2008 - Alaska Inside Passage Exploration Northern Portion ABC Islands Admiralty, Baranof, Chichagof Islands |
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We picked up our anchor and motored deeper inside Excursion Inlet. John & Shanna decided to go to shore to look for bear sign -- thinking this might be a place to pick up a blackie on the way back to Haines. Jeff opted to stay onboard and do some housekeeping. Not long after John & Shanna left the boat, a female voice came over the radio to inform Jeff that the 2 hunters going ashore were still in Glacier Bay National Park in a no hunting area. Jeff called us on the walkie-talkie to relay the message. John told Jeff to tell her that we weren’t hunting and thanks for the heads up. Jeff relayed our message back to her and then called us again to tell us that she also wanted us to know there had been a big brown bear grazing in the area. Jeff once again relayed the message and Shanna became spooked! Then John started seething…..he was sure we were no longer in Glacier Bay National Park and that she was just screwing with us. Shanna convinced John to depart the area and they took a long dinghy ride to the mouth of the river then up it a ways. They counted at least 7 seals working the mouth of the river. Once back at the boat, John consulted 3 different publications to further research the park boundaries. What do ya know…..the lady was right! She wasn’t just screwing with us after all. We put Willy on top and cruised wide open to the village of Gustavas. We decided that we should take the mile or so walk into town and started looking for a place to tie up on the dock. It seems as though we arrived at the dock the same time the charter boats were returning from their day of fishing, so the public mooring dock was fully occupied. We decided to use one of the many vacant moorings balls located not far from the float. John tied us off and we launched “Willy” the dinghy to explore the village. It was only after we arrived at the public float that we were informed we had tied to a private mooring ball. The fellow who claimed it was a local charter boat owner who was currently cleaning fish at the public float. He told us we could stay there for about 30 minutes, as long as we were gone when he wanted to tie-up his boat. We decided to re-group, went back to the Tomcat and moved closer in to shore to set the anchor.
We all jumped back in Willy and returned to the public float to try again. The current was very strong and the floating docks were rising up and down and bouncing back and forth wildly. It reminded us of trying to walk through the fun house at an amusement park. We finally tied up and headed up the steep ramp for the walk to town. The beach was very fine brown sand, unusual for Alaska standards. The area surrounding the lone road to town were open meadows with some areas tamed into what was still a very rough golf course. We thought we might get picked up as an occasional vehicle made its way to town, but no such luck. The first resemblance of civilization was a fishing lodge just adjacent to the grocery store. We paid a visit to the store which was well stocked considering its location. John read the multiple postings stuck on the store’s front wall. He asked what appeared to be a local if there was anything else in town to see and the guy pretty much told us no. After a 10 minute visit we headed back down the long road to the dock. |
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While taking a last glance back at the beach we spotted 8 bald eagles, many perched on the trees looking out at the beach while the remainder were sitting on driftwood washed up on the beach. While walking down the dock’s ramp we noticed that Willy had been wedged tightly between the dock and an aluminum vee hulled skiff. Luckily Willy didn’t appear to have suffered any damage.
In our opinion, Gustavas wasn’t anything special and lacked that Alaskan charm. We wished we would’ve skipped it all together. Anchored in Dundas Bay (south of the small island). |
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