Pacific NW

Expeditions

Plumes of whale-spout spray wafted in slow motion and glistened in the sun as we watched the sun rise up from behind Chichagof Island. It was another calm day on the ocean and the seas were only up 5 feet or so. Shortly we re-entered on an inside route up the Lisanksi Strait into some great country. Timberline is only 1,500 feet above sea level here, and gives way to steep yellow alpine meadows, topped by another 3,000 feet of rock and snow. We got another glimpse of Mt. Fairweather today which was towering above the highest clouds. Set at the base of this scene is the town of Pelican, population 125. Pelican is the last major re-supply center before we head out into the Gulf for the big crossing. Pelican is my new favorite town in SE Alaska. There are no cars and the “street” is a boardwalk built on 25′ tall stilts. All the houses and buildings are built on pilings and attached to the boardwalk. There is a library, post office, school, church, and hospital. There’s also a small general store but the food they sell is in dusty boxes from the early 90’s. The fuel dock is only open for a few hours on friday. After figuring out what day it was we went and found Wilbur and he opened it up for us. We are now fully loaded with 78 gallons of fuel on board. It is a safety measure in case we need it in the Gulf. Further down the boardwalk we met Tom and Steve, who were in the process of loading pallets of beverages into their new store. They were in no hurry, and sat there with the pallets strewn all over the boardwalk all day. They pulled up some chairs for us and we talked with them in the hot sun for the better part of the day. Tom couldn’t even recall what month it was. He is very nice and gave me three great books on Prince William Sound. He even offered me his charts but I already have them all. Today was the one day a month that the Alaskan State Ferry hails in Pelican. A group of extreme skiers from “Powder” magazine got out and are gearing up to do a photo shoot on top of the nearby mountains. They look like they stepped straight out of some outdoor gear catalogue, and have those funny spikey little patches of facial hair that are meticulously maintained. But they all seem like really nice people. Their plan is to hike up the mountain with hundreds of pounds of gear and videocameras. Neptune and I spent the rest of the day stowing cargo and clearing Silent Partner’s decks for sea.