Gremlins Attack Merlin

Merlin at Verney Falls (B.C.)--taken by John

Early on June 16^th we left Hoonah in pleasant weather. Our plans were to find a nice spot to anchor on the west side of Chatham Strait—a huge north-south body of water that we would traverse in sections in the next few weeks. The first (of three) problems came when our depth sounder stopped working. It had briefly given us trouble the day before but Rod had talked to a marine electronics technician by phone and we thought we had it fixed. We were now out of cell phone range and any anchoring is tricky when you don’t know how deep the water is. After consulting with John and Roxie, we decided to head for Tenakee Springs, a town with a marina and maybe a cell tower.

Tenakee Springs, Chichagov Island

After tying up to the guest dock, we explored Tenakee Springs. The town is supposedly a retirement community for Alaskans, but we found it to be very rustic. The homes are on stilts along the shore with a 6’ dirt path running behind them. The only traffic is an occasional bicycle or ATV. There is no potable water, garbage service, sewer system, or cell service. The ferry does call here twice a week and there was a small cruise ship that visited while we were there. There is a communal hot springs bathhouse with separate hours for men and women that John and Rod used. (Too rustic for Roxie and me.) We also enjoyed WI-FI at the local coffee shop and very much enjoyed chatting with some of the residents. Roxie and John had caught two halibut on the way here and we enjoyed some on Xanadu that evening.

Rod fishing near Tenakee Springs

We did a layover at Tenakee Springs so we could go out fishing in the bay the next morning when the tide was right. All of us got on Xanadu and tried our luck. Unfortunately no one caught anything. Our second problem came that day when we found that our generator had stopped working. The water pump to it was broken. Fortunately, John could give us some power from his boat to charge up our batteries, etc., but we needed phone service to order a new pump.

Our third problem occurred that same day. We ran out of water even though our tank had shown that we had plenty. See what I mean about gremlins? Since the water at the dock was not potable (drinkable), we needed to move the boat the next morning to find a place with water and cell service. We did happily celebrate John and Roxie’s 44^th wedding anniversary that evening with brownies, ice cream and a shared bottle of wine.

The closest place to get water was Angoon, a Tlingit village on Admiralty Island, a place we had planned to visit anyway. After passing through a tricky entrance with a swirling current even at slack water, we tied up to some rickety docks and found a man working on the water lines. Instead of standing around watching him, we did the mile walk to town and found a well-stocked general store and friendly residents. The town reflected very basic living and fishing was the economy. When we got back to the marina, the water line was fixed and we were able to fill our tanks. Yea! There was cell phone service here, but only for AT&T customers.

Water arch near Elfin Cove

We will head for Sitka tomorrow—a two-day trip to see if we can get help with our mechanical problems. More on that in the next blog post and more pictures.

Signing out,

Susan, Rod, and Katie