Today we knew we had a long trip to get to Pavlov Harbor, so no hanging around in Takatz Bay. Chatham Strait waters were not terrible/not great, but the sun was shining and Baranof Island continued to impress with its dramatic landscape rolling past on our port side.
Several whales popped up near the boat at various times, and I can only imagine how many we missed because they weren’t right next to us. We also had dolphins come swim with us again and passed some sea lions hanging out on the Peril Strait channel marker. They are so huge and so many of them manage to squeeze onto the buoy. I made a brief video of a couple of the sea lions in the water trying to join the ones up top.
We made it into Pavlov Harbor by early afternoon and there was only one other boat here. Another boat came in later. We barbecued our shrimp today as an afternoon snack—so delicious and satisfying. After the shrimp, Ryan had a nap while I checked out the harbor in the dinghy. I hadn’t realized it, but apparently there’s a small waterfall/cascade up and around the corner at the head of the bay.
It was near high tide when I went out, so I was able to get quite close to it; at low tide the approach might not be navigabile and is likely just mud and a stream. I’ve since been told that when the salmon are running later in the summer that they jump up the waterfall and the bears line the creek to catch them. Maybe we need to stop here on our way back, too!
On my way back to our boat, I stopped to talk the couple in the boat that arrived after us when I saw they were from Poulsbo. Poulsbo is the closest town to Bainbridge Island, so we are virtually neighbors. I had a nice visit with them from the dinghy. They’re the ones that told me about the bears and salmon here. This kind of chit-chat is a nice boater thing that we’ve seen a lot; if (at your anchorage) you pass another boat in your dinghy while they’re outside, you generally stop to say hello and have a chat. Often they’ll wave you over. It feels so delightfully old fashioned, like the days before cell phones when you sometimes just dropped by someone’s house to visit because you were in the neighborhood.
As I write this, the sun is getting low and Ryan has gone to bed. A big commercial crabbing vessel just slipped into the bay, quietly dropped some crab pots at the very top of the bay, and smoothly threaded through the anchored boats and back out of the bay. It was a little surreal, but now there’s a seal playing outside and the sky is turning pink. Life in Alaska.
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