As soon as we left Wrangell Harbor Inlet we entered a dense fog that lasted all morning. It was nice and calm, but at times we could only see 50 feet away. Thank goodness for our radar. It paid for itself today when Ryan noticed a radar target moving toward us on a collision course. We honked our horn and turned on all our lights to try to get their attention, but the radar target never slowed or changed course. We performed evasive maneuvers on our end, and finally saw a fishing boat pass quite close to us. If we hadn’t moved it almost certainly would have resulted in a collision. Many fishing boats don’t seem to have AIS, so they couldn’t see us (or us them) on that system, and if they had radar, they clearly weren’t monitoring it. We could also hear music playing loudly when Ryan went out to yell at them as they passed, so they probably couldn’t hear our horn either. Honestly, if you’re running a boat in pea soup, a little attention would be nice!
Around midday we finally emerged from the fog. What a relief! You don’t realize how claustrophobic fog gets until you’re out in the open again.
We had planned to go down the PoW (Prince of Wales) coast a bit, but when we turned south around Point Baker the water got uncomfortably rough, so we sought shelter in the aptly named Port Protection. Port Protection was named by George Vancouver in 1793 and was his base for mapping southern parts of Kuprenof Island and the southeast of Kuiu Island. When I was researching the origin of the name I discovered that Port Protection also has its own reality TV show on the National Geographic Channel. Who knew!
We initially thought that there was a bar at the trading post, but when we headed over there we realized it was just the locals celebrating the sunshine. They were pretty friendly, considering we were crashing their party, and invited us to take advantage of the boardwalk trails. It was a welcome chance to get some exercise and explore.
Perhaps it was just the sun, but this small community appeared to be the happiest of any of the SE Alaska communities we’ve visited so far. And someone has a sense of humor, judging by the float with a lawn and tree planted on it. I wonder who mows it.
Ryan and I took the dinghy out to the mouth of the bay to see what Sumner Strait waters were doing. We could see there was still a fog bank on the west side of the strait, and it appeared to be flowing north with the wind. It looked like a river of fog!
On our way back into the bay we noticed a dramatic-looking mountain, poking up behind the town to the south. A quick check on my Peak Finder app told us it was Mt Calder. We will have to look for it tomorrow to see if we can get a better view!
After our explorations of Port Protection we came back to Wild North for a sun-filled happy hour and light dinner on the back deck while listening to music from the locals’ party. After going strong all afternoon and evening, the party is now starting to wind down, and people are trickling home in their dinghies. Someone just cruised past our boat and mooned their friends still lingering on the deck. Nice.
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