Off to the Glaciers June 7

The winds have finally died down and the time has come to depart from Sitka.  Being "stuck" in Sitka certainly is not a hardship.  We used this time to rest, to attend to boat details, and to explore the town. 

Sitka's harbor is home to a large fishing fleet.  Here pleasure boats are outnumbered by a factor approaching ten.  From our berth at the end of Dock 9 in Eliason Harbor, we have 1/4 mile walk to shore.  Everywhere we look, we see fish boats and many of them are being worked on by their owners.  The pleasure boats moored here dwarf "Chug".  Across the fairway from us is Marlinda.  She is at least 80 feet and likely closer to 100.  Each morning we watch the maintenance crew dressed in matching black wool sweaters and watch caps arrive to wipe her down - yet there appears to not to be anyone on the boat.  We wonder how it would be to have crew!  In truth, Chug is perfectly suited to us - not too big and not too small.

This morning we start our day by walking to the grocery store for a couple of forgotten items and then back to the boat to drop our load.  Since we are unable to access wifi from our location on the dock, our next adventure is a trip to the library and then to the Sheldon Jackson Museum before our planned departure this afternoon.  On our way up the dock, two things happen.  I see a sign reminding us that the local coffee stand will have cinnamon rolls this morning and my phone connects automatically to an open internet connection and I hear the sound of texts, emails and more arriving.  First things first, we get a fresh cinnamon roll to share and then sit on the curb in the parking lot and finish collecting and sending messages.  Back to the boat to drop off the computers and then onward to the museum.  

The Sheldon Jackson Museum is a rare treasure trove of Native Alaskan history.  Jackson was a missionary and founder of the boarding school.  He set about creating a museum to house collections that preserve the ethnic history of Alaska's native population.  He was concerned that the Native Alaskan students at his school would be assimilated into "white society" and lose touch with their personal history.  Many of the items were collected by Jackson but others have also contributed to the depth of the collection.  The quality of the artifacts is superb.

Not my photo - but this is the entrance when the water is raging!  We will go at slack.

From here, we begin working our way to Endicott Arm and Ford's Terror.  Endicott Arm is home to Daws Glacier which is one of the biggest, most active glaciers in the area.  Ford's Terror is a small arm that branches off Endicott is only accessible at slack tide.  Much has been written about the remoteness of Ford's Terror and few boater's tackle navigating around the waterfall and dodging ice bergs from Daws Glacier that are both found at the entry.  We have studied the books and looked at aerial photographs and believe we   But first, we have to get there.
are sufficiently prepared for the challenge.

We leave the dock a few minutes before 2 in the afternoon and backtrack up Olga and Neva Straits catching the flood ebb tide and finally set our anchor at 6:30 behind Piper Island in Schulze Cove.  Rosie (a boat we first encountered in Hoonah) is already anchored in the entrance to the bay.  We cross the 1.5 fathom bar into the bay and have the inner bay to ourselves.  We are within two miles of Sergius Narrows which we will transit on the early TTF (turn to flood) slack tide in the morning.