Continuation from yesterday …. It rained off and on all day. We traveled down the Chatham Strait. The crew described the water as ‘well not perfectly flat’. Tom took 2-3 hits over the top. Glen’s windows (I don’t do windows) got washed with abrasive salt spray several times. He will get to rinse them with fresh water later. I (wearing my special bracelet) rested in the salon.
We pulled into Warms Springs Bay for a visit to the Baranof Hot Springs. The dock was full, which we expected (rafted 2-4 boats out), so we anchored across the bay and stern tied to shore. We had dinner and then moved to the salon for our evening photo show and movie. The Miner’s home movies were a hoot. Okay not so much for the photography (which seemed to be a lot of sky – floor of the dinghy – Tom’s back – the sky etc…) but for the audio. Chris was trying to take a video and hold on at the same time, Debbie was screaming for glee, and Tom was saying just ‘keep filming’.
We woke up this morning to sunshine. By 8:00 am 5-7 boats had moved off the docks and a couple anchored boats headed out of the bay. Our plan is to go exploring on shore today and of course check out the hot springs. Tom did a bit of fishing off the back of his boat this morning, here is what he caught.
We went ashore, walked around the boardwalk community and then up the hill about a ½ mile to the lake. Much of the trail is boardwalk. It seems like Alaskans don’t like to hike on the dirt because they build great boardwalks all over the place.
Glen cooling his jets.
The middle pool.
This is a small community of about a dozen houses or cabins, a transient dock, small general store, and hot springs; all alongside a beautiful and large waterfall. A community bath house has 3 private ‘horse trough’ tubs which are fed with water from the hot springs. Up the trail heading to the lake there is a cutoff going over close to the inlet to the waterfall. Follow that path over root and rock and you’ll find the natural hot springs pools alongside the rushing water of the upper waterfall. There are three hot pools there, the uppermost one small and too hot for man or beast, the middle one about 110 and very relaxing, and the third one closer to the river and closer to 100. For those that like their soak a bit cooler there is yet another pool right next to the rushing water, which is fed by the river. Only Glen was brave enough to try its frigid water. The community bath house troughs are not as hot as the water further up the hill. Glen, Noble and I relaxed in the upper pools and visited with some fisherman who we’d seen and photographed in Angoon yesterday. They also had parked over the top of the sunken boat before someone told them about it. While we were up the hill, Tom, Chris, Debbie and Deb/Parker enjoyed the community bathhouse and visited with the locals. Tom and Glen had tried out the upper pools earlier. After everyone was wet and relaxed, we headed back to the boats for awhile.
The lake, and community bath house. That's Debbie and Chris in the openings.
Later in the afternoon someone spotted the community store open, so we went back ashore to check it out. Yep, they had a small amount the basics (but no flour which I wanted), books, local art, candy, some food, and the two most important things it seems for some of this group - espresso, and ice cream. Glen shared his ice cream which if you know Glen doesn’t happen often but when he does it’s only with those who really want to ‘share’.
While waiting for everyone to exit the store I saw a large salmon jump three times in the rough water at the bottom of the waterfall. It apparently was trying to go up the waterfall. Humm, if indeed it was born up there, it had better find another way back home because it will never make it up that waterfall. Unfortunately I could not move my camera fast enough to caught this action.
On the way back across the bay it was noted that the inner bay close to the boats was now navigable by dinghy, so that meant a quick trip in to check it out. Yep, there was an inner bay, which looked more like an alpine lake. There were four locals in there on shore, two by a campfire and two down by a stream. Glen tried to say they were panning for gold. Dreamer. More likely they were fishing and having a picnic of sorts. Tom claimed to have seen a large fish (salmon) jump in there so he rushed out to get his fishing gear and return. This time he saw a seal in there but no fish. Go figure.
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