We got up in the morning and took a walk thru the community. Had breakfast at the local bakery / café / art and gift store. This is where all the locals and visitors were this morning. Great breakfast.
There are a couple dozen houses or cabins, a post office, fire station, a hot springs (now inside a building), a ‘lodge’, and maybe 1 ‘store’. Some of the cabins/houses date back to 1900. Some are log construction; some seem to be from whatever material they could find at the time. There are a few new homes/cabins being built. This for the most part appears to be a summer home/cabin type community, but there looks like a hand full or two of the homes are lived in year round. Several of the houses had very artistically interesting front doors, others very long staircases from the road up to the house. Basically there is one road (no cars, just bikes, golf carts, and four wheelers), with houses on piling on the water side and houses built on the hillside along the other side of the road. Many of the uphill houses were also built on piling or stilts way off the ground. The school is up at the top of the hill, something like 100 stairs up. Nicole thought it was pretty funny to see a sign saying ‘wheelchair accessible’ on the front door. Okay there is a trail going up the hill alongside the stairwell. It had better be a powerful 4 wheeler to get up that hill.
The locals were all out doing their morning chores; ladies – jogging, walking, and bike riding; men – painting, weed whacking, hammering on new decks, house walls etc…, and getting their 4 wheelers ready for the 4th of July parade. We chatted with a few of the locals and found out that the population averages 100, with about 75 living here year round or almost year round. One guy is 93 and has lived here almost all of his life. They said that on the 4th of July there will be a couple hundred people here. They will have a parade, potato salad and dessert contest, and other celebration type things.
After leaving Tenakee, we crossed the bay and stopped so the fisherpeople could get their hooks wet. Nicole was itching to try the Herring that she caught in Hoonah.
She lands a big one !!! Hal the Halibut!
To the bottom and three jigs later, Nicole has one on her line. The guys hadn’t even gotten their gear wet yet. She grins and starts playing this guy to the surface and onboard Magic. She got a better workout than an aerobics class. While we don’t have a scale on board, by Glen’s best guess it weighs about 30 lbs. Glen hung it upside down from the back rail of Magic, to make sure it was good and dead before it really came on board. With it’s tail at the rail it’s nose was on the swim platform. Nicole’s smile was almost as big as this fish. Oh by the way, she didn’t put any Herring on her jig.
Tom and Sherm were a bit behind us and Hal was not so happily aboard hanging as they got there. They got their fishing gear into the water as did Glen, and of course Nicole now being the super fisherwoman went in for one of Hal’s buddies. They fished for about an hour without any more luck. Hal’s buddies were having a ‘wake’ in another area.
Not getting any more fish we started back on course down the channel. Saw a few Humpbacks; they were just out for a swim and weren’t doing any tricks today. On to Appleton Cove, just off of Hoonah Strait, for the night.
Mmm… Hal the Halibut tastes great. Not many places you can go from the sea to the table in less than 6 hours. Good work Nicole!
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