Boarded by the Coasties! And other excitement.

You need a little background info. Our length overall is 43 feet. When requesting slips, we report it as 45 feet because we don’t mind paying extra so we aren’t squeezed in somewhere.

Boy we have news! It’s been a busy few days! Kodiak (our slip mate) arrived late on Saturday. We both fit together just fine in the slip. He is uneasy about coming or going in a southeasterly and damaging our boat. He’s going to talk to the harbormaster and ask to have us moved. I emailed the harbor office and asked that they keep us in the loop. She (again!) was SO nice! She offered us another slip. We went and looked at it – it was rather exposed and had a dislodged float covered in barnacles that would surely contact our boat and scratch the tar out of it (it IS on the repair list) but in the meantime, how do we protect our boat against this?? We decided to go into the office in person to talk to her. Boy howdy! Am I glad we did. As we were waiting our turn, I was looking at the board for Shoemaker. It is a newer harbor out of town. It looked like a name had been erased from a 40-foot slip. Is this one available? Yep, just today. She mentioned that the harbor policy allows a 3-foot overhang, do we think we could shave off some of our length? Do you see it? We are 43 feet as is! She was happy for us and told us to go check it out, come back, sign a few things and she would take care of the rest.

The rub is, the marina is 5 miles out of town. So, we called a cab and checked it out. The cabbie waited for us and then dropped us at the harbor office. We’ll take it! The harbormaster happened to be in as well, he said we’ll like it at Shoemaker, we have the nicest neighbor. We’re bringing a vehicle back next season, so the distance from town will not be an issue. Update: we met our neighbor and he is SO SO SO nice! Gave us some sockeye, coho, and halibut. I’m definitely going to make him a loaf of bread.

This ticks so many boxes for us:

• 30 and 50-amp power
• Deeper – we were worried about being on the ground during the minus 4-foot tide coming soon
• Nicer marina
• More parking
• Nice Neighbor is a bonus

For the next couple weeks though, the distance is an issue. We have 14 days left. We are renting a car to run a few errands. Oh, by the way the rental car company says, we also take care of the UPS and have a package for you, we’ll bring it with the car. Nice.

We went back, unplugged, cast off our lines, and headed off. I know you are surprised, but we didn’t even say goodbye to our neighbor. It was a gorgeous afternoon for a spin! As we are exiting the harbor this boat keeps aiming for us, no matter which direction we turn. What the heck are these guys doing? Ah, Coasties! Have we ever been boarded? They came aboard and conducted a safety inspection. They were super nice and we passed with flying colors.

We have had some gorgeous days since we last talked. We have diligently gotten our 10k steps in daily (plus some on a few of those days!). We circumnavigated Woronofski and saw a herd of porpoise. (I looked up the collective noun for porpoise and there are many: crowd, gam, herd, pod, school, shoal or turmoil) We were hoping for a ride along, but no such luck. These ones seem much livelier than harbor porpoise, but I didn’t get a good look at them. Oh, and we also spotted a lone sea otter in Chichagof Passage. We saw some sort of weasel on the dock. We have seen plenty of river otter, we don’t think it was that. I am thinking a Pacific Marten, but just not sure. We also picked up some General Delivery packages.

We’re not sure if we are going to while away 2 weeks or get our chores done early and blow this pop top. Update: It will cost an additional $1200 bucks to fly home earlier, so looks like we’re staying! Stay tuned. Oh and I didn’t even tell you about the fishing vessel that sank right before our eyes, but this post is getting too wordy, so next time.

Talk Soon.