Saturday, August 12, 2017

Angoon to Coffman Cove


Angoon didn’t impress us much.  The docks were small and run down.  They were not equipped for anything over 30 feet.  We anchored in Favorite bay in about 40 feet.  We then dinghied over to the docks.  Simply put Angoon had nothing to offer cruisers.  The town is on the other side of the island and the store is almost 2 miles from the docks.  When we got there, it was closed for “restocking!”   The only thing going for the place was 4 LTE cell service.  You could hoover for a few hours in the straits and take care of any internet work you needed without having to worry about the 9 knots around all the rocks trying to get into the place.  It was a scary place to get into because of all the rocks that turned into islands at low tide.  We were happy to pull out the next day.

On our way to Cannery Bay we saw numerous humpback whales.  Got a little rough at the southern tip of Admiralty Island as the swells came right off the ocean up southern Chatham Straits and the wind hit us at the starboard beam.  Once we turned north it calmed down.

We entered Pybus Bay to our anchorage in Cannery Cove.  What such an awesome place.  The valley at the head of the cove opens up to high green peaks with snow on top. Eagles everywhere.  There is a fly in fishing lodge at the head of the cove.  There was plenty of anchor room.  We had 2 super yachts pulled in and set their anchors.  The scope of the valley still made these superyachts look small.  We stayed for a few days.  On the incoming tide, the cove lit up with jumping salmon!  Pinks and Chums.  We had a lot of fun snagging some fish for the freezer.  Our partner, John got a little frustrated at the snagging part.  It takes a little finesse to throw a 10oz treble hook over a school of fish and yank on the fishing pole at the appropriate time to bury the hook in a fish.  You also have to have the proper snagging pole as I found out.  A big chum busted the tip off my new Lamaglass rod which sucks. 

I also took a dingy trip to the head of Gambier Bay where I witnessed a show down between Brown Bears and black tailed Sitka deer.  These two big brown bears were stocking a deer on the tidal flats.  They were staying low in the grass coming in from 2 different angles.  This deer didn’t seem to mind as he was just munching on sea weed while the herd was munching grass.  Then the bears attacked and the deer simply out ran the bears!  It was cool to watch.

We decided to skip Wrangell and make our way to Coffman Cove, a small town on Prince of Whale Island at the northern tip of Clarence Straits.  This is a small dock and it was taken up by fishing lodges and commercial fisherman.  One of the commercial guys pulled away from the dock and sided tied so we would have a place to park.  John and Tracey sided to us.  Good thing because we had to go on a weather hold for a few days.  This town had a post office, library (we found to be very valuable as all the libraries we can across in our travels always had WiFi!), general store, outside dining, liquor store and bar!   So, if you have to get stuck in a few weather days this is not a bad place to be. 

We had a lot of fun here, but it we both had company fling into Ketch for a tour of Misty Fjords for 5 days, so off we went south.  It also became a realization that we were also heading south for the last part of our stay in Alaska for 2017.

One of the "Rocks" which turned out to be an Island









Whale

Cannery Cove!














Another Whale





Coffman Cove

 

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