After three glorious days in Glacier Bay, the clouds returned and the morning fog did not burn off. We motored south out of Glacier Bay into Icy Strait.
The visibility was less than 1/2 mile so we relied on our radar to tell us what vessels were out there. We usually run with our chart plotter displaying a split screen, the electronic chart on the left and the radar image on the right. Things that aren’t charted, such as other boats, stand out that way. Whenever you have a solid return on your radar image, you make a point of identifying whether it is a charted rock or buoy, everything left over becomes a “target” that you monitor.
The route to Elfin Cove goes through South Passage, on the south side of Lemesurier Island, and then through South Inian Pass. The currents can run pretty briskly through those passes so you want to time them towards slack current. Especially in South Inian Pass, if a strong ebb current collides with the incoming swells from the ocean, waves can stack up uncomfortably. We timed the current pretty well and had no problems.
Elfin Cove is a small Alaskan fishing community built around two coves. The outer cove has a 200 foot community dock and we were able to get a spot. The inner cove is extraordinarily protected and calm but it is narrow and shallow and generally only used by the locals. We were fortunate to get dock space because both commercial and sport fishing boats use the dock for night time moorage. As it is a public dock, allowing boats to raft to you is expected if you are directly on the dock. Later we moved off the dock and rafted to the Nagles’ boat, the DavidEllis
Our friends, the Nagles in their boat the DavidEllis, had been in Elfin Cove since Monday, August 2, helping their friend Shirley Perkins who owns the Coho Bar & Grill there. About six weeks earlier a fire broke out at 2 AM in an adjoining building to the bar (KCAW radio news story). It took everyone in Elfin Cove and fire crews from several nearby communities to put it out. Shirley’s building was partially burned and received major smoke damage. The water used to extinguish the fire was salt water pumped from the cove so it contributed to the post fire damage.
Shirley had been busy cleaning and rebuilding (note the new siding). The Nagles volunteered their labor towards the effort while in Elfin Cove. While we stayed there, we added a couple of days of our labor as well.
Elfin Cove has no road but is built along and around the boardwalk connecting buildings and homes. As the photo to the left shows, had the wind been blowing that night, it would have spread quickly from structure to structure and burned far more than it did.
We did take one afternoon off from work and took our boat with everyone else aboard over to a nearby island. It is the site of a artillery piece installed during World War II to protect the entrance to Icy Strait. It must have been an incredible effort to bring in everything needed to build and operate such a base.
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