Pelican – Riveted

Elfin Cove and Pelican

Laura Domela — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 21:16:28 +0000

We left Glacier Bay National Park on Sunday (July 31) and headed to Elfin Cove (through South Inian Pass in Cross Sound). It was nice and calm as we left Glacier Bay, and we even got a little humpback breach on our way out.

A humpback near shore, closer to Elfin Cove:

We were excited to revisit Elfin Cove and Pelican this year with Tiffani and Deke and Sam and Anna. We tried the inner harbor first but there wasn’t enough room for both boats (and maybe not even for one boat), so we ended up on the outer dock (rafted like good visitors, so we took up less dock space in this busy place).

(Just going in and out of the inner harbor is so cool though…it’s very narrow and shallow, and feels like a special place you aren’t supposed to be.) The entrance is up ahead on the right of the photo, by the vertical pilings in the distance:

You can kinda tell from this photo of our walk to the market (later) how narrow the entrance is. (That’s it on the left!)

Elfin Cove’s inner harbor:

The gang, watching the float plane land and take off at the end of our dock:

We walked around town, reprovisioned a little bit at the general store, and then made pizzas for dinner. (Tiffani made the dough, and Deke made the delicious red sauce, and we all made personal pizzas from a variety of toppings…so good!) We hung out on the dock talking to a troller named Joey (F/V Silverlance) about fishing and boats and Elfin Cove…he was really nice and fun to chat with!

Anna bought some coho from him because she hadn’t caught any fish yet and wanted to be sure the freezer on Safe Harbour was stocked!

Our route from Shag Cove in Geikie Inlet in Glacier Bay National Park to Elfin Cove (43.4 nautical miles, 5 hours 49 minutes):

In the morning we went up to the Coho Bar & Grill for breakfast, did another loop around town, and then took off for Pelican. Another gorgeous day!

Here we are rafted on the dock, after all the fish boats left for the day:

Great view of the Fairweathers!

We had no trouble finding dock space in Pelican. Once settled, we walked the boardwalk a bit to explore town.

Totems in front of City Hall (which is where you pay your moorage, by the way).

Springy dolphin in front of the Pelican school:

At the south end of the boardwalk, this area is called “Whiskey Flats”:

Where the river (and the bears) join town. There were quite a few salmon in the stream here, but no bears.

Before dinner we all went up to Rose’s Bar for a beer and some local color.

Rose’s finally has (soon-to-be) new owners! We talked to them quite a bit about their plans for a few upgrades, and how they really want/need to walk a fine line when making changes to this place. It’s got some serious history, and they know the regulars won’t deal well with too much change. They sound excited and like they have some great ideas though. It’ll be cool to see what they do with the place.

From one of the regulars (Bill Pierre, of Bill Pierre Ford), we learned about a place called Radioville, on a small unnamed island on the outside of Chichagof Island (where we plan to go next). Bill Pierre kind of sort of pointed it out on the chart to us, and told us it was a radio station run by a retired signal corps operator to deliver messages from the outside world to the gold and silver mining village in Klag Bay during the early 1900s. Apparently this retired signal corps operator drank quite a bit, and Bill said that the beach is covered in glass from this guy’s broken booze bottles, and for us to look for a red shack and the blue and purple sparkling beach in front of it. (We are of course intrigued by all of this and may try to find it!)

In the morning we walked up to have breakfast at the Lisianski Inlet Cafe. The two specials of the day were biscuits and gravy (really good) and corned beef hash (amazing).

After breakfast we stopped in the gift shop (next door, and part of the cafe) and Tiffani and Anna bought a couple Eric Bealer prints (Alaskan artist/printmaker who lives just outside of Pelican) and a tshirt, and Anna stopped at Yakobi Fisheries and stocked up on some more salmon and halibut. (At home in Portland as part of our weekly organic veggie delivery–Organics to You–we occasionally add a pound of salmon to our order, and guess where it comes from? Yakobi Fisheries in Pelican! Pretty cool.

Elfin Cove to Pelican (19.6 nautical miles, 2 hours 55 minutes):

We left the dock in Pelican and are headed forLisianski Strait. The weather looks good for doing the outside of Chicagof Island to Sitka, and so that’s our plan.

Elfin Cove, AK to Pelican, AK

Laura Domela — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 13:49:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

We took our time getting around Wednesday morning in Elfin Cove. Since low tide was early (6am-ish), the flood tide would have been going against us in that narrow, shallow channel so the later we left the better (but probably no big deal either way). We made breakfast, did a little work (the internet was back!) and then walked up to the general store to grab a few things.

This was our walk to and from the general store, alongside the narrow exit channel. The general store is a fairly well-stocked one for such a small village.

(Airship's at the end of the dock facing right.)

Passing the general store on our way out:

The forecast for Cross Sound was still mellow (3 feet), so out we went.

It was fun to be briefly in the bit of ocean swell from the Gulf of Alaska. Gentle swells, fishing boats, and gorgeous rugged scenery:

Once we turned into Lisianski Strait, we fished a while but only caught one too-small Chinook and threw it back no worse for wear. We spotted two separate families of sea otters swimming alongside the boat in groups. They checked us out intensely, but never altered course:

Arriving in Pelican:

We hailed the harbor on VHF 16 (like it says to do in the guide) but no one answered the first several times, so we figured we’d just go in and see if we could find the transient docks ourselves (noted in one of our guides as Floats D and E). Eventually, we got a call back as we were entering the harbor: “Airship, this is Pelican City Hall on 16.”

City Hall? Maybe the harbormaster was out fishing. :)

“This is Airship. Go ahead.”

“Are you looking for transient moorage?”

“We are.”

“Okay. Go into B dock, behind the float plane moorage on the end and pick any spot there on the straight part of the dock.”

“Okay great, thank you so much.”

We settled in and then headed up to explore Pelican (again, in the rain). You have to just forget about the rain in SE AK. If you worry about it, you’ll never get to do anything.

Pelican has 12’ wide boardwalks and is about double the population of Elfin Cove, but with the same Alaska charm.

We headed over to City Hall to pay our moorage (two nights, $36 total), and then over to the library to get some internet.

City Hall:

The library has odd hours, but they were open when we went by. We posted one blog post, did a bunch of work, and then headed down to Rose’s Bar & Grill for a beer and a little more internet, and because several people told us to check it out (but gave no details). I’m pretty sure we did not have the full Rosie’s experience, on account of the Rose’s Bar & Grill hoodie I saw one local wearing that on the back read, “Take Your Pants Off, Let’s Have a Party.” When we were there, it was only about 5 chill locals having a beer and watching the news.

Hey guess what though? Rosie’s is (still) for sale, so if you want to own a bar (with a liquor license and an owner’s apartment upstairs) in Pelican, Alaska, with tons of fun local history, this could be your baby at $289,000.

Back at Airship, we cooked up some of the coho we caught the other day with some rosemary garlic fingerling potatoes and a salad, and went to bed fairly early.

Yesterday morning it wasn’t raining so we walked the boardwalk of Pelican from end to end, and stopped to watch some salmon swimming upstream.

We met a woman from another boat here also on the transient dock (she’s from Bainbridge Island). She said they may be heading to Dundas Bay today as well. It’s the unrestricted part of Glacier Bay and we thought it looked like a good weekend (no internet) destination on our way back past.

We briefly debated taking the outside route down the coast of Chicagof Island to Sitka, but decided to stay inside. I guess we’ll save that for next summer!

We ate lunch yesterday at the Lisianski Inlet Cafe. Their motto is nothing about removing your pants, so we’re cool. We shared a king salmon sandwich and a turkey club and both were great. I popped into the adjacent shop and picked up a couple more Eric Bealer prints (I need to stop, probably, but they’re so lovely). He lives here in Pelican, so it’s nice to support the shop here that carries his work.

After lunch we did a little dinghy expedition around the inlet here. Saw a seal pup, a bunch of jumping salmon, and just generally gorgeous scenery.

Airship at the transient dock:

We just exited Lisianski Inlet and are in Cross Sound as I write this post and upload these photos, heading toward Dundas Bay. We traded off manning the helm while we got some work done earlier (having internet here in the middle of the seas feels pretty cool). There's virtually no swell at all, just a light chop. It's not raining, the clouds have mostly disappeared and given way to some sun, and I can even see snow capped mountains and Brady Glacier. Kevin's gonna drop a line or two in and troll for salmon as we cross the sound. Happy Friday everyone!