June 24, 2017

At dinner last night, we all talked about what everyone was doing next. I had mentioned that I really wanted to do a Stikine River tour while we were in Wrangell. It turns out that Ken and Kim had not done one yet, and Emilie was interested as well. There was a sign on a boat at the end of the dock that advertised jet boat tours, so Ken called and the 5 of us were set for today. It was $175 each but I figured …. when in Rome right?

We met at 9:00 and helped him get some fuel and then went to the Stikine Inn dock and picked up a 6th passenger, Kyle, who works for the forest service and who we had met at the Anan Bear Observatory. He had the weekend off and was also interested in the tour. Oh, of course it was raining.

It turns out that this morning was a fairly low tide, even by Alaskan measures. And the delta where the river flows into the ocean is *really* shallow. So Mark (and others) have a "track" that they follow on their chart electronics that they know was deep "enough" the day before. Mark hadn't been out for awhile and so was planning on going out and making a new track today or the next anyway, so he would have one for the next tour. Suffice to say, even Mark was a tad …. mmmm … mindful of the track we were taking. He requested that we all wear our seatbelt's in case we did find ground unexpectedly. It's rather odd to be traveling around in a boat in the wide wide open space of brown water, and see your boat zigzagging through some "imaginary" path. But it wasn't imaginary. The boat draws around 1' when it's going fast, and 2' when it's going slow. So contrary to my boating style, when it get's shallow you speed up. The operator all talk to each other and it wasn't long before we heard and then saw one of the other operators high and dry (without passengers)

About half way through, he pulled up to the sand bar above and we "borrowed" the pit toilet from a USFS cabin there. It's their "administrative" cabin. Hah! The boys used the tree's.



Then we keep going up the river towards the Chief Shakes Lake, where the Shakes glacier is. The ice bergs have floated down and are sitting where they can't go any further down the river. Apparently sometimes there can be so many that it kinda "blocks" the area - not getting in, but getting out! Not so today. Mark grabs the obligatory small berg and places it on the back of the boat so we can all touch it. Traditionally you take it back to have ice in your "cocktails", but … it was a little early.



Then on up to the glacier itself where we spent quite a bit of time hanging out, looking at the scenery and taking too many photo's of the ice and each other. The air coming off the glacier was much cooler - very Thankful for the heater on the boat at this point. Would run in and out of the cabin to not get "too" cold.



Back down and then Mark took us to an area where there was a river running out and an area where campers or someone had lit a campfire. It was mostly a leg stretching exercise but it was a cool location.



Moving right along! We got the bow of the boat all muddy so then Mark took the boat right up to a small waterfall and ran the front of boat right into it to wash it off. I got video! Then a bit of a long ride back, but at this point the tide was up so we only had to follow the "track" back out again for a short while and then we could just zip right over the delta back to the harbor(s).

No one had eaten yet and it was about 3:00pm. The Reiki Master crew decided to head over to the Stikine Inn for a big late lunch, however since "Miss B" had been locked up along for so long, we decided to pass and just have lunch on the boat. It was rainy and grey. I had woken up this morning with a stuffy nose and a sore throat and cruising around in a drizzle had not exactly helped. So I wrapped up in a blanket and we hung out and worked on email and read a bit.

Around 6:00 we walked over to Reiki Master to say hello and catch up. We found Ken buried in the bilge trying to figure out why his bilge pump was not working properly. Like many things, it kinda worked but really kinda didn't. And in the rain, they get fresh water in their bilge. And their "high water" alarm had gone off that morning and they ended up "bucketing" a bunch of water out before leaving on the jet boat. Fixing the bilge pump turns into a "project". Greg goes back and forth to Spellbound a couple of times to get more tools, and eventually a new spare pump. With the alarm going off periodically, Bella turns into an anxiety mess, so I brought her back to Spellbound for dinner and to stay again. Kim and Emilie were watching a movie, "Becoming Jane" and so they graciously restarted it so I could catch up. Kind of a chick flick, but Ken and Greg ended up only watching the last half hour or so. Back to Spellbound for a late light dinner and then to bed.