Meyers Chuck

Friday June 8th 2012
Partly cloudy with light winds this morning. Paid Ketchikan harbour charges on the phone, less than half of BC prices.
Went over to the fuel dock and took about an hour to fuel up, took on 460 US gallons, our full tankage is 800 gallons but we don’t like to let it get too low. We are now 631 nautical miles from Anacortes.

There were 3 cruise ships at the dock when we woke up today, different ones from yesterday, and as we left town we had to dodge around a fourth one that was just arriving to dock. Twenty miles later we met a fifth one heading in to town making an estimated 12 or 15 thousand visitors today or more than the total population of Ketchikan.
Leaving Tongass Narrows we entered Clarence Strait to find a flat calm, absolutely no wind and just the slightest ocean swell so it was a pleasant 3 hour trip to the tiny hamlet of Meyers Chuck.

Along the way there is evidence of continued logging and clearcutting. Logging is part of Alaska’s economy although much reduced in recent years. God know’s why as there seems to be no end of sustainable forest.


 
There is no town in Meyers Chuck just a small collection of shacks and summer cottages scattered along the shoreline and among the trees surrounding a peaceful lagoon. It has a really narrow entrance and is almost completely enclosed making it a safe and pleasant refuge. We planned to anchor but there is a free, state supplied and maintained dock and it had enough space for us. As we entered the lagoon one of the boats at the dock called us with an offer to help us tie up. Nice people, nice dock and did I mention that it was FREE, no charge, zip, nada!!!


All that and regular US mail pick up and (I assume) delivery. Can’t get much better than that!!