Petersburg, June 6 – 12: All Fishing All the Time

                                                                    Fishing Boats in Petersburg Harbor

This is the last port of call for our friends Barb and William, who are returning to Seattle, and their farewell weather is typical Petersburg, rain with skies clearing to light sprinkles, followed by drizzle and showers.  And you get to see a lot of this soggy mess as there is now almost 18 hours of daylight.  It doesn’t matter if we go to bed at 10 PM or midnight, the sky is about the same – not really dark and not really light – but who can tell with all the fog.   I woke up at 3 AM the other day and it was daylight out.  I’m not sure when they think they actually have “night” but we haven’t seen it.


Looking at Frederick Sound from Petersburg

Petersburg. a Norwegian fishing town on Mitkof Island,  is the complete opposite of Ketchikan – they don’t really care about the tourists and we like that about them.  It’s a working fishing community – according to the visitors guide, $36.3 million in seafood was caught and processed in 2010 – and the gigantic fishing vessels filling the harbor prove it – as big as the Deadliest Catch boats – and dwarfing the few pleasure boats moored there.  Petite cruise ships - 80 passengers or so - stop occasionally for a few hours.  Instead, the docks are hopping with fisherman readying their boats for the start of the commercial crab season.  The cacophony of every possible electric tool buzzing, whirring and banging let us know that these are serious fisherman on a mission.

Eagle Planning on Riding Fishing Boat Mast

It is beautiful here – and I don’t mean just the tall blond Viking-esque guys and gals walking around town in their knee high rain boots – known affectionately as “Alaska Slippers” – the scenery is out of a Norwegian fairy tale, very green, foggy and mossy.    We hike, eat crab – our boat neighbor, a resident, gave us 4 crabs – cooked and cleaned – as we watch nature unfold. 

We re-connect with our new cruising friends, Mellow Moments and Safari.  They are themselves parting company, Mellow Moments going to Juneau and Safari heading in the direction we are, so we decide to cruise together for a few weeks.  They go on ahead and we will join them in a few days as I must return to Seattle for two days to take care of “stuff” and lucky Jim gets to enjoy Petersburg for a couple more days.