Thorne Bay, June 1, 2015

Thorne Bay

 

Living off the grid

Prince of Wales Island, west of Ketchikan, is reputedly the third largest island in the U.S., much of its land is in the Tongass National Forest. We decide to circumnavigate the island and our first stop is Thorne Bay.  The charts and guide books are a little sketchy on where exactly the harbor is once you enter the bay and since there is a fork in the waterway with two large arms going in opposite directions,   I call the harbor number listed and ask whether they are in the NW arm or the SE arm.  A city employee who answers does not know.  Huh. 

We follow our instincts, head up the NW arm and finally, around a bend, we see the small harbor.  I radio the harbor master and he’s waiting for us at the dock.  He could be Matthew McConaughey's better looking younger brother.  We have been in many harbors, big and small, and he is the most professional harbor master we have encountered.  He gives us precise docking information (“you are 10 feet from the dock” versus the usual “ok, a little more this way” – what way????) and expertly handles the lines.  As I jump off the boat to tie the stern line, my headset transmitter falls into the drink.  Matthew – also known as Shane – drops to the dock like a Hollywood stunt man, dives his hand into the water and scoops up the radio before it even has time to think about sinking.  He leaps up and presents it to me, his baby blue eyes twinkling.  I love Thorne Bay.

A sight seeing excursion is called for so we stroll the town (approximately 400 residents) which a local tells us will take all of ten minutes.  It takes fifteen.  The town is stepped on a hill and we walk up and down, back and forth.  Unlike Ketchikan or Juneau, where the road ends when you reach the edge of town, this road actually continues, crisscrossing the island to other towns and destinations.  This is so exciting.

There is a lookout at the top of “Heart Attack Hill” – so dubbed by the locals - and we take this as a challenge.  Expecting a goat path, with rugged rock outcroppings to clamor over, we instead find  a maintained footpath with occasional stairs.  But the view from the roughly 300 foot elevation is so spectacular that this is what they must have meant by “heart attack.”

 

 

 

Our evening ends with dinner on the fly bridge and a Nat Geo show  – our own live presentation.  Approximately fifteen eagles are at shore scrounging the tidal flats for fish and clams, strutting, chirping, arguing, and generally entertaining us for over an hour.  One eagle flies over to glare at us, perching on a piling smack next to the boat.  We are a little unnerved by his unflinching eagle-eyed stare and frantically hustle the cats indoors.  He is watching his own Nat Geo show.

 

 

Moonrise in Thorne Bay