South End

Just a note to say that we are at the south end of Kodiak, where we seem to have stepped back into an older Alaska.

We're anchored in Rodman's Reach, about halfway between petroglyphs left behind by ancient whale hunters on the open coast, and the Alitak Cannery, which has stood in Lazy Bay for a hundred and one years.

The sockeye salmon aren't showing up in any numbers here this year, as is the case in many places in the Gulf of Alaska. The drumbeat of climate change apparently beats louder.

We were met at the cannery yesterday by Woody Knebel, the cannery manager and friend to some good friends of ours back in town. He completely threw out the red carpet for us - dinner followed by an all-corners tour of the huge cannery. Woody knows a lot about a lot of things having to do with this part of Alaska, and his enthusiasm for the place is obvious and inspiring.

In addition to Woody's friendly welcome, fishermen wave to us from wheel houses and back decks, and a float plane pilot even gave us a big dumb wave as he flew by below masthead height.

It all feels like an older, more honest version of Alaska out here, away from the big smoke of Kodiak City.

We'll do six sets here on the morning tide tomorrow, and that will be it for our Kodiak sites. Weather permitting, we'll hightail it to the Alaska Peninsula immediately following.

Meanwhile, my hands have gone back to what has become their native state after ten years afloat. A little salt water and a few lines to handle and I can feel the sailor's palms of horn magically reappearing after a soft winter of doing little more than bothering my laptop keyboard.

It feels good.

~~
This post was sent via our high-frequency radio as we're far from internet range. Pictures to follow when we reach internet again. We can't respond to comments for now, though we do see them all!

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com