July 3 - Sand Point, King Cove, Cold Bay, False Pass

Due to the delay from rescuing the fishing boat, we didn't come into Sand Point until the wee hours of the morning so we slept right through that. The ocean picked up significantly in the night and the heavy rolling of the boat woke me up. Thankfully, I don't get motion sick but the boat bucked and heaved hard enough a couple of times to make my stomach lurch. I was worried about my husband who DOES get motion sick quite badly but he's been religious about taking his Bonine (a miracle drug!) and he was completely fine, thankfully!!!

I'm trying to find the name of this mountain - if you know it, please comment.
Just after this photo was taken, we saw a HUGE kodiak bear on the grassy knoll on the left.
Unfortunately, my photos of it didn't come out well... :(

Lupines in abundance everywhere!

We arrived in King Cove. Our time there was shortened up a bit because the Captain was trying to make up some lost time. Meaghan, one of our cafe servers, told us the crew refer to Chignik Bay as Cheeseburger Bay and King Cove as Hamburger Cove - none of these little villages along the way have any shops or cafes to speak of. When the ferry comes in (every two weeks in the summer only) it's a BIG deal. It's a floating restaurant! After the ferry passengers head out to explore, they open up the restaurant to the locals. Many come to eat but they also leave with bags and bags of take-away. Cheeseburger and fries and pies for days... they also buy supplies from the ferry - everything from caselots of food to toilet paper. The ferry tries to anticipate the needs and stocks up on extra supplies for this very reason. It's not intended to be a supply ship but it sort of works out that way anyway.

Cold Bay

Tustumena at dock in Cold Bay.
Amazing mountains in the background - this is typical on this trip.

Just making sure I know "The Plan"!

Sheds someone mounted in their front yard - Cold Bay

We headed over to Cold Bay. We had a couple of hours so we hoofed it through the town. There used to be a military base there (which is no longer) but the 10,000+ ft paved airstrip is still there and used at their airport. It also doubles as an emergency landing strip for commercial flights in the north and for the Space Shuttle (back when it was still operational). They have the smallest wildlife refuge in Alaska (this one is only 400,000 acres) and the refuge center offers a free bus tour. Alas, their bus only holds 20 people and over 30 of us signed up so they did a lottery for the seats. Between the two of us, we got one seat so we gave it up as we've already seen a lot of wildlife in the last month.The town is a collection of pre-fab homes, derelict commercial buildings and a very large Coast Guard base. No fishing in Cold Bay (not sure why) so there aren't any boats, canneries or marinas. It seems that the Coast Guard is the main purpose of Cold Bay (that we could see.)

Cold Bay - this village is typical of the villages along the Aleutians.

From Cold Bay, we headed for False Pass - the last point on the Alaskan Penninsula before we head off the mainland and out into the Aleautian Island chain. The weather deteriorated significantly after we left Cold Bay and soon, a cold, dense bank of fog engulfed us and it started to drizzle rain. The wind started to pick up and the ocean rose. During dinner, we surged and dipped over 10 ft. waves but, to our amazement, we weren't bothered by it much. I guess we've found our "sea legs" as they say. False Pass was a short stop - only 45 minutes - just long enough to stand on deck, watch people wander along the pier and the galley pack up and send out about 50 cheeseburger and fries to a waiting crowd and then we pushed on. We'll sail along all night and should hit Dutch Harbour around 9:45 tomorrow morning.