MAY 21, 2022 – EXCHANGE COVE TO PORT PROTECTION

ALMOST had a new crisis this morning as I awoke at 5:30, well rested and ready for my coffee – except I could not get my Keurig to perform. Wringing my hands and stressing about the fact that we are still 7 days from Sitka and I have no other way to make coffee, I had already started trying to figure out what I was going to do, as coffee is my morning lifeline. My calm smart husband gave me a couple things to try and sure enough, it worked! I cannot stress enough how unhappy I would be without my java! Once again, we are blessed with a beautiful, calm, sunny morning with not a cloud in sight. It’s a chilly 53 degrees this morning at 7AM but I actually think that is warm for this region and a good sign another 70 degree day is on the way! Last night we decided to pull out and move along since the weather is agreeable. We are all game to see as many new places along the way as possible. We might head to Port Protection (subject of a reality TV show) just for kicks, as it happens to be right around the corner.

Yesterday, on our little cruise around the islets, John and I had spotted an old beat up crab float hung up on the rocks. We pulled on it and finally dislodged it from the rocks only to find a clamshell attached to the bottom of the severed line, which was kind of funny. Clearly it had been there forever because the line was coated with grunge from the bottom. This morning we decided to go back with a knife and cut the float off for a souvenir/decoration for the Blakely cabin. We then went to pull pots and we can definitively say, there is no crab in Exchange Cove. I did however harvest a most enormous sun star (starfish) in my pot who managed to completely suck all the innards out of my fish head bait just by reaching in with its legs to gorge. Impressive! Other than that, a tiny limpet and another 2” spider starfish. No crab louies today. Damn sea otters.

The cruise to Port Protection was just amazing, I am not sure I can come up with enough adjectives to describe. Absolute calm glassy water in Clarence and Sumner Straits, bright warm sunshine, no wind, and everywhere you looked 360 degrees were impressive mountain ranges with sparkling snowcaps. I kept taking pictures, even though the vistas appeared the same in every direction, but was in awe of what I was seeing and felt so grateful to be able to experience this day. We had three more whale sightings along the way (humpbacks) and a couple pods of porpoises, the day felt magical.

We arrived at the town of Port Protection which is in Wagon Wheel Cove, a small indent situated in the larger bay of Port Protection. Our initial greeting when we landed at the dock in the tender felt a bit unwelcoming, but this is a fishing village of probably the hardiest individuals one could find. Living in this harsh environment with the town facing to the northwest must be incredibly difficult during the severe winter storms. Having a group of city folk stop in with pretty white fiberglass boats probably amused them. There was a public float where they said we could tie up the boat, but it was nearly submerged down to the cleats, and it was covered in what appeared to be sea otter debris. Not inviting. We ended up going around the corner into a large bay peppered with a few houses on shore, some of which were clearly abandoned, and others quite nice. We settled the boats, then hopped in the whaler and went back to the “town” for some gas and groceries. When I asked the salty guys loitering on the dock if there was a pub in town they laughed and said “wherever you crack open your beer on the dock becomes the pub.” In the store, which was surprisingly quite well stocked, we met Ruby, a very nice young native lady who has only lived here 9 months, but her aunt and uncle have lived here for 40 years. Souvenir tees were scarce but we did pick up a couple things. On the drive back to the boats, we cruised the shoreline, finding a boat grave yard, abandoned and occupied compounds, and very near to us we stopped to talk to a couple guys who were on a quite nice floating home. It was a father and son who have been here since the 70s, the father living here full time and the son and his wife with a second home in Wrangell. From them we learned the seriousness of the population explosion of the sea otters (not to be confused with the river otters that we have down in the San Juans). I don’t have internet right now so can’t research all the facts, but basically what I understand is that in the 1970s the government decided to reintroduce sea otters into the wild as they had been practically wiped out over the last century for their pelts. They reintroduced them in several strategic places, including Glacier Bay (which we found out about on our last trip) and now they are completely out of control. They are rabid gluttonous consumers of all shellfish, including clams, crab, and even shrimp, as apparently they have the ability to dive up to 300’. They breed like absolute rabbits and rats, and (un)lucky for us we got to witness that first hand as we drove by them today. We are all traumatized from that sighting and can’t “unsee” this coupling unfortunately! Anyway, the father/son we talked to were telling us how the sea otters don’t just eat for sustenance, they are wasteful creatures, for instance taking one bite out of a nice Dungeness crab then discarding the rest and going down for another one. The sea otters have single handedly wiped out the shellfish populations in every cove in this area. The son was telling us that just 4 years ago he could fill his crabtraps over and over, and now fishing in the same bay there is nothing. Shrimp is also getting scarce. So even being an animal lover, I’ve been thinking there must be a way to cull the otter population, and briefly contemplated the many ways they could be eradicated, well not completely but definitely managed and thinned out. It’s just not good balance to have one creature dominating the food sources. If they reach Canada and the San Juans, it really could be devastating.

Well sorry for the long post, hope you’re not falling asleep.