Juneau!
Juneau is the biggest city by far in this remote area. More than 30.000 souls call Juneau home and I have no idea how much tourists are strolling through the streets every day. We docked ZERO in Auke Bay in the north part of the city and went downtown yesterday to get an idea about it. We counted 6 SIX!!! cruise ships and the streets were polluted with.. cruise ship people.
The weather is very Alaskan today. RAIN, RAIN, RAIN.. the steep mountains are covered with dark green trees and the clouds are floating around them. Looks great.
On the boat next to us we saw a huge eagle sitting on top of the mast. Scary Idea that a huge and heavy bird sits on your windvane or picking on the VHF cable just because he can!
Juneau was named after gold prospector JOE JUNEAU but now the only gold they find here are the tourist $$ which seems to be plenty. Of course the industry is focused on collecting their money and the nice “old looking houses were occupied by souvenir shops. Juneau is only reachable by plane or ship, No street connects Juneau to the rest of the world. Same like a couple other Alaskan cities but Juneau doesn’t look like it is isolated.
Everybody who knows us a little knows as well that we don’t really like places like this and that’s why we leave tomorrow morning.
The exhaust leak is fixed, our stock of fruits and vegetables are stocked up and.. no. Rebecca is till trying to fit all her clothes into the lockers. But we’re cruising the inside passage now and do not expect bigger waves for the next time. SO everything is piling up and gets stowed step by step.
We’re heading south. Exploring the inside passage and definitely look for some steam on the horizon.. Its one of our major goals here to soak our salty bodies in a hot spring.
With Juneau our travel will change. For one reason it changes because now I’m not a SOLO sailor any more, second is that were not sailing on the open ocean for quite a while and third.. the blogging will change. We canceled the Sat phone contract. It was 130 $ per month and we don’t really need it here. But that means were not showing our position anymore and daily posts over the sat phone re not possible as well. BUT we expect internet connection every other harbor or city we arrive and will post wild stories and breathtaking pictures as much as we can! ANd you can always click on the “logbook” link to get an idea where we were when we posted the story or the pics.. That’s just not our actual position anymore..
So stay tuned.. and make sure you hit the subscribe or like button!!
Aloha
the – wet to the bones -captain