Day 23 May 12th Icy Strait Point

our destination

Our days at the moment seem to be alternating, one raining

nothing here as we arrived

and then the next drier and today was the turn of dryness! We had arrived at Icy Strait

Point by the time we arose and so we breakfasted and as we had no tours booked we decided to explore by foot. The first impression from the boat is that this place is tiny with hardly a building

Part of the village

visible from the dock. Anyway

Some old fishing equipment

we decided to go for it and went across the modern pontoon to what seemed the centre. There was a short nature trail to follow through some woods and we took this but did not see any bears or eagles. I don’t know what we would have done if we had met a bear! 

the old canning factory

We then found the centre and

the Salvation Army Coffee stall

it included the longest zipwire in the world but we decided to give it a miss. There was an old salmon cannery factory and it was interesting to see some of the restored machinery. The souvenir shops were doing a brisk trade and we found a Salvation Army stall selling coffee and mini-doughnuts – we had to participate. After a good look round we reboarded the boat as she was sailing at 1400. We had some lunch and went back to the cabin to reorganise.

the Pilot Boat

We left the quay on time and

distant Alaskan mountains

headed away from the inner passage towards the open Pacific Ocean. Christine was on the lookout on the verandah and was pleased to see some sea otters. A bit later a Pilot boat came alongside and took off the pilot who had guided us through the inside passage. After this some of the mountain views were amazing.