#35 - Pelican to Elfin Cove via Inian Cove

Today we head to Elfin Cove, a “drinking town with a fishing problem”. It's a short 2-hour cruise from Pelican with no unusual boat hazards.

Our route to Elfin Cove

It's important to ensure the crew stays alert to watch for dead-heads and floating debris.

Today is the last day of the latest commercial, 10-day King salmon season and we see lots of salmon fish boats returning from Cross Sound. They head for the fish processing plant at Hoonah in Icy Strait, or to a fish transport vessel. There's one anchored in Elfin Cove when we arrive. Also Elfin Cove's public dock is full so we continue onto Inian Cove to anchor for a bit. We return to Elfin in the early evening, anchor just offshore, and ferry the girls to the dock to wait for dock space.

The St. Jude, a fish transport vessel, is anchored in Elfin Cove ready to offload the fish boats and haul their fish to a processing plant.

The Elfin Cove dock was full when we first arrived, so later we dropped of Pat, Tina and Peg to bargain with the fisherman for a spot at the dock. We're not exactly sure what they offered the smiling fisherman, but we did get this primo dock space.

Elfin Cove has several fishing lodges, a bar or two and a tiny market. However, at the market, you need to pay attention to prices when buying. Pat needed a potato chip fix and paid 6 bucks for a medium-sized bag!

Main street, or boardwalk, of Elfin Cove

Pat baked a pie, or was it a crisp, and had Alex deliver a piece to the fisherman docked just in front of us. Heck maybe Pat is really liking this Alaska lifestyle? Maybe she'll go for the Selene 66 after all? Or maybe she's gonna runaway with that fisherman? But later we learned that she was just paying back the fisherman for opening up the dock space.