Wrangell, July 25th

We didn’t plan on spending the night in Wrangell but we’re glad we did. Our first option was to anchor in an inlet a few miles south. However, as we approached, we found the entrance to the inlet packed with seiners (fish boats that deploy long nets to corral big schools of salmon) working their nets making it hard to maneuver around. Also, we realized the inlet was very long and it would take awhile to get to the anchorage which was up at the mouth. Though one of the fishing boats called us on the radio and said it was ok to go ahead and work our way around the nets we decided it would be easier (and make the next days trip shorter) to head up to Wrangell and tie up at the dock. We didn’t arrive until early evening and after dinner we walked over to the harbor office to drop off payment. 

When we returned we found ourselves surrounded by fishing boats. My impression of the boats up until then was that they are big and a little scary. You don’t want to go anywhere near them while they’re fishing as you don’t know where the gear is and they tend to zoom around and set up their equipment anywhere they want. But at Wrangell I met some of the people from the boats and my impression of most of them was they were nice, interesting folk from all over. For most of them, fishing in Alaska was a seasonal job and they then spent their winters doing other things such as UPS drivers and theater scenery designers. Interesting. For me those big, aggressive looking boats took on a more human side.