Fourth of July in Petersburg

We were in Petersburg for nine nights and so I thought I’d bring you up to speed on what we did.  As you know we arrived there on Saturday, June 30, so that we could work on Jerry’s laptop and to see how Petersburg celebrated the Fourth of July.  Since we were there so many days, I found all sorts of things to photograph, so I’ll share some of those photos and stories with you.

Fourth of July

From this schedule, you can see that Petersburg’s plans to celebrate are fairly ambitious.  I’ve not included the schedule from the third!  It felt a lot like the Little Norway Festival that we had attended in May, but without the Vikings.  Our festivities actually started on the third when we attended the “Blind Row Race”.  The idea is that one adult, who is the blind-folded rower, and one child who is the directions giver compete to see who can complete a course the quickest.  It quickly became obvious which adults had rowed a boat before and/or had a good sense of direction, and which kids understood about giving directions other than saying,  “Go that way” and pointing!  

More than one team had to be rescued by the Coast Guard skiff, because the boats would get “trapped” under the pilings of the dock.  Once a boat and its team was caught in between the pilings it was almost impossible for the blind rower to get out. 

Nobody hit anyone with an oar, though!  They also had tote races and a herring toss for kids and adults.  These folks sure know how to have fun!

In the evening we went to dinner with the couple from “Wanderer”.  I think I talked about them in the last letter.  Well, they wound up mooring next to us at North Harbor, and we helped them tie up.  Ralph had just tuned 80 and Merry wasn’t far behind!  They invited us to go to the Beachcomber Inn for dinner and to watch the fireworks being held there on the evening of the third.  Fortunately, this restaurant, which is probably 5 miles south of Petersburg, ran a shuttle back and forth from town, so transportation wasn’t a problem.  Jerry and I stayed for the fireworks, but Ralph ad Merry left after dinner…just too late for them.  The fireworks were spectacular!!!  We were glad we stayed, although it was a struggle.  Since it is so light here so late, they didn’t start until 11 PM!!!

The morning of the Fourth, Grant and Lila Trask, whom we met at the Lutheran Church in Petersburg, invited us for breakfast.  They live up the hill from North Harbor and have a one-apartment bed and breakfast in the basement of their home, called Das Hagedorn Haus.  Until he retired, Grant was a long-liner (salmon fisherman) and in the summer Lila and their two children would go fishing with him.  Quite a life!  While they were gone, friends would run the B and B for them.  They are both so knowledgeable about Petersburg, fishing, and life in SE in general…we love talking with them.

The parade began at 1100, so we walked down, to Main Street, not wanting to miss any of the 15 minutes of it!  No bands, no horses and riders, no Boy Scout troops, and no baton twirlers!  It’s a small town.  Among other parade entries, they did have:

·      A float for their ice hockey team, the “Endangered Wild Kings”.  They practice on roller blades but play on the ice!

·      The Lutheran Church float…they won their category but were the only entry!

·      A small troop of little girls who did cheers.  Very entertaining!

·      A group of HS Wrestler alumni from the class of 1987!

·      The baggage cart and tug from the airport, all decked out in red, white and blue bunting, driven by the airport manager!

The highlight of the afternoon’s activities was the log-rolling contest.  It’s not every town in the USA that rises to this level of festivity for the fourth of July!  One had to be at least 18 to enter this competition and both men and women competed.  This activity had a lot more entries than the Blind Row the day before, which I thought was surprising.  Apparently, everyone is interested in getting wet, not once, but several times.  BRRRRRRR!

Grant and Lila invited us to join them in the evening to play board games, while we all waited for the second round of fireworks, at 11 PM at the ball diamond.  Another couple and a single lady were there as well.  We played a board game similar to “Sorry” and had a great time.  Everyone but us and the Trasks opted out of the fireworks…just too late, I think!  By the time we needed to leave, it had started to rain, of course, so we drove to the ball field and watch from their car.  We even got a ride back to our slip!

Thursday, July 5, Grant joined us as we took Jerry’s newly repaired laptop out for a spin on the boat.  We went north out into Frederick Sound, did a bunch of figure 8’s while giving the software lots of commands.  Everything worked fine so we hope it’s repaired.  The apparent solution to the problem was that one of the cooling fans was not working…not even hooked up!  The local computer guy, who does a lot of work for the commercial fishermen, was able to fix it.  Yay!! 

This channel marker sits at the north end of Wrangell Narrows and isn’t usually out of the water.  The spring tides we had were huge…up to 24’ of tide swing!  I think they’re so large because this is the first new moon after the solstice.  Amazing.  I’ll include some more “tide shots”:

This is a shot out of the galley window at high tide, from our moorage in South Harbor.

This is the same shot at low tide.  The view is much more attractive at high tide!  Lots of the little skiffs anchored behind these houses sit in the mud at low tide…twice a day.

When the tide is way out, little creatures that aren’t usually out of the water appear on the pilings:

This is the only starfish I found on the pilings, though.

These pretty little shells were quite low on the piling and I don’t think I’d seen any so colorful before.

Anemones grow all over these marinas, below the water line.  As they come out of the water, at the bottom of a piling they “deflate”, since they lose the support of the water.  I wonder if they recover from this….

We see lots of interesting boats and enjoy walking the docks to look for the unique and unusual.  Clever boat names always catch my eye.  Here are a few:

“Tied-N-Knots

“Companion Ship”

“Swell”

This refitted Canadian tug was hovering out in the channel, waiting to get in to the fuel dock.  It’s been reconfigured to support sport diving.  Can you see the hot tub sitting on the back upper deck?

“Christian”

This boat cruises SE Alaska working with the indigenous population, as a missionary boat.  It’s quite famous up here and its home port is Petersburg.

“Floretta”

This old fishing boat obviously hasn’t been out of its moorage for quite awhile.  It doesn’t take long for the debris to accumulate around a boat if it just sits in the harbor.

And I’m always looking for the quirky, funny, interesting stuff:

This new workshop, across the street from Grant and Lila’s has some fancy hinges.  According to Grant, the guy who built the shop is an adept metal worker as well as a fisherman and is announcing the varieties of fish he has caught.  Clever!

We were walking back to the boat and came across these two guys looking at their cell phones.  My eyes immediately went to the contrasting hair-dos and I couldn’t resist the photo!

This huge mousetrap was at the end of a line that opened louvers in a ceiling.  I saw this in the marine store where we bought some oil.  Apparently that vent is not to be opened, or they have some pretty clever rodents in Petersburg!

What a clever dog to take himself for a walk.  No one could argue about whether this lovely lady was on a leash, though!

We saw this hose rack in Point Baker.  Jerry said he’s seen this before but it was new to me and I thought it was a great idea.  I haven’t seen any cars in Point Baker, so I wonder where the rim came from.

We arrived in Craig on July 17, after several days of wind and rain.  Unfortunately, I don't have that blog ready to post yet.  Jim and Chris Munch join us tomorrow here in Craig and will cruise with us until we get to Ketchikan, August 3.  I'll have lots to tell you then!

Hope all is well with you!  Wish you could join us!