Captain Cove, Alaska Peninsula, Alaska, 31-JUL-2020 — ”Charles will give you the WiFi password when he comes in. We all have it. People bring their laptops and do work,” said the fisherman I had been speaking with. Jennifer was still asleep. I walked over from the small boat harbor in King Cove where we were anchored with Robusta across the finger pier from us.
We hadn’t known Charles’ name when we first spoke to us as we approached King Cove. We had motored the entire way from East Anchor Cove on Unimak Island. That was the deal between Jennifer and me: We’d motor more in a straight line to where were going and sail less, unless we sailed faster also in a straight line, except when I really wanted to sail.
We’d anchored with Robusta after an overnighter. We’d stayed a second night and not gone ashore that day because Jennifer has migraine. We left early in the morning to have time in King Cove, even though we knew that wind would rise later in the day. Robusta followed a few hours later as the breeze started.
By the time we were close to King Cove there was sufficient wind to sail, but no longer the urge. Coming towards us was Oracle with a zero CPA (Closest Point of Approach), if we each held our course we would collide. We each steered to the right to pass a few hundred yards apart port-to-port (On the sides that cars are driven in the US).
The harbor master in King Cove supposedly monitors channels six and sixteen. We called on Six, no answer. Then on Sixteen. A man answered pronouncing Caro Babbo’s name correctly: he was watching us an AIS.
Told us to find a ”stall” in the small boat harbor, any stall in the second set. He named a lettered dock. I restated what he said, using the name of the letter after the letter itself, ”D, Delta.” ”Yes,” he replied.
After entering the harbor we found there was no D. We shouted to deck hand on Julie M, the first fishing boat that stopped by in East Anchor Harbor, they confirmed there was not D dock, but guessed he might mean the long dock the gave access to the other docks. I instead called back the harbor master, ”B, Bravo?” He said, yes any empty stall.
We picked one that looked unused. From the captain on Julie M we later learned that all the slips were rented. The harbor master put us into one that would be vacant while we were there.
Jennifer and I docked, the wind grabbing Caro Babbo’s bow in a manner that was unusual. We have enough experience to tame the boat and tie her to the dock.
We walked over to Julie M and met Ridgley, Ridge-ly is how he pronounced it when he extended his hand to Jennifer, after deckhand Trevor had done the same..
Trevor had invited us aboard when we walked along side. He stayed a few minutes with us, and then left the cabin to smoke cigarettes and make phone calls on his flip phone.
Trevor referred to Ridgley as Rich the one time he mentioned him in the third person.
Ridgley looks very much like Peter O’Toole in his later years. Ridgley is in his seventies. I’m sure he was as handsome a man when he was younger as he is now, with fine features, full closely cropped hair, white, white skin and blue eyes. His frame is small boned with artist’s callous-free hands and medium-length fingers.
We stayed about ninety minutes, with he and Jennifer discussing charts, fishing and history, his personal history and that of fishing.
As we left, Ridgley told stories of losing anchors and then walked us out on to the dock and stood at the bow of his boat discussing the fallacy of full anchor rodes. It always pleases me to find someone who agrees with my far from mainstream view of this.
We returned to Caro Babbo. In time, we heard Robusta hailing the harbor master on sixteen to no response that we could here.
After a few minutes, as we watched Robusta approach the small boat harbor on AIS, we called them.
After switching to Channel 69, we learned the harbor master had not replied. We suggested they use a slip (stall in the local parlance) near us. They chose the slip that they did, across the finger dock.
After they docked, the four of us decided to walk to the harbor master’s office. As we walked along the dock, a white pickup truck with two men inside pulled off the road to our right.
The younger man, with a very heavy black three-day growth of beard asked in the harbor master’s voice if we were from the sail boats?
We said we were and he introduced himself as the harbor master. Jennifer asked his name, he replied, Charles, and man in the other seat replied, Eddie. None of us shook hands.
Charles told us there was coffee and cookies each morning. We were welcome to join the group of fishermen that met each morning around 7 am. I said I would be there.
We mentioned that Robusta had tried to call before we directed her to the skip next to ours. Charles replied that he was occupied. He seemed that he and Eddie had had a few beverages, but it was 8 pm by now. Ridgley told us that office closed at five pm, so they had been off work for more than three hours.
We and Robusta had chosen King Cove to sit out a 35kn low that was rolling through the next day. Ridgley had been adamant that he was not heading east with that wind heading towards us. He said the weather prediction was from the South, but in his experience, it changed to the South East and neither he nor us, he assured us, wanted to be out in wind from that direction.
The next weather prediction had changed to south south east, as Ridgley had predicted.
The time zone here is the same as Anchorage but we’re a few hundred miles east. The sun rises at 7 and sets at 11. Despite the Asian clock going off at 5:30, I got out of bed at 9:30. Two hours late.
Charles was just driving off as I arrived. A couple of fishermen were having coffee. I sat and spoke with a man about my age sitting at the top of the stairs.
Communications is a big issue in places like this. What cell service works, where is there wifi?
Is there cell service or wifi? I asked the man. Cell service is terrible he told me. Used to be better. He conferred with another man. They agreed, used to be better.
What about wifi, I asked. None in the harbor. But this building has it, he told me. Do you have the password? He called to his colleague? To what the man replied? To the wifi! The man replied, no. The man I was speaking to said he didn’t have it either. But, Charles would be back soon. He’d give it to me. People brought their laptops in and worked at the window table he was sitting at.
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