To Glacier Bay via Pelican, AK

May 16, 2017

Now back on our own, it was time to start working our way towards our ultimate destination of Prince William Sound.  Phase one was to get up to a good staging area for departure across the Gulf of Alaska.  We picked Glacier Bay and Bartlett Cove, figuring we could kill two birds with one stone, getting in a visit to Glacier Bay along the way.

Our trip took us outside of Chicagof Island, in for a quick overnight in Falcon Arm, then back out to the Lisianski Strait to Lost Cove for another overnight, then on to the Lisianski Inlet and down to Pelican, AK.  Back in Port McNeil we met up with a couple who had recently bought a boat and were moving it to their home port of Pelican.  We had never been there before, so decided to go check it out.

Pelican is a really interesting place, with buildings and “road” built almost entirely on pilings clinging to the steep shoreline.  This is not unusual in Alaska where the shore is often a cliff face that drops very deep into the water, very fast.  Our dock space a couple of year ago in Ketchikan was right at the foot of the main road (which is on pilings), and was in 100’ of water.  And the “road” in Pelican is really more of a sideway/boardwalk, with all transport via ATVs and UTVs.  We had a nice walk up and down the boardwalk, dropped our moorage fee in the harbormaster’s drop box, ran into the people we had met in Port McNeill (Pelican is a small town), and got a nice lunch at the one restaurant.