April 16 – 21
Hi All,
Good times in Sitka. We ate out the first few nights as the galley was closed!! Found a good Italian restaurant named Mangiare (means eat up in Italian!!) at the Sitka Hotel….new owners bought out the old place and renovated….actually quite good!! We had dinner with Rick and Pat on mv Jean Marie and it was a nice evening to get to know this fun couple. One night we went to the Sitka Music Festival with Alex and Pat on Wild Blue and their guests….wow, that was incredible!! It goes for the month of June with various concerts throughout the month. The night we went it was a string quartet of world class musicians that were outstanding. The concert hall looks out over Silver inlet so you see the snow capped mountains in the background with several eagles soaring. It was quite a magical setting.
https://sitkamusicfestival.org/events/sitka-summer-music-festival/
Our friends on fv Solstice, who we last saw in Salisbury Sound, came in and docked right across from us…wow….another night of jocularity with them at the Pub!!! We also had them over for dinner on Father’s Day which was a real treat. Kathy made her crab bisque soup with sourdough grilled cheese sandwich while it was cold and pouring rain outside…yummers and good times!!!
FYI, the day before was cloudless, brilliant blue sky and hot….I was in a t-shirt and Kathy almost had to take her thermals off:)))
We did a lot of cleaning…John on the outside, Kathy on the inside, a few boat chores, spooled a few fishing reels with new line, reprovisioned and then time was up!!!!
Daylight: June 21, summer solstice: sunrise 4:07am, sunset 10:01pm, almost 18 hours of sunlight, >20 hours of visible light, like only 4 hours of complete darkness…..whoa!!
The Plan: Darrell and Claudia come in on Tuesday, the 22nd, and we will go cruise mainly Peril Strait and central Chatham Strait looking for bears and whales and hopefully catching some crab, prawns and salmon…good times coming up for sure!!!
Interesting critter facts, a comparison to this time (end of June) in 2019 vs 2021:
Bears: 54 to 137
Whales: 162 to 50
Dungeness Crab: 73 to 61
Prawns: 68 to 237 (I now have 2 traps)
Wolves: 5 to 1
Sea Lions: 839 to 30 (Lots of Sea Lions in Icy Strait and Cross Sound where we were in 2019 with Wayne & Sharon)
Hope all is well!!
John
Mystic Moon
PS: More pictures on the website…..another long gallery so turn up the tunes and enjoy:
http://mysticmoonvoyages.com/photo-gallery/nggallery/main-album/ell-cove-to-sitka-2021
Position: 57 20’14.34 N, 135 43’08.21 W
Course: Stopped.
Position: 21-06-16 08:29:11 -0800
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=57.33732,-135.7189&q=57.33732,-135.7189&z=16
