July 18 & 19 - Tenakee Springs

The town's main store about to become "store/hotel again" has had only two owners in over 100 years

We told you Tenakee Springs was a funky little town, here is the "public loo"

Here is the main drag into town, also the reason why there are no cars in Tenakee

This is typical of the houses in Tenakee. the owners are a group of pretty independent thinkers

We opened the morning speaking to Nick our son and Lindsay, Darcy's girlfriend who was celebrating her 30th birthday today. It was great getting caught up on home stuff.
We left Hoonah in quite a blow into Icy Strait. The seas were not too bad until we turned the corner into Chatham Strait. At that point the southeast wind really kicked up the seas and before long we were looking at 7 ft seas opposing the tide flow. We throttled back a bit and tried to pick a line near shore to get a bit of protection but nothing seemed to really help much so we just motored on until we could swing into Tenakee Inlet and get a bit of relief from the worst of it.
As we proceeded up Tenakee Inlet we almost lost our starboard kayak as the wind was now pounding broadside and picking our kayak up and moving it around. I had to go forward and tie it down well before we continued.
We were pleased to arrive at Tenekee Springs dock and find one open spot on the transient section with many helping hands to catch lines as we docked against the combined wind and current.
Tenakee Springs is a funky little community with a bit of a 60's feel to it. Everyone says hello and is really friendly. Apparently now it is mainly a retirement community for professionals from Juneau so the ambiance is changing a bit but nobody seems too stressed out by it, they just all hang in there.
There is a wonderful hot spring bath house in the middle of town that is fed by a hot sulphur spring. This hot tub is nude only with separate hours for men and women. It is a really neat place mainly unchanged from the klondike days when old prospectors used to come to town to get their R & R. Apparently Tenakee Springs was quite the town in those days.
We awoke on the 19th to help some folks from Seattle get docked early in the morning. Apparently they had come in off Chatham Strait. The winds were blowing 35 knots and the waves were running very high. They advised that if there was no compelling reason to be out there that the dock was the place to be that day, We took their advise and decided to stay put with a better forecast on the horizon.
As luck would have it that was a great decision as there was a jazz concert schedules for the town hall at 7:00 that night. We took it in and joined all the townies who arrived on golf carts, atv's and bicycles since there are no cars in Tenakee, the roads are not wide enough. We enjoyed the concert and walked back to the dock with a solitary sailor from Hazelton, BC.
As the forecast looked more promising for tomorrow we intend to head for Peril Strait, our route to Sitka eventually.