Sunday June 23rd, 2024
We left Ell inlet this morning around 9:00 a.m. The fishing boat had left so we had the inlet to ourselves. It was a somewhat misty morning.
The cruise to Warm Springs was only an hour and a half. Marlene warned me that the dock may be full. She was not off. As we approached the dock we could see that both sides appeared full but we could not clearly see if there was space on the inside dock. Unfortunately there was also a large vessel with multiple dinghy’s and inflatables hanging off the side preventing us from making an easy entry. We found out later that the entrance shallows to 4 feet. Good thing we didn’t go inside. We decided to hang outside the dock and see what was available. There was one possible spot but it looked pretty tight with only a couple feet available on either side of the other boats, one being a huge fishing boat. Marlene was out on the bow of our boat and started doing “hand motions” with a person on the dock that assured us there was enough room for us to dock ( the “two thumbs up sign”). OK, here we a go! I set the bow of my boat for mid point on the dock space. There were two hands on dock to help. Once I cleared the back boat I did a hard thrust with the stern, then with the bow and basically angled the boat in. Thanks to the dock help we made it in, but barely. We have roughly 2 feet on either end to spare. Definitely the tightest spot so far this summer.
After a semi stressful docking we decided it was time for a walk. There is a nice board walk that leads up to the falls. Definitely worth the walk.
We then took the half mile walk to the lake. Very pretty and a good stress release. Now it was time to get back to the boat, get our hot tub gear on and take advantage of the warm springs. There are three private hot tubs at the top of the dock. They are filled from geo-thermal water from the nearby hot springs. They are very clean and private (the door locks) so we felt comfortable using them. There is also a cleaning protocol in place and the tools to accomplish that cleaning readably available in the hot top area. We soaked in the tub and had a great time! Quite a unique experience to say the least!
Now it was time to get back to the boat and see what the rest of afternoon had to offer. Oh, guess what, another very large fishing boat tied along side to the other fishing boat that is directly ( like 1 ft) in front of us! Supposedly there is a 65ft limit on the dock. Ah, this is Alaska …..need we say more?
OK, tell me how I am going to get off the dock with these two boats in front of me and another boat two feet behind me. At the point of this writing the answer is I do not know. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.
Wait, late breaking news. It gets better, first there was one fishing large fishing boat, then there were two, then there were three.
The rule on the dock is only two boats can raft. Well, now we have three. What can we say? It’s Alaska. “Hey, by the way, what ever happened to the Kleven’s? Last we heard they were surrounded by fishing boats and never heard from again.”