July 30, Snettisham Peninsula to Juneau (!)

What a day!

Managed to get out of camp, in the rain, at the usual time.  Covered a fair amount of ground before about 4PM, paddling through a crowded gill net opener near beautiful Limestone Inlet, passing a bear near Point Styleman, and enjoying the beautiful scenery.  

My objective for the day was Point Bishop, at the mouth of Taku Inlet, on the West/Juneau side, and I stopped for dinner at Suicide Cove, below Butler Peak, on the East side of Taku Inlet, then headed North, to cross over.  I had initially planned to work my way several miles up the East side of the inlet before crossing, but began to get a bit of a tailwind as I headed Northwest, and decided to cut a bit of a corner and head directly for Point Bishop from Circle Point.  

Paddling in.  The light is me.

I made good time on the crossing, but it was starting to get late as I started, and a pack of gill net boats was concentrated near Point Bishop.  I normally wouldn't worry about fishing boats, but I was concerned that it would be getting dark by the time I finished the crossing, so about halfway across, I decided to head more directly towards Point Salisbury, a safer-seeming location.  It also helped that the wind was pushing me towards Salisbury! 

When I arrived, it was still light, but although I had been fairly certain that I would find a beach to camp on, I was mistaken, and it would have taken a fair bit of backtracking--towards Point Bishop--to find a nice gravel beach.  Instead of heading backwards, I figured I would continue up towards Juneau and stop (soon, I figured), when I arrived at a good camping spot.  

Very happy to be home

By this time, I was in territory that I had often paddled, and yet was surprised to find no camp-worthy beaches before DuPont, the site of a DuPont factory town from Juneau's gold mining days.  At this point, it was really getting dark--it was probably 9:00 or so--and I knew there to be good campsites above the lovely beach at DuPont, right beside the deteriorating pier which sticks out visibly into the channel there.  However, DuPont is so close to Juneau--it's a common Juneauite day hike--it felt crazy to stop there.  So I unpacked my phone and called home!  Emily sounded thrilled to hear from me, and agreed to meet me at the Sheep Creek beach/launch/zombie chum salmon colony.

The paddling was a-ok.  No wind, and almost completely calm water, with the exception of two slightly nervous moments dealing with big wakes, in the dark, from departing cruise ships.  This was only the second time I had ever paddled after dark!  It took another hour or so to paddle to Sheep Creek, but when I did, there she was, parked out on the tidal flats, ready to take me home.  It was after 10 when I arrived, and was I ever thrilled to be there.