Mother Goose Leg 3, Day 9 – Goddard Hot Springs to Sitka

With Sitka only 18 miles to the north, we started our day’s journey at 10 am. We experience a sort of culture shock as we reentered civilization. Not long into our trip we began seeing more and more boats. For most of our adventure we had seen very few boats if we had seen any at all. Now, even the outskirts of a town in Southeast Alaska felt like the rat race.

We wound our way through the numerous rocks, reefs and islets which lie just south of Sitka. There were sea otters everywhere, foraging, frolicking, or just resting among the giant kelp forests. There must have been a lot of fish around because the fishermen, both commercial and recreational, were out in full force. Before long, we turned the last corner and cruised under the bridge into Sitka. We refueled the boats and filled them with water at the fuel dock before making our way to our moorage sites. Normally, we would tie up in the large harbor which sits about a mile and a half north of downtown. Today, however, we got lucky. There is a dock normally used by small cruise ships when they come into Sitka. No cruise ships were schedule to use the dock for a few days, so we were allowed to tie up here. This particular dock sits just a block or two from downtown Sitka, and provided an ideal place for us to go out and explore the town.

After tying up, explore is just what we did. Everyone went their separate ways and walked around Sitka. People shopped, visited churches and historical sites, or just enjoyed the buzz of human activity. In the evening, we all met up for one last cocktail hour and a dinner at a restaurant nearby. Afterwards, we returned for our last night on the boats before departing the next day. We had undertaken an incredible voyage that took us to a number of incredibly beautiful places, but like all things, this too had to come to an end.