Two Productive Days
24 August 2014 | Auke Bay, Juneau, SE Alaska
John
Saturday was a boring day so I skipped posting to the blog.
We were unable to get a rental car on Saturday but are supposed to be picked up this morning by Juneau car rentals and should have a car until tomorrow morning.
We will make a run to costco, safeway, and to the marine store. The first two are for provisions and the last to get what I need to fix our shore power cord that was damaged in Cordova.
The marina here is comfortable enough. The management technique is different from any other marinas we have stayed in.
You can make reservations but doing that almost triples the daily rate. The better option is to just show up and find a place on the floats. The marina does not have specific slips in different sizes.. It is made up of long floats with multiple fingers of exactly the same length. Arriving boats find a spot big enough for them and just side tie to the main floats or the fingers. There are usually 3-4 boats on each finger with the exception of the large fishing boats that can take up the whole finger. The floats are wide and very stable.
The cost is $0.55 per foot per day. You are only allowed to stay in the same place on the float for 10 days, then you have to move. This might be to give everyone a shot at the positions near the power kiosks or maybe to make sure locals don't leave their boats unattended for more than 10 days.
Power is available in many parts of the marina at kiosks in the middle of the floats that can accept power cords from 4 boats. The power lines are run overhead on poles near the kiosks and at the edges of the floats. Power is $5 per day from the 20 amp kiosks and $7 from the 30 amp kiosks. We did not find out what 50 amp and three phase power costs but, based on the size of the power cords coming from a megayacht on the end of our float, I assume mega power service is available.
Showers are not cheap. Its $1 for the first 2 minutes and $0.75 for each additional 2 minutes. Showers are so expensive everywhere we have been in Alaska that its no wonder there are so many smelly Alaskans.
We did boat cleaning chores yesterday and also had to spend a couple of hours fixing the pump system that empties the sump from our shower. The pump has a strainer on the inlet side but every once in a while "stuff" gets caught in the hoses between the tank and the pump. Mostly it's hair but yesterday we found two little plastic covers from disposable razors in addition to a couple large clumps of hair (not gray, so not mine). Shawn took the inspection plate off the tank and hosed it out really well to clean it up. We have used our shower more since leaving Hawaii than in the previous years of our adventure. In most parts of the world we used the shower in the cockpit or showers on shore but in these latitudes we use the shower below decks a lot more.
I cleaned the stainless. The new wax we have been using cuts down on tarnish by about 98%. There were a few spots on the rails and stantions that needed a tiny bit of rust cleaned off of them .
I used the foamy air conditioner cleaner we got in Mexico. That stuff is amazing. Everything is shiny now.
Shawn also put our dorade vents back on the dorade boxes on the cabin top. We take them off for ocean passages and install the plates that seal the dorade boxes. We figured getting a little ventilation will probably help with controlling humidity in the boat
Our rental car company picked us up around 9:30 this morning and took us back to their place to pick up our car. Its a Chevy Impala with 138, 000 miles on it. It runs fine and we are not going anywhere without bus service so a breakdown would not be a disaster. The lady that runs the place said we could bring it back before noon and not get charged for another day.
First we stopped at Western Auto Marine where we were able to get the plug we needed to repair our power cord. The price was about 60% more than defender charges for the same part but a lot cheaper than replacing the cord at Alaska prices. We also got a spinning rod and reel and some fishing tackle.
Then we went to costco. It's a small costco but very well run and with the prices we like. They had a vestigial food court but did have the famous costco hot dog and drink special for $1.50. We spent about an hour there and loaded up on beer, meat and other costco type bulk items. They also do free samples of food items and we sampled a lot. We did buy some really good hummus and the rice crackers they were using for the freebies so their free sample strategy did work. A lot of our costco favorites were things we first learned about via free samples.
The one thing that was very different about this costco was the large number of people checking out with very little in their cart. In most costcos we have shopped in over the years its not worth it to wait in the checkout line unless you are buying a lot of stuff. Here the lines are short so people seem to shop more often and don,t feel the need to buy as much stuff at one time.
I would like to mention, for the sake of our friends from outside the US who might visit here, that Costco is an incredible business. There have been many imitators of the warehouse store idea but nobody does it as well as Costco. Their prices are good and quality is excellent. The meat departments are usually the best in town. The only downside is that some things come in quantities that are too large for our needs but when provisioning for a passage that is not such a problem. Costco is also so well managed that they are profitable and growing without the need to abuse their employees. Costco employees are paid well above the proposed new minimum wage increase that less well managed operations are fighting so hard. Costco also provides good benefit packages that include health care. If we can get what we need at Costco we will buy it there. The price advantage of buying there pays back the $55 annual membership fee, usually in a single visit.
Shawn dropped me back at the boat and took the car to Walmart and Safeway. I stayed back at the boat to repair the power cord.
Unfortunately the power cord was not quite long enough to reach the power connection on the dock. I tried moving the boat closer to the boat in front of us but we will still well short of the plug so I had to wait for Shawn to come back so we could flip the boat around on the dock and get the power inlet on the boat closer to the power kiosk on the dock.
First we tried to move to another slip farther down the float but when we started to dock I chickened out. It was just too tight a space to fit the boat into, without risk to us or the boats on either side of the empty place, so we returned to our old spot and docked in the reverse direction to the way we had originally docked. After sailing around the world the scariest part is still docking and un-docking the boat.
It's easier when the starboard side is against the dock because we can open the gates in the life lines for access on and off the boat. The swim ladder takes up the space in the gate on the port side so we have to climb over the lifelines when that side is against the dock. Normally it's not a big deal but when we have cartloads of provisions to get aboard, in the rain, its nice to have easy access. It's raining today.
When we get to Seattle we will remove the swim ladder and probably sell it on Craig's list. We will not be doing much swimming in the chilly waters of Puget Sound.
We got the power hooked up and the battery charger started doing its thing. We had turned on our little Engle freezer before we left so we could freeze down the meat we bought faster so the batteries were thirsty. Once the battery charger backs off on its power demands we can start using our electric heater or the water heater. We are plugged into one of their cheaper 20 amp plugs so we cant run two power hungry appliances at the same time.
We are now stocked up with enough food, beer and soda to get us to Seattle.
Tomorrow, before we give up our rental car we will get our propane tanks filled. Maybe the place here will fill our Australian tank. It's always a crap shoot as to whether or not the person operating the filling station will be a stickler about that tank, which is technically illegal in the US. Its not that critical any more to have all three tanks full because there will be plenty of propane refill stations between here and Seattle and our use of the heater has been decreasing as we head south.
We are trying to decide whether to leave here tomorrow or Tuesday morning. It will be hard for us to get started early tomorrow because of the need to return the car and get propane. There are no destinations within easy reach in half a day except Fitz Cove which is around the corner but a little bit in the wrong direction. We will probably take a look at this afternoon's weather forecast before we decide.