Photo: Exceptional friends...

We anchored in sheltered Neka Bay, just a few miles south of Hoonah. We needed to make sure the new seals on Sänna's prop shaft didn't leak now that we'd hauling back into the water after the long cold winter. When the early morning sun came up we saw that Island Rover was anchored just across the bay too. A few moments later Ken come on the radio to ask about our plans so I told him to pull up their hook and to come on over for coffee... they could easily raft alongside us in the flat calm sea. The sun climbed still higher and it was yet another beautiful warm day here in Alaska.

Island Rover came to tie along our starboard side and I noticed Ken with his beloved guitar. Juanita bought aboard some cookies and Marie brewed up the coffee and her tea... I looked around this beautiful anchorage, with the high snowy mountains and pine forest reaching way down to the shoreline and thought it really doesn't get much better than this. Further out in the Sound I could see the watery spouts of humpbacks and the usual gangs of noisy squabbling bald eagles. We even had a couple of busy porpoise dolphins too.

Sometime later we ventured ashore with Ken & Juanita to find a forest track leading to the warm volcanic springs. Ken had his rifle to protect us from the Grizzlies and we found a cabin with some young guys out for a few days hunting bears. Guns don't sit easily with me and Marie, as Brits we have no concept of carrying weapons although it's a way of life here in the north. I'm far more relaxed with Ken when he plays his guitar, he writes and sings his songs of hardcore fishermen drinking in their bars and about the alarming tale of their own sinking by a humpback whale. A talented, soulful musician and he became, for a short while, my very good friend.

When, a few days later, it was our time to leave Hoonah I went along to say goodbye to Ken and I felt the old familiar pain that hurts when I see a good sailing friend for the last time. We shook hands and we passed the same suspicious look when we said we'd meet somewhere, sometime soon. We both knew our paths would never cross again. And then, for a fleeting moment, I saw something special in his eye.

The gentle singer sailor who knows all about life and where he wants to be.
________________________________________________________________________________
Please visit our SV Sänna website for more details of our circumnavigation voyage from the UK. Also at www.facebook.com/SV.Sanna. Like our Facebook page if you'd like to receive more news about our sail adventure. You can contact us here.