Goodby Valdez and Hello Homer, at least that's the plan!
We have decided to make Homer our new home port for a couple of reasons. One, it gets a lot less rain and snow than does Valdez. And two, we can get an assigned slip in Homer, this being our second summer in Valdez and the waiting list for a slip is still 5 years. Our plight was to be shuffled around when a slip would open, sometimes for a week, sometimes for a day. If your not available to move your boat when needed, the harbor master will have it moved for a fee of $50. It doesn't take too many moves and your monthly moorage bill can become outrages. We also decided we have had enough of the extreme cold interior Alaska winters and would like to move to Homer for our retirement. Although Homer can get an occasional below zero spell, their winters are incredibly mild compared to enduring weeks of -40, and colder in the interior. So, all this brings us to here, Chenega bay or Chenega village or New Chenega this place is know by many names. The original Chenega village had a sad and catastrophic ending. The great '64 Alaska earthquake and resulting tsunami literally wiped it off the face of the earth. The majority of the survivors were the children who were in a school that was located up on a hill. Nearly all were orphaned in an instant and the village was gone forever. It wasn't until 1984 that a new Chenega was built further south west on Prince William Sound. Some of the Survivors moved back to make it a native village again. The Chenega tribe struggles to keep it going with only 30 something residents and barely the 10 required student to keep the public school open.
We pulled into Chenega on Thursday, 7 August on the front edge of a storm and would wait for good weather to move out into the Gulf of Alaska. Today is Monday the 11th of August and were still waiting for weather. Low pressures continue to line up from the west, move across the North Pacific and stall out on top of us. The forecast for our needed 40 hour window continues to include 30 knots or more of wind and 10 foot or higher seas. So we will stay put and enjoy the village. Picture is the dock at New Chenega, loaded with fishing boats waiting for an opener announcement.