Photo: The town dock at Meyers Chuck
A note on the town bulletin board next to the dock in Meyers Chuck caught our attention. Fresh cinnamon rolls delivered to your boat or house could be had by calling Cassie on the red public phone next to the bulletin board. Local calls were free. We were on our way to take a walk but resolved to call when we returned. So after walking past a giant spider web of twine with a metal spider, through the cluster of little clapboard houses, up the hill and through the forest to the beach, we returned to the bulletin board and the phone.
"This must be the last pay phone in SE Alaska," said Steve. "Maybe the first," I said, looking at the thatch of moss on top of the phone booth and the rust on the old red phone. At least the birds nest that had sat on the top of the phone in previous years was gone.
Steve picked up the receiver and started to dial. "No dial tone," he said. He dialed anyway but nothing happened.
We walked down to the dock and joined a group of locals and yachties gathered on a small sailboat, drinking wine and eating crab.
"We tried to order cinnamon rolls," Steve told one of the locals, "but the phone didn't work."
"You can call on a cell phone," she said. "The cinnamon rolls are good, but you have to be up at 7 to get them." A chorus of acclaim echoed her words.
"Cell phone? You have cell phone service here? It must be Verizon, not AT&T." We had tried before to make phone calls from here.
"It's AT&T. We've got good reception here. If you stand on the helicopter pad at the top of the dock, you can get one, or sometimes even two, bars."
"I just never thought of phoning from the helicopter pad," I said.
We went back to our dinghy and motored out to Osprey to get a phone. Steve stood on the helicopter pad and looked at the phone. "No bars, but it says I have service." Amazingly, his call went through and he ordered four rolls, two for the next day and two for the day after that.
At 7 am the next morning, I was up and standing in Osprey's cockpit, money ($3 a piece) in hand. A woman walked down the post office dock with a basket and climbed into an aluminum skiff. She stopped at Osprey first and handed me four rolls wrapped in plastic, then motored off to the town dock with the rest of her deliveries.
The cinnamon rolls were worth getting up at 7 for.
Photo: Cassie, the baker, in her delivery boat.