We don’t have an itinerary as we cruise SE AK, but Tessa has been studying the charts on Navionics and two books on the area: Exploring SE Alaska by Don Douglass and Reanne Hemingway-Douglass, and North to Alaska by Charles and Margo Wood. From Ketchikan most cruising boats make their way to Wrangell, and she read about Anan Bear Conservatory – a not to miss located South of Wrangell. With poor holding at Anan Bay, she located Fool’s Inlet for our anchorage for the next two nights. It’d be a five hour run from Browns Bay for us, and we opted to time going with the current in Clarence Strait (sailor hats do pay off!).We were joined by white sided dolphins playing in our bow on our way to Fools Inlet
However the con of donning your “sailors hat” is that the power boats beat you to the anchorage and get to cherry pick the prime spot. So we anchored in deeper water near two islands on the East side of the inlet. It ended up being a fabulous location, as we got to enjoy the evening sun the latest – always a consideration when we are anchoring.
Anan Bay has one of the largest pink salmon runs in SE AK, which supports the high number of black and brown bears in the area. Anan (pronounced Anne-Anne), in Tlingit means “sit down” or “village that rests”. A permit is required July 5 through August 25th, and only so many are given out per day. If you are planning on visiting during this time period, do make an online reservation in advance as the permits are limited and go quickly. And they allocate even less to recreational boaters, reserving the majority for tour operators.
We arrived on July 2nd, so no permit required. It was just us, the skiffs from the two other boats in Fools Inlet, and a family from Wrangell. As we had another two feet of tide to lose, and saw our “neighboring” skiffs high and dry, we decided to use our “anchor buddy” for the first time. We have been very skeptical of this product as it’s pushed like an “as seen on tv” product, but bought it with the hopes of it working. And work it did. The family from Wrangell said, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone use an anchor buddy! And we replied, it’s our first time using one! We all had a good chuckle that none of us thought it’d actually work.
The trails looked like it had just been finished recently, as there was fresh gravel packed and bridges re-enforced. We had seen evidence of where the landing craft had landed up the estuary.
They say it’s a half mile hike to the viewing platform at the falls, but we’d call it a “tourist half mile” – neither of us had our activity monitor on, but it definitely seemed like a long half mile.
There were multiple instances of fresh bear scat right on the trail, and a place right next to the trail that had been used by a sleeping bear. But we had no bear encounters along the trail.
In fact, the only bears we saw from afar across the estuary- a male and mom and two cubs. The viewing platform is in great shape, however the pink salmon had not returned up river and so there were no bears. We could see that during the salmon run, this would be a spectacular viewing of the bears grabbing salmon out of the falls.
We had set our shrimp pots before heading over to Anan, and like any area – whether it’s a great shrimping area or not – we were able to catch six spot prawns per pot. But these were the biggest prawns had ever caught, and it made for a great green curry dinner to end our stay in Fools Inlet.
