It's been a ridiculously busy week - hence the lack of posts. Hopefully I can catch up over the next few days. Lot's has been going on!!!
Wednesday, a few members of the Government Hill Community Council's Knik Arm Crossing Committee took a boat tour of Knik Arm to look at the areas that would be impacted by the bridge.
Knik Arm isn't your normal body of water. It has some of the greatest tide differentials in the world - the tidal action can be treacherous. Two large glacier fed rivers, the Knik and the Matanuska both dump into the Arm - as a result, the water is not blue. It's a very very dirty brown and extremely silty. Oh - and the water is cold cold cold. The kind of water that if you fall in, you won't last long.
All of this explains why there is not a lot of pleasure boating in the area - actually there is virtually no pleasure boating out of Anchorage. A lot of folks have small open fishing boats that are used to motor over to the other side of the Arm. Lots of small set fisheries over there. But there are no cabin cruisers, sail boats, etc. It's just too dangerous.
As a result, our Wednesday boat trip - at least for me - was a once in a lifetime event. I have never been on a boat out of Anchorage. And we really lucked out on the weather front - it was warm and sunny. No wind. No nothing. The only issue was the thick wildfire haze. The south and east views were extremely guazy and diaphanous.
We were on the water for a full two hours. We left Anchorage, went directly west over to Port MacKenzie, puttered north up the west side of the arm looking at the various proposed bridge landings and the beluga whale observatory camps. We then crossed back to the east side of the Arm and went up to Eagle Bay where Eagle River dumps into the Inlet. We then made our way back down the east side back to Anchorage.
It was spectacular way to spend two hours on a Wednesday morning! And it was so odd to go back to work. It was like I had been on another planet.
Mud flats in high sheen. And note the heavy haze. It gives everything a golden cast.
A pretty big chunk of jetsam.
Thomas and me. This was taken as we zooming across from the west side of the arm to the east side. If you look closely at the water behind us, you'll note how brown and dirty it looks. All that silt!!!
The Anchorage skyline from the north. Prior to Wednesday, I had never seen Anchorage from this vantage point. The haze had lifted a tad.
10:46:13 PM 
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