Working in Cook Inlet

Anchorage is a coastal city but you would hardly know it by talking to the people.  There are over 300,000 people living in Anchorage yet there isn't even have a small boat harbor.  You won't find people out sailing, sport fishing or wakeboarding in the late night summer sun. I suspect that only a very small number of people who live in Anchorage will ever go out on a boat from the city.  And until last week, I was one of those people.

Cook Inlet is no playground; as I try to explain to people who don't live here, "It's nice to look at but best not to touch." The tides in Cook Inlet near Anchorage can fluctuate as much as 30 ft and the currents run as fast as 10 knots in some places!  In the winter large pieces of ice slosh back and forth with the tide grinding along the shoreline and coating the beaches.  But like most rugged places in Alaska, Cook Inlet is beautiful.  Sure the water is the color of mud and cold as ice, but its beauty is in the wild untamed nature.

Cook Inlet couldn't be much different from Puget Sound with all the mansions lining the shores and white sail boats plying the water.  You won't see those in cook Inlet but you will be see hundreds of miles of undeveloped shorelines, with a backdrop of dramatic mountains and maybe even a beluga whale.

While I will miss the casual nature of heading out on Puget Sound I think I will enjoy working on Cook Inlet.

Panoramic view from our survey boat with the Anchorage skyline to the right

Fire Island with Anchorage in the background