Bear--Part Two!

I know I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, but I thought I would share this story. I am currently sitting in a bed and breakfast in Sitka waiting for the hot tub to be available. Now, we are pretty well budget travelers (24 nights of camping on this trip so far), but after our first night here, we chose to not camp anymore on this island.

We got here and actually found THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CAMPSITE EVER! Sitka is in a rainforest and we had a campsite in the rainforest, right on the edge of a bay. It was misting lightly when we set up camp,but by the time we went to find the artesian well to get water, it was raining. And I mean raining.

Eventually we found shelter to make dinner under and we enjoyed a great salmon dinner. Fresh, right out of the water, king salmon for $8.99/lb. Eat your heart out. Oh wait, we did! We packed everything up, put everything into the bear locker, and headed off to bed.

(We do not, and have not, kept any food, toiletries, or other scented items on the bikes or in our tent. It all goes into our "bear box" or into the dishes bag and these items are either put into a bear locker at night, or if one is not available, we hang it all in a tree far from our campsite.)

The next morning, when Josh came back from the bathroom, he said both bikes had been knocked over by the bear. We knew he was around and had actually seen him the evening before. We also knew, after talking to the forest service camp host, that he was very young, curious, and easy to chase away. We didn't feel like we would be threatened at all, but apparently he wanted to play with the motorcycles. No damage was done to Josh's bike,but he scratched and dented my pannier that previously had no scratches or dents. We are not sure it will be water tight anymore either. And, there are more scratches on my helmet.

So, because the bikes are all we have got for the many miles left until we get home, we chose to move into town and out of bear territory. There is no camping in town, and though we could have tried the other end of town, it was still pretty risky. The bear population here is about 1.2 bears per square mile. That is a lot of bears!

I think the hot tub is free, so I'm running off now! More to come later!