Juneau - Auke Bay

Juneau has 3 small boat harbours. 2 are immediately north of the city in the Gastineau channel but may be inaccessible to tall masted yachts who may not be able to pass under the harbour bridge at anything other than the lowest of tides  The third lies in Auke Bay, some 10 nm to the NW of the city centre. This is accessible at all states of the tide and appears to be the harbour of choice for larger vessels and an increasing number of super yachts.

As with most SE Alaskan harbours Auke Bay is primarily a fishing harbour and berthing is on a first come first served basis. At busy times when the fishing fleet is in harbour you will have to raft up 2 or 3 deep and there will not be enough electrical points to serve everybody. There are showers and a laundry but some distance away from the pontoons.

Although as SE Alaska’s largest city Juneau has a good selection of shops, it is not a particularly convenient place to re-provision. Auke Bay only has a small convenience store and the city centre a vast array of shops aimed exclusively at the cruise ship market. The supermarkets and other shops likely to be of interest to the yachtsman are mainly located in an out of town shopping mall roughly equidistant between the city centre and Auke Bay and require a bus, taxi or hire car to get to them.

Auke Bay has a lively and very popular bar serving good Alaskan staples such as nachos and burgers, and an even more popular cafe serving truly exceptional coffee and breakfasts. 

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