Sweepers Cove

General.    Western civilization. The harbour entrance is marked by lights and buoys and there is a harbour master available on VHF CH16. Diesel, food, liquor and limited hardware are available. All supplies other than diesel in this outlying community of fishermen and ex forces personal are flown in so expect prices higher than those found elsewhere. There are no laundry or shower facilities nor are there any repair facilities. There is a US Post Office and there were two flights per week from Anchorage via Dutch Harbour, weather permitting. When we were there the last three flights had been cancelled due to low lying fog.

Reported.    August 2003 by Fine Tolerance

Charts.    NOAA 16480, NOAA 16471, large scale chart NOAA 16476.

Approach.    There are maintained buoys here. There are some rocky islands on the outside of the harbour but with the chart and beacons it is a very easy harbour to enter.

Anchoring.    The harbour master is one of those really nice people you get to have the privilege to meet in your life. The docks have been constructed with big ships in mind, as has the fuel dock, and we were allowed to raft off one of the old navy tugs which made life easy for us. We don’t know if anchoring is allowed within the harbour as we never needed to and the subject never came up.

Points of Interest.  This is a large, well built town. Built by the US Navy for over 8000 military personal that were once station here, since there withdrawal in 1998 the entire community consists now of only around 60 people. Walking the streets one is reminded of the Neville Shute novel ‘On the Beach’. Houses are in perfect order, streets, paths and playgrounds are all in place. Everything of a town this size is as it should be, except there are no people. The Aleutian’s summer Headquarters for the Fisheries and Wildlife is here. They have quite a bit of literature on the Aleutians available.

Lying alongside two old navy tugs on one of the jetties in Sweepers Cove.

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