Had a beautiful, warm day today, the warmest since the week before Kris and Bob got here. Got my ears sunburned while working on the cable run.
A trawler called the LEADING LADY came into the harbor this morning with her trim painted in a way that I think would go great on SEA RAVEN...three colors - light blue, dark blue, and pink. The name is in dark blue script, outlined in pink and shaded with the light blue. It really looks great. I took some pictures for future reference. Only one problem...Lois thinks it looks too feminine for a raven.
10:10 Water tank filled, boat vacuumed, bill at the office paid, and we're on our way. Didn't intend to leave until about noon but the lady at the office said that checkout time is 08:00 and wanted to charge for another day. I talked her out of that but figured we shouldn't stay longer than necessary.
Ran down Stephens Passage on the west side of Douglas Island to Middle Point before stopping to fish for a while. No luck there.
12:05 Running again, this time on the aft starboard tank. We're listening on the radio to a salvage operation going on over near Hoonah. The KAREN REY, which I'd guess from the name is a seiner, evidently hit a reef over near the Sisters Island, stoving in her side. She's high and dry on the reef now but they are hoping to get the hole patched and her pumped out enough to float her on the high tide at 15:00. A boat named the JOHN M COBB is coordinating the activity. They have three other boats standing by, as well as divers and people from a salvage company. Five pumps are aboard and still they are just holding their own against the incoming water. The JOHN M COBB isn't Coast Guard but is relaying status to the U.S. Coast Guard communications center in Juneau. The guy on the radio sounds very professional, maybe Navy? (We learned later from Jeff Hansen that the JOHN M COBB is a NOAA ship.)
13:05 Back to the forward starboard tank. That should have pretty much emptied the aft tanks so we can put fresh fuel in them.
15:00 Fished again off the south tip of Douglas without success but across the way between Point Salisbury and Point Bishop I dropped one of the lines out 210 turns and hooked a nice one. I turned the pole over to Lois while I got the net and she pulled in a bright nine pound King, just right for eating. In the meantime they've managed to float the KAREN REY, hole stuffed with pillows and other available material, and are towing her toward the beach on Cannery Point at Hoonah.
16:45 Docked at the Unocal 76 plant in Juneau. They close at 17:00 and soon Jeff came down to say hello and bring the keys to a pickup truck which he said wasn't being used. He was on his way to get Todd signed up for football but said to make ourselves at home. Great. We drove to town, had dinner at the Fiddlehead...not bad but not great either...and then drove out to the south end of the highway. That's not very far, maybe five miles. Out near the end there is a fish hatchery on Sheep Creek and today the salmon were running. Thousands of ugly, beatup fish fighting their way up a shallow stream into the ladders and pools of the hatchery. And an army of gulls working on the bodies of the ones that didn't make it. It's an amazing and humbling sight to see mama nature at work in those fish.
| 10:15 On our way again, and what a change of attitude. Our bows seem to be pointing to the sky. As we run out Gasteneau Channel I notice a banner on the shore which I remember from six years ago...in great big red letters it reads, "L U C K Y M E". I guess the happy owner of the pretty little cabin is still there and feeling good. |
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14:00 Lots of sport fishing boats still at Point Retreat. We think about stopping but the wind is building and we'd like to get to Funter Bay early.
16:00 Slop our way into Funter behind PLATYPUS and ahead of SOBRE LAS OLAS, two big power cruisers. Nice and quiet in the bay. We leave the big guys on the south shore and head over to Coot Cove where we'd stayed last week. Anchored in seventy feet of water, dropped the crab ring, and settled down for the evening. Not much luck on crabs tonight...in three tries I must have hauled up twenty crabs and every single one of them was a female. We may have to resort to eating the ladies.
11:30 Making good time, and Fisher's showing lots of sign at about forty or fifty feet so we stop to fish for a while. No action. Might be pinks. They don't take a lure very often.
12:00 Running again. As we approach Peril Strait we start getting some strong gusts of wind coming out of the valleys of Chichagof. SOBRE LAS OLAS has been running ahead of us but we pass her as she stops and lets her customers watch a seiner haul in his "web".
14:30 Into Peril Strait bucking four foot seas and a fifteen knot wind coming out of the chute. I'd been planning on Appleton Cove but with the wind like it is that might be exposed so we decide on Saook Bay instead. It's closer and the pilot says, "protected from all winds."
16:30 Anchored there in the middle of a group of crab pots. It's pretty windy even deep in this narrow, el shaped inlet but we've got a good hold on a mud bottom in about 70 feet of water. We sail a bit but don't move our hook. As we settle down with our evening drinks the crabber, a boat named the BARANOF from Petersburg, came in and started pulling pots. He got a nice harvest...most of them had six to a dozen Dungeness which he kept. Watching him, I'm sure he kept any over a certain size regardless of sex and, after re-reading our sport fishing regulations, it sounds like only the sport fisherman is limited to males. Does that make sense?
Fished for a while longer but got nothing but a tiny, six inch long salmon which I threw back to grow up. then we dawdled our way on down the strait. Ran into Rodman Bay and took a look at Appleton Cove. It's pretty well filled with logging stuff now with roads, gravel fill, and vehicles on the shore. Glad we stayed where we did last night. At the entrance to Hoonah Sound we poked our nose in Poison Cove...pretty deep but wouldn't be a bad place to stay. Just north of Sergius Narrows there are two anchorages - Bear Bay and Deep Bay. We took a look at both and almost ran aground in Deep Bay when the bottom suddenly shoaled from sixty feet to five. Both are pretty but we opted for Bear which is smaller and a little more enclosed.
15:15 Anchored in seventy feet of water in Bear Bay. First job was to fillet our fish. That went pretty well. He was 43 ½ inches long and produced 17 pounds of boneless meat...probably close to 50 pounds "in the round". Next came the cleanup. Took me half an hour to hose down the aft deck. Then I changed Gimmy's oil before settling down for the evening.
Lois relented on her "no fish" rule and did a baked halibut thing for dinner...great! Rain predicted for tomorrow and Sunday but more sun early next week. Hope so. We need some good weather while Sis and Paul are with us.
13:00 Called the Sitka harbormaster. Not very encouraging, he's got a full house. Gave us the options of rafting several deep or anchoring out. We chose the latter and dropped our hook just north of the Thompsen Harbor basin next to a sailboat from Seattle named the SPARTICUS. Expected it to be a bit rolly but it's not bad. People seem to be exceptionally considerate with their wakes in the harbor. While Lois was getting the boat sorted out and ready for company I took a tour of the harbor. Sitka sure is busy and crowded, boats stacked five deep in places along the floats. All the seiners are in town and the harbormaster says the gill netters will be back tomorrow when the current opening is over. No matter, we'll pick Sis and Paul up in Stormy if we have to. Had our little salmon for dinner. Tried poaching it in the oven. Not so good as on the barbecue...not hot enough. Took an hour before it was done and then it wasn't as good.
Walked to the airport to meet Sis and Paul. Misjudged the distance... must be at least two miles...but got there as Paul was picking up their last bag. Took a taxi back to the boat, had a drink and smoked halibut while we visited, then walked back for a look at downtown Sitka. Most places closed. Dinner a Subway sandwich.
08:30 On our way on another lovely cloudless morning. Weatherman's been saying weather's going to break but so far no sign of it. We headed north up the Sitka Channel around Middle island the way we came in the other day, hoping that the fish were still where they'd been on the west side of Krestov. No luck, not a sign of fish in the east channel. Stopped and fished for a while at the north end of Neva Strait but when we got no action headed on out to Salsbury Sound. As we pulled in the lines I was showing Sis how to trip the diver with a quick jerk and it worked too well...the dacron line snapped and we lost the whole setup. Our battle with the big halibut the other day must have weakened it.
11:30 Out on the ocean for the first time in months. Couldn't have asked for a nicer day, no wind and just a long lazy swell out of the northwest as we ran the fifteen miles around Klokachev Island to the entrance to Klag Bay. The sea was so flat that even the rocks the chart says "always breaks" weren't breaking.
14:30 Into Klag Bay. Quick swing across the mouth of Slocum Arm looking for signs of fish...none there...then into Smooth Channel and through the "Gate" and Elbow Passage into Klag Bay itself. Paul hung out a line as we were entering the bay but got nothing but kelp.
15:00 Anchored in twenty feet of water off the abandoned mining town of Chichagof. Went ashore, poked through the old mining buildings and equipment, wondered at the great piles of drill cores spilled around the main building, hunted without success for the mine entrance I remembered from our visit in 1987 then found it from the water as we headed back to the boat...we'd been hunting on the wrong tailings pile. There was a lot of activity here at one time. The whole mountainside is dotted with piles of tailings. Cranked up the barbecue and had barbecued halibut marinated in Lois' famous stuff. Great dinner. Weatherman's dire predictions finally coming to pass...clouds moving in from the west. Guess this spell of sunshine is almost over.
08:30 Breakfast over and we're on our way back through the twisting, rocky passage which is the inside route north. I didn't have much hope that it would be a good day to be outside and as we got through the Gate and into Smooth Channel my fears were confirmed. Smooth Channel was still pretty smooth but just outside the swell was crashing on the rocks. We put out the fishing lines as we got into Ogden Passage and before long Paul had a fish on. Not a salmon as we had hoped, but a nice little Black Rockfish, or Sea Bass as the fishermen call them. We poked along through Ogden and Surveyor Passages, fishing in places where the bottom stayed put, planning to take another look at sea conditions when we got to Imperial Channel. Never quite made it. As we got into Portlock Harbor rain and fog cut visibility to ziltch so I turned back. We can afford to hang around here for a day and hope tomorrow will be better.
So we fished some more. Between them Sis and Paul caught six of the Black rockfish and Sis pulled in one small halibut. Like the one we caught the other day it took the salmon gear only forty feet down.
15:00 Anchored in Kimshan Cove, a nice big flatbottomed cove nestled deep in the surrounding mountains. There's a bit of civilization here...two houses on the shore that look like they are occupied. We didn't investigate. The rain just wouldn't quit and Paul wasn't feeling too good. He'd gotten chilled fishing in the rain and couldn't warm up. So we stayed on the boat, read, and played cribbage. Hope tomorrow will be a nicer day.
10:00 Off Portcupine Rock we took a vote on whether to stop at White Sulfur Springs and decided to go on. Even though the weather was looking better it wasn't good enough to make the thought of a two mile dinghy ride to and from the springs inviting. We've all seen hot springs before. We're finally out in consistantly deep water but now it's time to find the entrance to Lisianski Strait. That's a spooky one under the best of conditions. From Porkupine Rock we ran northwest until we cleared its companion reefs, then straight toward the buoy and breakers marking Star Rock off the entrance to Lisianski. There we turned and ran toward the breakers marking the reefs on both sides of the narrow entrance. The chart shows a very narrow strip of more than ten fathoms right next to the rock on the left side but I didn't have the guts to go close enough to find it. Instead, we listened to Charley yelling, "Fourteen!" as we rode the six foot swell across the 2.5 fathom spot a little farther from the waves breaking over the rock.
11:00 Though the entrance and into deeper water. Wow! That really got the adrenaline flowing but now we're home free. Just inside at Lost Cove a packer called SAVAGE was anchored waiting for trollers to come in and sell their fish. I guess if you did it every day that entrance would get to be old stuff. Spent the rest of the day fishing. Caught several rockfish and one small salmon on the way up the strait, then ran out to the north entrance of the inlet where Paul pulled in a nice seven pound Coho with a few tooth marks on its side.
17:30 Parked in a 24 hour zone on the float in Pelican. Walked the length of the boardwalk, stopped and had a drink at Rose's Bar and Grill where Rose was setting up for a big going away to college party for her daughter Marion, then went back to the boat, cleaned our fish, and had a great dinner of broiled salmon. Great day!
09:30 On our way. The weatherman is saying that our good weather won't last long...a "vigorous weather front" will be here tomorrow night...so we did a lot of running today. Out of Lisianski Inlet - that's 11 miles, across Cross Sound to Elfin Cove - thats 10 more. Quick stop in Elfin Cove to let Sis and Paul see that pretty little community. I'd told Paul it was pretty commercialized and he was expecting a Club Med. I think he was disappointed. Then the run through South Inian Pass and North Passage to the entrance of Glacier Bay is another 20 miles. I called about a half hour out and asked permission to enter. No sweat, they had all our data so we didn't have to go into Bartlett Cove for the briefing this time. Instead we ran straight up the bay to Sandy Cove, home of the black bears. That's another 24 miles, making about 65 miles in all. Saw a few sea otters, seals, and whales on the way, and the visibility was excellent today. We even got a good view of the Brady glacier as we came out of Elfin Cove and Port Althorp.
18:00 Dropped our hook in Sandy Cove, poured a drink, and settled back to watch the bears. They didn't disappoint us. Two showed themselves along the shore, one grubbing along the gravel bank for over an hour. Not very close but we could get a pretty good look through the field glasses. After dinner we ran the Glacier Bay video for Sis and Paul then I hit the sack. Nobody warned me that the show was just about to start. Then was when a mama bear and her three cubs came out just behind the boat and played around for a while. Oh well, at midnight when I got up the rest of the crew were in bed and didn't see what I did ....thousands of little fish lighting up the water with phosphorescence as they swam around the boat.
08:30 Passing Tidal Inlet and Blue Mouse Cove. A cruise ship, the NIEUW AMSTERDAM passes us. Paul and I time her and figure shes doing right at the speed limit of 20 knots but is throwing hardly any wake. Her hull speed must be closer to 30.
09:00 First ice. Either there isn't as much calving or the ice is moving slower than in Tracy and Endicott. We saw very little here until almost to the glaciers.
10:00 Passing our first tidwater glacier, Reed. The weather looks better off to the south so we opt to go up that arm to the Lamplough and Johns Hopkins glaciers first.
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10:30 Lamplough. This is one of the prettiest glaciers in the park and the easiest to get to. Its snout is right on the main channel and very little ice accumulates in front of its face. We drive up to within a couple of hundred yards of the towering blue ice pinnacles. It growls and dumps a few small pieces in the water for us. |
| 11:30 Johns Hopkins, or as close to it as I felt comfortable. Lots of ice here and it's slow going working our way through it. We're still three miles from the face when I decide it isn't worth the effort. A big catamaran has pushed its way clear to the face and looks tiny beneath the high ice cliffs. | 
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13:30 At the head of the bay in front of the Marjorie Glacier with the Grand Pacific's black face to the west. Here we're again able to drive right up to the blue face, close enough to see the texture of the cracks in the strained ice. The amount of bending and twisting of the solid ice is amazing. Again there is much popping, banging, and grumbling but no big calving while we watched. We did see a couple of underwater calvings, good sized pieces if ice suddenly popping to the surface from somewhere down below. Two of the park excursion boats are here, the EXECUTIVE EXPLORER and the BABY EXPLORER. A camera crew on the BABY is taking pictures of the EXECUTIVE in front of Marjorie's face.
14:30 We give up waiting for a big calving and start back. We've got a long way to go to Blue Mouse Cove and we want to stop at Reed.
16:00 At Reed Glacier we can again get as close as we dare. Most of the fallen ice here is landing on the moraine so I feel better about approaching to within a hundred yards or less. Reed has a lot of highly compressed, deep blue ice at its base. People from a small cruiser anchored at the mouth of the inlet have landed their ding on the moraine and are taking pictures. It's impressive.
16:30 Heading home. We'd only gotten out of the inlet and headed down the bay when the water, which had been glassy smooth all afternoon, showed signs of wind ahead. Then bamm, it was here...twenty knot winds coming up the bay. We've only twelve miles to go though, an hour and a half, and part of that in the lee of high hills. No problem.
18:00 We hang our hook in the southeast corner of Blue Mouse Cove. This is a big bay, about a half mile across with lots of room for anchoring. We're the first boat in and I've got the barbecue set up and going for Lois' birthday dinner before the ROSEBUD shows up. It's the boat we'd seen anchored at Reed and is from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I give them a call and let Paul talk to the skipper. They're both old time ski patrolers.
In honor of Lois' birthday we had London Broil for dinner instead of fish, the chunk of meat Bob and Kris had brought. It was great!
16:00 Parked on the dock at Bartlett Cove. Walked up to the Ranger Station and lodge. Talked to the naturalist there, bought a couple of books, and went through the display center which is very well done. Back at the boat, we moved out, anchored up, and stuffed ourselves on baked halibut for dinner. The weatherman says tomorrow will be a better day. We'll get serious about fishing.
07:00 Strawberry, right on schedule. Baited the hooks, dropped to the bottom, and in only a few minutes Paul had one on. Nice fish about 15 pounds. It's handier when they fit in the net. We fished there for an hour and a half, first anchored and then, when the current got too strong, drifting. Sis and I got a couple of strikes but couldn't keep one on. Paul got all the action, pulling in three more nice sized "chickens" before the current got so strong we decided to quit.
08:30 Headed out of the bay. Fisher was reporting 8.0 knots but it seemed like we weren't moving very fast. We weren't...the GPS said we were only making 3.5 over the ground. Pretty strong current coming into the bay on this spring tide morning. It took us two hours to get to the entrance.
10:30 Foggy as we near the entrance and we hear the STAR PRINCESS on the radio say that her ETA to Bartlett Cove is 11:00. I give her a call and the captain says he'll be watching for us. Nothing on the radar yet. We finally pick her up coming out of North Passage.
11:00 There she is, looming out of the fog with her upper decks in the sunshine...it's not a very thick layer. We pass port to port and the big, slabsided monster is gone again.
12:00 Started trolling for salmon just south of Point Adolphus and had hardly gotten the lines in the water when we picked up a follower, a big, fuzzy-headed Stellar Sea Lion looking for a free meal. When Paul hooked a pink he moved in to about fifty feet behind the boat and threatened to take it. Sis and I were hollaring at him but he didn't seem very frightened. The little pink Paul hauled in had a fresh scar on its side. Sis caught another pink before we decided to try for halibut where we fished with Bob and Kris. Not today, we'd missed the slack tide by a few minutes and the current just carried our weights away. Had lots of fun watching whales though. There were at least five of them feeding off the point, surfacing and blowing on all sides of us. We went back to trolling and just east of the point, when I turned to run with the tide, Sis got a real hit on her line, then almost immediately Paul's pole started jerking. They reeled in together and pulled in a tangled mess with Paul's flasher and hoochie twisted around and around her line. I thought sure they'd lost the fish but when I pulled in the line by hand it was still there, worn out by its effort and not fighting. We netted a beautiful 14 pound Coho.
13:30 Running again while Sis and Paul went to work untangling their lines. Fog gone now, beautiful day as we run toward Port Frederick.
15:00 Tried fishing again off Hoonah Island but too much current and trash. Fished for a while longer around Cannery Point with no action. Some hardy people water skiing off the beach there.
16:00 Tied to the dock in Hoonah. Paul and I filleted our fish on the cleaning table on the dock while the ladies took a walk up town. It's sure easier doing the job on a waist high table. When they got back Lois and Sis packaged the fillets and I filled the freezer. We must have ended up with thirty pounds or better of meat. Ate our two little pinks for dinner. Not quite as good as King or Coho but very good when it's fresh.
10:30 Wind starting to pick up now so we gave up fishing and headed across the strait toward Funter Bay. Splashy ride. We were following a little Nordic Tug called NORDIC QUEEN which seemed to be moving faster than we were. That's a lot faster than Russ Casson could go in his little tug. I called and talked to the skipper. It's a 32 foot with a 210 horse Perkins diesel which he says will push it along at 16 knots on flat water. I believe it...he splashed along not far ahead until we got to the turn where he could run in the trough, then he just walked away from us. Got into Funter about 45 minutes before we did.
13:00 Anchored in Coot Cove. Lost my good Golden Bear hat when the wind blew it off my head while anchoring. I ran for the net but by the time I got it SEA RAVEN had blow over the black hat and in the dark, wind whipped water it was gone. Got down Stormy, and were about to put out the crab pots when I changed my mind. The wind had picked up to 25 knots and was blowing right into the cove while the state float on the south side of the bay was empty and the water calm. So, we picked up the anchor and ran across followed by another boat, the PRIME TIME, which had been anchored in the cove. Wasn't long before we had more company...the NORDIC QUEEN joined us, then a big sailboat, the THAT AWAY, squeezed in. Busy place. Dropped our crab pots off the float and picked up three dungeness. No chance for Kings here though. Paul took Stormy and trolled for a while but couldn't hook anything. Lots of little flounder in the pot though. Wind howled until about five o'clock then died down. Tomorrow may be a better day.
08:15 Dropped the lines in the water a mile below Point Retreat and had four fish in the box before 9:00...three nice Coho and one Pink, all caught on Paul's pole. They both had the same setup. At that point they traded poles and the biting stopped. Funny how that happens.
11:30 Into the Auke Bay marina. Lot more little boats here than usual. No space on the floats so we parked on the outside of the breakwater while Paul and I went up to arrange for a car. No cars 'till 1:00 but a big boat pulled out as we were coming back so we rushed back to the boat, moved to a spot close to the ramp and ate lunch while we cooked our crabs of last evening. No power where we are but we've got water and it's handy.
Rent-a-wreck found a car for us and by 1:30 we were touring Juneau. Went to the Mendenhall Glacier. Drove through town to the end of the road to the south. Stopped at the 76 plant but Jeff wasn't in. Salmon run at Sheep Creek is almost over. Guys cleaning dead fish out of the pens. Millions of eggs on the bottom of the pool and still lots of sorry looking big fish milling around in the creek and pond below. Back to town for an hour or so of shopping for the ladies, then back to the boat by way of Fred Meyers where we picked up a fish shipping box. Went to dinner at the Canton House, courtesy Paul and Eleanor...as good as last time. Great day!
13:20 Car returned, checked out of the port, and we're on our way. Ran out of the bay and down Stephens Passage to a point just north of Scull Island which the Holes and Hills book says is a good halibut spot. Found the 15 fathom bank there and started fishing. No luck on halibut but when we gave up and started trolling we came up with one undersized Chinook. The hook had torn his gills and he wouldn't have lived so we kept him, illegal or not.
15:30 We were about to get the lines back in the water when the wind hit. Went from ziltch to 25 knots, bang. So we ran for Admiralty Cove only three miles away.
16:00 Firmly anchored in the cove with the wind whistling in the rigging. Nice and cozy in here. Halibut for dinner, part of the one package we'd kept from Lois' big fish. We'll get more.
08:15 Point Arden. As we turn to a southerly heading we pick up a little breeze which puts a one foot chop on the sea, but the sun is starting to peek through the clouds. Starting to look like a pretty nice day.
09:45 The big Alaska State Ferry from Prince Rupert, MALASPINA, passes us. She's due in Auke Bay at 12:15.
10:50 Nancy spots a "blue barge with gravel on top" off in the distance. Takes her a while to figure out what it is even though she saw icebergs yesterday in Mendenhall Lake. Out here on the empty waters with no sign of a glacier it's hard to make the connection.
11:15 We stop and fish for a while at Midway Island. Some people we met when last at Tracy said they'd done pretty well on halibut here but no luck today. We fished for almost an hour without a bite.
13:30 Fishing again, this time tolling west of the Wood Spit light where we'd done pretty well with Kris and Bob. Not today. Not a strike, and nothing on the sounder, and no birds where there had been thousands feeding in the tide rips. Strange. We fished across the channel and part way up the side of Harbor Island before we gave up.
14:30 Anchored in No Name Cove at the mouth of Tracy. Better luck fishing here...Nan and I dropped in the crab ring and in the few minutes while we were getting the other pots ready to set out a King and Tanner crab climbed on. Before the evening was out we were selecting only the biggest and best. Kept four nice Tanners and one big King for tomorrow's dinner.
After setting out the crab pots Nan and I went over to explore the two small streams which run into the cove. One is only a trickle but the other has a pretty good flow and there were fish in it. Because it was high tide we were able to work our way up to where the grass was all tromped down by the bears which had been fishing there. The fish were small Pink salmon. Didn't look quite ready for spawning yet...they were pretty healthy looking fish which carefully avoided us as we pulled ourselves up the stream with overhanging alder branches. Only their bellies we starting to get spotted and splotched. We talked to the guide on a charter boat anchored near us who said they hadn't been here last week.
08:30 Lots of ice in the channel, more than we've seen this far down on previous trips. Another boat, the steel hulled vessel LISERON which we've seen here before came up behind us so I started following her. That worked okay until she pushed her way through a line of ice which closed up before we could get through. I felt it was too much for old SEA RAVEN's fiberglass so we headed for South Sawyer rather than follow her to the north glacier. Surprisingly, the ice was no thicker in the south arm of the T than in the main arm. We were able to get farther than ever before, stop and drift while a couple of small calvings occured, and give Nancy a pretty good look at a tidewater glacier.
11:00 We meet the LISERON as we head back out. The skipper gives us a call on the radio and says the ice has cleared some and that North Sawyer is quite active today. Wishes us luck. Sure 'nough, the north arm looks completely different now. The long dams of drift ice have broken up into scattered pieces through which we can wend our way...I love wending. Again we're able to get closer to the face of the glacier than ever before. We stopped in an open area about a quarter mile from the face and watched several small calvings on the edges. I had the video camera on standby and, wouldn't you know, the battery gave out just as a big pile of ice on the west edge came loose, making a big splash and thunderous roar. Well, that's the breaks. We waited and watched for about an hour for another big one but no luck.
13:05 Cranked up and headed back. Didn't know how long it might take us to work through the ice. As I turned the nose south I half heard a roar behind us. Glancing back all I could see was white water. I yelled at the ladies and they confirmed what I saw...the whole center face of the glacier we'd been watching so long had let go. Three monstrous chunks of blue ice rose slowly from the depths, filling the channel and creating a huge wave several feet high ...the biggest calving we've ever seen, and we almost missed it.
That was the climax of the day but a pleasant anti-climax greeted us as we got back to No Name Cove. A black bear was on the beach as we came in. He, or she, stood up, peered at us, and went on poking along the shore as we anchored. We also had more good fortune on crabbing...two more good sized Kings. We had cooked our other crab while running today so we pigged out on crab for dinner and froze the new ones for Nan to take home to John.
07:45 Hook up and rolling. Out the cove, over the bar, around the island, and heading southwest across Stephens Passage toward the Glass Peninsula.
10:00 Dropped in the lines and fished for a while along the southern tip of the peninsula...no action so we moved on. Tried again when we saw some echos on the sounder as we crossed the mouth of Seymore Canal...no luck there either. Then, along the shore north of Gambier Bay, we got our first action...a little King took the line which I'd set up for Nancy on the downrigger. Too small to keep, and he wasn't hurt, so we threw him back. We passed a commercial troller fishing in the other direction and I hollared and asked how he was doing. "Pretty good", He said and held up a nice Coho. "How deep?", I asked. "Right on the bottom." was the answer. So we rigged the downrigger with two releases and sent both lines down to 180 feet. Next thing we knew both poles were jumping. Nan and I both reeled in to the point where one flasher and hoochie was wrapped tightly around the other. From there Nan pulled in the other line hand over hand with a big Coho attached to the other end. Lucky we were to net it. After that we decided that two setups on one downrigger wasn't really the way to go so we went to fishing one at 40 feet and the other at 150. Didn't seem to make any difference...the Coho were everywhere. In an hour we had seven hookups, landed two more big Coho and an almost legal King plus a rockfish that somehow got mixed in with the salmon.
14:30 Had to quit fishing when our electronics started beeping because our batteries were getting very low. The 12 volt gage was showing about 10 volt. I looked on the chart and found a place that looked promising just around the corner in Gambier Bay.
15:00 Hung our hook in a pretty little cove behind Good Island. Nan and Lois went to work filleting fish while I checked out the batteries for a possible bad cell. They all seem okay. I guess it's just too much running for an hour and then sucking power for two with the sounders, radar, GPS, Loran, and all the other good stuff. In any case, I changed the 12 volt tap from the number 2 bank to number 1 and ran Gennie for an hour with the battery charger on. That seemed to do the job for now.
While I was fooling with the batteries the ladies cut about twenty pounds of beautiful fillets off the five salmon. We set three of the King fillets aside for dinner and packaged the rest for freezing. Looks like we'll be able to send Nan home with a box of fish too.
This sure is a pretty cove. Nan and I took the ding and poked around a couple of the surrounding islands. Lots of trails through the forest but we didn't see any animals. Dropped the crab ring over the bow but got nothing but hermit crabs, pretty little guys decorated with blue and gold, some almost big enough to eat. They have one claw that is adapted to form the closure for whatever shell they inhabit, almost as well as a true operculum.
08:00 Lazy breakfast over and I'm hauling anchor on this bright, cloudless morning when something seems to be wrong with the windless. The chain's coming in slow and things seem bound up. We've had the chain hooked to a rock on the bottom at times but then it won't move at all until we work it loose by manuevering. This morning it was coming up alright but very slowly and strung as tight as a bow string. It wasn't until the last fifty feet were inching in that I saw the reason...we were pulling up a dead tree, limbs and all. Fortunately, when I dropped the anchor to the bottom again and had Lois move the boat forward the tree let go.
| 08:15 On our way to explore Gambier Bay. Gambier is big and deep. After you get past the rock filled mouth of the bay it opens up and the bottom drops to over 500 feet. The bay is almost ten miles long and has arms going far up several different watersheds. We were poking along towing Stormy when we spotted a fenced area near the remains of an old cannery. That's an unusual sight in this country. There is a gravel beach there and a mussel covered buoy so we tied to the buoy and went in to investigate. |  |
From there we cruised along the shore a ways, across the bay and past Snug Cove which the books say is the best anchorage...I liked the one we picked better...then started fishing for halibut. No luck in Gambier, no luck just outside near False Pybus Point, but south of the real Pybus Point on the flats in front of Pybus Bay Nancy hooked a nice chicken with a lot of fight in it. She was sure excited. Said it pulled a lot harder than any of the salmon she'd caught yesterday.
While we were fishing off Pybus the wind, which had been blowing about ten knots all morning, died completely, and the sea went absolutely flat. It was then we started noticing the sounds, heavy breathing from every direction. We'd seen a couple of whales in the distance as we came south but never heard them. Now, however, with all other sounds gone, the sound of their blowing was carrying for miles. And there were lots more than two of them. As we watched and listened we must have seen a dozen or more off across Frederick Sound, tiny specks of fins, backs, and tails on the horizon but sounding like they were right next to us. There was another sound also, one sort of half way between barking and growling, which had to be Sea Lions. It seemed to be coming from a small island near the Brothers about three miles away. It had been a while since we'd gotten any bites so we decided to investigate. Yep, there they were, playing with two whales in the water off a rocky point of the island. I cut the engine and we drifted by, watching their antics. Sometimes it seemed that the sea lions were actually touching the whales but I'm not sure of that. We watched for quite a while then went back to fishing for halibut. No more luck on that though and it was getting late, so we ducked into the anchorage on the west side of West Brother, put down the hook and had baked halibut for dinner. Pretty nice day.
17:30 Anchored in a neat little cove at the south end of Ruth Island in Thomas Bay. Very pretty anchorage even in the rain. Low stratus clouds drifting across the face of the glacier topped surrounding mountains. Another boat from Seattle here, a sailboat called KI-KEMMER. Had leftover salmon for dinner. Got to have our proper diet in spite of bad luck.
10:00 Started fishing. First near the south shore of the bay but the current and the cold breeze coming down from the glaciers soon made us move. Next we tried just outside the bay where a guide with a party from Petersburg was fishing in a small aluminum boat. He said they'd gotten one small halibut so far and that the fish were about to start biting. Well, we got a couple of nibbles and watched one of his party pull in a double ugly, but that was all, so we decided to give up the halibut and go for salmon.
11:45 Started trolling down the west side of the sound below Point Strait. Nobody here but us, not much sign of fish on the finder, I was beginning to believe that we had left the fish behind in Stephens Passage. We decided we'd fish until one o'clock and then run on into Petersburg.
12:50 Pay dirt! Nan was using the downrigger and was down about a hundred feet when her line started zinging out. She played the fish for a while then started reeling it in but something seemed wrong...the line still seemed to be attached to the downrigger. I started slowly reeling in the cannonball and the line came up with it. As the ball broke water we could see that it had been fouled by kelp...the release had worked properly but the kelp had wrapped itself around the line and wouldn't let it go.
| We thought she'd lost the fish but when I untangled the line and she
reeled it in there was a nice King still on the hook. A few minutes later,
while Lois was making a turn and my line was almost slack, it started jerking
and I pulled in a beautiful Coho. We decided to keep on fishing for a while.
14:10 Nan's line again, this time a real fighter. She played it well though and got it right up to the boat when disaster almost struck... the fished decided to make a run around the downrigger wire that was still in the water. If it hadn't been all worn out it would have been gone. As it was, it just went 'round and 'round winding the leader around the wire and I reeled it up enough to get the fish, with the hook almost torn loose, in the net, a beautiful 13 pound King. Successful day! |
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15:30 Into Petersburg greeted by at least a million gulls. The fishing season is at its peak, the processing plant is running affluent into the channel 24 hours a day, the herring are here in great abundance, and the gulls are having a field day. They line the channel and cover the water for miles. Docked in stall 124 in the north basin, cleaned the fish, showered, put on clean clothes, and went up to Viking Travel to make arrangements for Nan to get to Sitka on Monday morning. That wasn't so easy...no scheduled flights that early. She may have to leave Sunday afternoon. Went to dinner at the Homestead Cafe...not bad but nothing like the Channel Club in Sitka.
10:30 Heading down the Wrangell Narrows. Lots of traffic today, both ways in the channel. It's a busy season.
11:30 Passing the fishing resorts near Blind Slough. There are three nice looking ones along the shore: Rocky Point Lodge, Green Rocks Lodge, and Island Point Lodge. There are also quite a number of weekend and summer cabins along the channel. From here it's only a few miles to either Sumner Strait or Frederick Sound, both great fishing areas.
13:00 Out of the narrows and into Sumner Strait. Stopped at the entrance and dropped the lines to the bottom with fresh herring on the hooks. No action so we moved on. Looking at the chart and our fishing atlas I thought there might be a halibut among the islands and rocks outside of Duncan Canal so we headed that way.
13:30 Dropped the lines again in a hundred feet of water about a mile north of Level Islands. We'd hardly gotten them down when both Nan and I had a fish on. She got hers in, a nice five pound chicken. Mine ran a ways and got off. That was it. We couldn't get another bite. We fished for an hour and a half, moved twice trying to find the same spot again, but nothing.
15:30 Pulled up and moved across the strait to the mouth of Saint John Harbor and tried again. Still nothing. So we went to trolling. That did it. Just outside Northerly Island Nan hooked a nice Coho. This time she got it to the boat with no complications...I pulled up the downrigger as she was playing the fish...but as I got it in the net it broke the leader. Lucky!
17:00 Anchored in Saint John Harbor. Several gillnetters here this evening. They have an opening starting at noon tomorrow so they are getting in position. Nan cleaned the fish...she's getting pretty good at that...and we packed most of it away in the freezer. It's almost full again. We bought a shipping box in Petersburg so we'll take care of that when Nan leaves tomorrow.
Beautiful sunset tonight over the islands.
11:00 Wrangell. Not so crowded this time. Most of the fishing boats are. No problem finding a spot on the float. Got tied up, went to home configuration and then took a walking tour of Wrangell from Shakes Island's beautiful longhouse and totems to the Stikine Lodge. Very quiet on this August Sunday. We found the LISERON at the downtown pier and talked with the crew for a few minutes. They were about to cast off on another northbound charter. Said they'd caught five halibut on the shelf west of Brothers Islands where we didn't get a nibble. Also said two other boats fishing with them got nothing. Called halibut "finicky fish".
Back from our tour about one, got Nan packed up...the fifty pound fish box we'd bought was completely full...took Porky's taxi to the Airport, and shipped her off to Seattle via Ketchikan and Sitka. The plane she took to Ketchikan goes on to Seattle and we tried to talk the agent into letting her stay on. No soap. Well, she'll have a nice view of Southeast today.
It was such a lovely afternoon that we walked back from the airport by way of the petroglyphs on the point. Took a while for us to locate them because there aren't any signs beyond the stairway down to the shore. There are a dozen or two designs chipped on black stones, the largest maybe three feet square, lying on the beach. They aren't particularly impressive until you think about why someone would have gone to all the work of chipping the designs in such small stones barely above the tide line.
09:02 On our way. Flat calm again out here today. Weatherman's predicting some drizzle tomorrow but no winds. No sign of the gillnetters as we head south down the east channel. The opening must be north.
10:30 At the narrows. Not much current here but lots of fish sign.
12:15 Blake Island. Our fishing atlas shows the area around Blake as good halibut country and I remember that the log at the Berg Bay cabin had several entries mentioning halibut there, so we stop and give it a try. We got both lines down, baited with Nancy's herring, and I'd set the clicker on mine while I went to check on our depth when it went screaming out. It acted too lively for a halibut but after quite a fight I pulled in nice little ten pounder. That was it though, we fished though a couple of more drifts with no action so gave up and headed across the bay to Anan.
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14:00 Anchored in about sixty feet of water off Anan Bay. We were hoping to anchor deep enough to find halibut here. Had lunch, got down Stormy, and went to see if we could fine the bears. We weren't disappointed. The stream was filled with salmon, mostly Pinks, thousands of them swimming in circles in the pools and trying to climb the falls. |
| The water in the falls below the observatory was pretty low so they were having a tough time of it but many had made it and were filling the stream above. While we were watching from the deck of the observatory a black bear and her two cubs came ambling up the other side of the stream. She was moving from rock to rock peering into each little pool. We didn't see her catch it but suddenly she had a big salmon crossways in her mouth like a dog carries a bone. With that she turned and disappeared back into the forest with the cubs following her. | 
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Back at the boat we tried fishing for halibut. Something kept jiggling our poles and stealing our bait but we hooked nothing. I cranked up the barbecue and we had london broil for dinner. Lois has been looking for a break in our fish diet.
11:30 Stopped at a sea mound half way between Easterly and Westerly Islands in Ernest Sound, another place where the atlas said there should be halibut. Dropped our lines to the bottom in 138 feet of water and almost immediately Lois had one on. It was a fighter but she played it well with our old single action reel and pulled in a nice ten pounder. It had had a bad day...a big circle hook with a two foot length of commercial halibut line was hanging from its mouth and the hook wound was still fresh. By the time we got it taken care of we'd drifted off the mound so we gave up halibut and headed for Vixen Harbor where we planned to spend a lazy afternoon.
13:00 The Vixen Harbor entrance is hard to spot but as we approached we started seeing jumping salmon so we decided to troll our way in while we looked for the hole in the forest lined shore. Wham, bam! Two nice silvers just like that. At this rate we'll have the freezer full again in no time.
13:45 Anchored in Vixen. This is kind of a neat place. Totally landlocked, with a 60 foot wide curving entrance only 12 feet deep at low tide, it's about a half mile deep and a quarter mile wide and forty feet deep with a mud bottom. Couldn't ask for better protection. We cleaned our fish...Lois did her halibut, skinning and all...and then just fooled around on the boat the rest of the afternoon. I dropped in the crab ring with the halibut carcass on it and an hour later pulled it up with a stripped carcass and twenty-three crabs. It was so heavy I could hardly lift it. Problem was they were all too small. Another drop did produce one keeper, but I suspect that the commercial guys, whose season just closed, got most of the legal sized ones.