2014-07-27 Fishing with Len & Lucy

Lisa says my blogs are too detailed, so this one is for her.

Went fishing with my friend Len and his mother Lucy, who was in town for about a week.
Caught some fish - here they are:

2014-07-14 Vacation Trip Part 2

We had a great birthday party for Grandson Bryan yesterday, in high 70 degree weather I might add, so it was time for part 2 of our vacation voyage.

We pulled out on Monday a little after noon, in sunny and hot weather, with a brisk NW wind in our faces.

Crew for this voyage was wife and First Mate Lisa, and First Puppy 'Bina.

Unfortunately we needed fuel again, so it was another obligatory stop at the fuel dock.  This time we had to wait about 45 minutes for our turn at the dock.  It happens sometimes.  There is only so much room at the dock.  We took on 80 gallons of diesel and left there about 2:15 PM.

Here's a shot of a beautiful yacht that pulled in to the fuel dock just as we were leaving.

And here are a couple more yachts at Doyon's Landing, a private moorage just on the south end of town.

I just hate it when you pull into a private moorage in your beautiful 100' yacht, only to have an even more beautiful 160' yacht pull in next to you!  The one on the right is the Glaze, which I photographed on an earlier trip this year.  It has a nice website if you are interested.

Here is a map snippet of the first portion of our trip.
It was hot and sunny and windy and I just wanted to chill out on the boat.
So we headed to a locally known hole called Ice House Cove.

It's only about 10 miles from town, so we did not log much distance today, but we did find a nice, secure, and beautiful place to spend the night.

The entry path into Ice House Cove is a little tricky, but I have gone in there in the pitch black in the dead of winter, so doing it in bright sunlight in mid afternoon was a piece of cake.

We got tied up to the mooring buoy at about 3:30 PM and just hung out for the rest of the afternoon.  Notice the side panels on the flybridge are pulled up to let some air in. 

When it got to be dinner time we enjoyed a great dinner of roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and green salad.

Around 7 PM we put the raft in the water (sans outboard) and rowed the short distance to shore so we could de-water Bina and she could stretch her legs a bit.  She's supposed to use the puppy pads on board but she hasn't been doing so well at that lately.  And of course we spoil her.

Sometimes things happen when you're out on these trips that seem odd and you can't explain.  About 8:30 PM, right at low tide, a small runabout came in and tied to the beach nearby.  This is not a nicely sloped sandy beach.  This is a steep and rocky beach.

There were 3 young adults on board, and one of them was carrying an infant in a front pack like carrier.  They tied off the boat and scrambled up the rocks, baby and all.  About an hour later they came back, still carrying the baby.  They scrambled down the rocks, got in the boat and left.  Who knows what they were up to.

When it got to be bedtime we realized that the wind had kicked up a bit and the waves were slapping up against the hull, making sleeping up in the front berth sort of like sleeping inside a base drum.  So we made up the couch bed and went to bed out there.

Tuesday morning we were up early and had a good breakfast and took Bina to shore again.

We pulled out about 10 AM.  We're on vacation after all.

Weather was sunny, with some patchy fog still rolling around.  And of course still breezy.

Here's a map snippet that shows the second portion of the route.

We went north into Carroll Inlet.

It's not very far up into the inlet.

We anchored in about 180' and started halibut fishing.
Lisa had this idea that if you stay on a halibut fishing spot for 6 hours then you will catch a halibut.
We stayed for 6 hours - we didn't catch a halibut.
We didn't catch anything.
But it was a pleasant spot to spend the afternoon.
We did see some Killer Whales pass by.
This was the best shot I could get of them.

We pulled anchor about 5:30 PM and headed to the Shoal Cove dock, just a couple of miles north in the inlet.

Interestingly enough the Shoal Cove dock is not in Shoal Cove.  It's too shallow in the cove for anything other than a skiff so the USCG and the USFS put their docks just a mile or so north of the cove itself.  The USCG used to maintain a LORAN station near Shoal Cove and they used the access road to get there.  LORAN was a navigational system before GPS, but the LORAN station has been shut down.

Just about the same time we arrived there a small runabout, perhaps 22' long or so, also arrived, with 5 "kids."  I called them kids, but Lisa said they were "young adults."

They set up a barbecue up at the top of the ramp and cooked a salmon fillet.  They ran around on the 4 wheelers, and generally had a good time.

Here is a picture of them when they were loading up to leave.  They had the 5 "kids," the two 4 wheelers, and they had picked up a dune buggy that apparently they left there a few days ago.  It was a pretty heavily loaded boat.

Dinner this evening was hamburgers and salad.

The Shoal Cove dock has a clear view of the western sky, which can lead to some very good sunset pictures, under the right weather conditions.  This was one of those times when I would run out and take a picture of the sunset, and then run out again 5 minutes later because it was better.  I think this picture was the best one of all of them.

We had a very quiet and restful night on board.

On Wednesday Lisa got up very early and took a few pics, and then of course went back to bed.

We had a good breakfast and then took a longer walk up the road.
Lisa was collecting rocks off the road - don't ask.

When we got back to the boat it was -2.1' tide, and the back of the boat was sitting in about 10' of water.  Good thing it only takes about 3.5' to float the boat.

We pulled out about 11:15 AM, headed to Thorne Arm, just up and around the corner.
Here's another map snippet that shows our short voyage this morning.

We anchored in about 180' for some more bottom fishing.
True to form the weather seemed to kick up as soon as I dropped the anchor, but thankfully it calmed down quite a bit before we left.
However, we got no fish, again.
This is what I told Lisa at the time:
"I have given up all hope of ever catching a halibut again."

Since it was late in the day when we anchored we did not have the obligatory 6 hours to stay there, per Lisa's mandate.

One of the blogs I follow states that while he, the boater/blogger, wants everything to go smoothly and have uneventful but enjoyable trips, his readers seem to want drama, things going wrong.

When we bottom fish I don't use the anchor that is on the winch.  There is not enough "rode" (chain and line) on that anchor.  I use a smaller anchor that has about 450' of line and chain on it.  The downside is that I don't have it on a winch.  I use a "buoy pull" system to pull that anchor.  That system is complicated and I don't think I can describe it properly here, but suffice it to say it is something of a challenge for two old people like us to pull it.

When I went to pull it, the anchor hung up on the bottom, and I could not get it up off the bottom.  This is a potentially dangerous situation, so I just put an extra buoy on the line and left it for the night.  I did call the USCG and notify them that I was leaving it.

Here's another map snippet that shows the very short run from where we were anchored to bottom fish to the spot inside Moth Bay where we anchored for the night.

I have anchored inside Moth Bay many times over the years.  It is a nice place to spend the night.

When we got in there there was a small sailboat named "Liberty" anchored in there, but there was plenty of room for us to anchor as well.

We got anchored up OK and then had a good dinner of hot dogs for me and hamburgers for Lisa, and salad for both.

About 8 PM we put the raft in the water and rowed Bina to shore.  On the way back we rowed over to the Liberty and chatted with the two guys on board.  They were just wrapping up a 9 day voyage around our island, and headed to town tomorrow.

At 9:30 PM, just before full dark, I reset the anchor, moving just a little closer to the Liberty, and a little further away from the big rock that was menacing us right off the stern.

Whenever we are anchored I am up several times in the night, checking our position on the GPS to make sure we are where we're supposed to be.  I also set a shallow water alarm on the GPS so that if we drift into shallow water an alarm will sound.

Thursday morning we were up about 7 AM.
The Liberty was gone - not unexpected.

We took a short shore excursion and then I got this shot of Lisa and Bina in the sunlight.

Here's where the drama starts...

We were sitting there enjoying breakfast, with the generator running, and I noticed that there were lots and lots of jelly fish around the boat.  And I mean lots!

Just about the same time I started worrying about the generator salt water intake sucking them up - the generator quit.  The generator is a small diesel engine that uses salt water for cooling.

The sea strainer that is the first filter on the sea water was plugged almost solid with jelly fish goo.
I neglected to take a picture of this, but you can thank me later.

I had a hard time cleaning out the sea strainer, and then I had to figure out how to get the remaining jelly fish goo out of the sea strainer canister.  I tried pliers, hooks of various sizes, screw drivers, etc. but nothing worked.  Pardon my language but it was like trying to suck snot out of a bottle.

Then I remembered that I had a large turkey baster on board.  Don't know why I put it on board.  That was the perfect tool to suck all that goo out of the sea strainer.

So then I tried to start the engines and the port engine would not start.
More drama.
I have run this boat for 7 years, putting almost 2000 hours on the engines, and without exception the engines have always started - until today.

It only took a few minutes for me to discover that the port engine starting battery was low, and that's why the engine wouldn't start.  Now that the generator was functional again I could start it and run the battery charger for awhile to charge the batteries.

After charging the batteries for awhile I successfully started the port engine.
However, it would not kick into gear.
The starboard engine was fine, but the port engine was in permanent neutral.

I am no mechanic so I called my mechanic on my sat phone.
He said he thought the problem was electrical because my engine controls are electronic.
So I shut everything down, waited awhile, and then started the engines again.
Everything was fine.
Guess I rebooted.

We pulled the anchor and went back out to where our other anchor was stuck on the bottom.
After some very tense moments and some very hard work, we were able to successfully pull the anchor.  I had thought I might have to cut the line and say good-bye to it.

Around noon we start trolling again at the entrance to Carroll Inlet, near Ice House Cove, where we had stayed the first night out.  There were fish jumping everywhere.

After only about 2 hours of trolling we had 2 nice Pinks and 2 even nicer Silvers on board.

We headed back to the Shoal Cove dock (we like it there) arriving there about 4 PM.

Here are the fish we caught.

Dinner this evening consisted of fresh Silver salmon cooked on the Foreman Grill, potatoes, veges, and salad.  Very good.

After about 2 1/2 weeks of warm sunny weather the rains finally returned.

We had a quiet evening on board and a very restful night, listening to the rain.

On Friday morning we were up, and had a quick breakfast, and then took another longer walk up the road, in the rain.  Lisa's still collecting rocks.

We fired up the engines (without incident this time) about 10 AM and headed for home, arriving in the stall at about 1 PM.

We logged about 100 nm on this trip.

Another successful voyage on Faraway.

Back to work on Monday - ugh.

2014-07-08 Vacation Trip, Part 1

I had 2 weeks vacation coming and of course wanted to spend as much of that time as possible out on the boat.  However, since the 8th birthday party for grandson Bryan was scheduled for July 12th I planned two trips, with a stop in town in between so that we could attend the party.

For this trip my crew was wife and First Mate Lisa, grandson Bryan, and First Puppy 'Bina.

Here are a couple of map snippets that show the first portion of the trip.

This first one shows us going west through Tongass Narrows, and then turning north into Clover Pass, which is in western Behm Canal.

This second map shows the northern portion of the route.
We did take a 2 night detour into Traitors Cove, which shows on this map, but the blue line doesn't run over there.

The northern most portion of this route terminated in Shrimp Bay/Klu Bay, which are connected.

We pulled out about 10 AM on Tuesday morning July 8th.
The weather was overcast, with occasional rain, and light SE winds.
Unfortunately I needed to get fuel before we could start the trip proper so we stopped at the fuel dock and took on 95 gallons of diesel, leaving the fuel dock about 11 AM.

Here's a shot of the crew looking at some whales that were too far off in the distance for decent photos.  Sometimes all we see of the whales are the spouts they shoot up in the air when they come up for a quick breath.  If you happen to be close enough you can smell it, and guess what it smells like?  Fish!

We tried some trolling at Vallenor Point but it was too rocky and rolly so we moved inside Clover Pass where it was much calmer.  We trolled there for just about an hour and got 1 nice Pink salmon, and a real nice Silver salmon.  I don't carry a scale, but the Silver measured 30", which is pretty big for a Silver.  They are fun to catch.  They are strong and run a lot, and frequently exhibit their aeronautical skills when hooked, becoming airborne several times.

The Pinks are smaller and much less acrobatic, but still make a good meal.  Many old timers in this area don't even keep the Pinks, but I usually do.

I did not want a huge load of salmon to deal with since we were planning to stay out a few more days, so we pulled the gear and headed to Marguerite Bay, in Traitors Cove, where I have gone many times previously.  The USFS dock was empty and we got tied up successfully at about 5:30 PM.

Here is a shot of the 2 salmon we got earlier.  Bina of course was very interested in the slime dripping off them!  You can probably figure out which one is the Pink and which is the Silver.

A small work boat came in and tied up and we chatted with the worker.  Ketchikan Redi-Mix is still working on the roads and he had a small camp and some equipment up on the logging road.  The small portion of road that we could walk was in very good shape.  He said that he found our other life jacket which we apparently dropped on the road when we were here in late April for our trout fishing experience.  That was good news.  He said he would drop it off on the boat later on when he was in town.

Bryan immediately went into dock fishing mode, an activity which would occupy a good percentage of his time while we were here.  He caught so many fish we stopped taking pictures of them, but here are a few.

This one is a Turbot.  It is a small flounder like fish that Cheechakos sometimes mistake for a halibut.  They have almost no meat on them, and so we consider them a scrap fish and toss them back.   We did not actually count, but a conservative estimate would be that he caught 29 1/2 of these fish.  You'll see why I said 1/2 in a minute.

Here's the half Turbot.  Bryan said he was pulling it in and felt a big tug on the line.  At first we thought a seal might have bitten it in half, but in this next photo you'll see what we think was the real culprit.

We call these Dogfish sharks.  Don't know if that is scientifically accurate or not.
He ended up catching 5 or 6 of these.
They are usually between 2 and 4 feet long.
We don't keep them.

We took a short walk up the road and then returned to the boat for a great dinner consisting of fresh Silver salmon, corn on the cob, and salad.

After dinner Bryan continued his dock fishing and Lisa and I cleaned up and did some boat chores.

Heavy rain later in the evening.

Lisa and Bryan watched a Lego movie while I sharpened the fillet knives and did some other chores. I never get bored while out on the boat.  There is always something to do.

A pleasant serene place to spend the night.

I love sleeping on the boat when it is raining hard.  You can lay up in that forward berth all warm and dry and comfortable and hear the rain hitting the foredeck.  Just love it.

On Wednesday morning I cooked some pancakes for breakfast, and then Bryan caught some more sharks and Turbot.

Around 10 AM the sailboat "A.Herodias" came in.
They are the military grey sailboat on the right side of this picture.

I first met Bob and Norma on the A.Herodias probably 30+ years ago when I was making a trip around the island.  We were back in the Misty Fiords area and they were tied to the only mooring buoy in the area.  They graciously offered to let us tie alongside of them for the night.  I recall that we had caught a King salmon and they had caught some crabs, so we traded them some King Salmon for some crab.

Now they are in their 80's and they still live on the boat full time.
Good for them, I say.
They said they were not going back into town until the end of summer.
An interesting life choice.
Very interesting people to talk to.
I should have gotten a picture of them - maybe next time.

We geared up and walked up the road to the bear and fish viewing platform.
At this time of the year the fish are not yet in the rivers, so I didn't expect to see any bears, but you never know.

Here's Bryan at the bear and fish viewing platform.
Those panels behind him are camouflaged on the outer side and there are drop down sections. 
Later in the summer, starting real soon, they fly tourists in from the cruise ships, run them up the logging road in vans, and bring them down to this platform to see the bears.
Thankfully that activity has not started yet this summer.

Lisa had a different plan in mind for our time at the viewing platform.
Note the new addition to her wardrobe this year - the mosquito netting shroud, for lack of a better term.
Bugs rarely bother me, but they really like her, so she has to have as many remedies and protections as possible.  She said this shroud sort of works, but they seem to get in through the wrist bands.

While we were there Bryan alerted us to a bear down in the river.
He was checking out the river to see if any fish were there - but there were not any.

We made our way back to the boat around lunch time.

The excursion vessel Modoc came in and anchored nearby.

The 200' Modoc was formerly a Canadian Coast Guard vessel but has now been converted into a pleasure excursion vessel.  I have noted it in previous blog posts.  You can see that some extra decks have been added aft of the living quarters to allow them to carry several water toys, such as kayaks, speed boats, tenders and other small boats.  There were also two 30' charter boats accompanying them which were too large to carry on board.  The Modoc has a great website if you are interested in more information about the boat or the tours that they offer.

After lunch I started prepping the crab pots, but got interrupted when a friend of mine who ties up near me on the Sea Dancer pulled in.  The Sea Dancer is a 40' Mainship, while the Faraway is a 34' Mainship.  They had the whole family with them and we ended up spending a little bit of dock time with them later on.

The Sea Dancer is the one with the red bottom paint.

Finally I got time to run out and set the crab pots from the raft.

Then Lisa, Bryan, Bina and I took a little raft excursion around the area.  It was a calm afternoon.

Dinner this evening was hamburgers, macaroni & cheese, salad and veges.
We don't do survival trips.

After dinner we took a short walk up the road and ran into this little critter.  I think it was a mink, but it may have been a marten.  I need to read up on them so I can tell them apart.  Cute little guy, and very photogenic.

A little later in the evening I pulled out my small barbecue and put together a little dock fire.
I put a fireplace log on the barbecue and fired it up.
Then we pulled out the marshmallows.
I had previously cut some alder sticks to use for cooking them.
There were a couple of other kids from the other boat and Bryan and they had a good time cooking marshmallows over the fire.

Bed time - about 10 PM.

Thursday morning we were up early.
We had a good breakfast of pancakes, fruit, and eggs.

I ran out and pulled my two crab pots, yielding only two crabs, one of which was a female.
It wasn't really worth the effort to set up my propane cooker for 1 crab so I gave it to Bob & Norma on the A.Herodias.

Bryan went with me to go pull the crab pots.

Here's the female, with the very rounded section underneath.
Females go back in the water.

This is a legal male.
They have to be 6 1/2" across the back.
This is the one I gave to Bob & Norma.

I prepped the boat for departure and we pulled out about 11:30 AM, headed north in Behm Canal, towards Shrimp Bay and Klu Bay.

We had smooth running and calm seas on the way north.

I prepped the shrimp pots as we approached Shrimp Bay and dropped them right in the middle, where I have dropped them on previous trips.

Here is Faraway tied to the mooring buoy in Klu Bay.
This is one of my most favorite places to be.
So peaceful and beautiful.
That blue boat just visible in the background is the "HRB - Hot Ruddered Bum."
Yep, that's right.  There's no accounting for boat names.

We put the raft in the water and took a little shore excursion.
We came across this baby seal, that just didn't look quite right.
I think it may have been injured or possibly abandoned.
Lisa of course wanted to rescue it, which of course we cannot do.
Seals are a protected marine mammal and there are rules.
I don't exactly know what the rules are but I know we would not have been able to go up to it and pick it up and take it back to the boat.

Dinner was spaghetti this evening, and Bryan ate more than both Lisa and I combined.

After dinner we had showers all around.

I don't recall if I have pontificated about on board showers yet in this blog, so I will do that here.
There is a huge temptation to fill the shower stall up with all manner of gear, such as life jackets, fishing tackle, extra bedding, extra food, etc. etc.  Space is everything on a small boat.

I have worked very hard to keep the shower stall open and ready for business.

The hot water tank on the boat only holds 6 gallons, which is considerably smaller than that of a home hot water tank.

Also the fresh water pump produces water pressure which is acceptable, but is certainly less than that of a home based water system.

The shower on the Farway originally did not drain properly.
I dug into the problem and discovered that the drain hose took a detour up and over a structural element and that gravity alone was not sufficient to cause it to drain.  The whole area was inaccessible, so I could not reroute the drain hose.

My friend Len helped me redesign the drainage system and install a drain pump, so now the shower drains well, when you turn the pump on.

Then of course there is the issue of the amount of fresh water we carry.
We only carry 70 gallons in the tanks, and then a few more in jerry jugs.
So we can only take showers if there is enough fresh water for the rest of the trip.

But then on the other hand, at a certain point any shower is better than no shower.
So we enjoyed them.

It was a truly beautiful evening to be out on the water.

Friday morning we woke up to another beautiful sunny day.

 There's HRB anchored up at the head of the bay.

We had a quick breakfast and pulled away from the mooring buoy at about 8:30 AM.

On the way out we saw these deer on the beach.

We pulled the shrimp pots and got a small haul of about a quart of tails.
Not much, but it's something.

We stopped at the halibut hole in front of Naha Bay and dropped the anchor.
The weather was nice when we anchored, but as usual it picked up as soon as I dropped the anchor.
Lisa and Bryan ended up getting a little seasick, so we pulled anchor and left after a couple of hours of not catching anything.

We got into the stall about 6 PM after traveling about 101 nautical miles on this voyage.

We had a great time and it was good getting to spend some uninterrupted time with Bryan.

2014-07-04 Last fishing with Jennifer & Memo

Well, Jennifer and Memo leave on Sunday so we had to go out at least one more time to get some more fish for them.

The general plan for this trip was to leave Friday morning, the 4th of July, and stay out at least one night, and possibly two nights.  They were scheduled to leave on Sunday afternoon.

The weather was not so nice when we pulled out on Friday morning.

Here is a map snippet of Bar Harbor to Naha Bay so you can see the general area where we were for most of the time.

We started out trying to fish at Vallenor Rocks, which is usually better fishing this time of year.  But sometimes you have to fish where you can, not where you want to, due to the weather.  It would have been impossible for this crew to fish there, so we moved into Clover Pass where the water was calmer.

We trolled for a few hours and ended up with 2 Silvers and 1 Pink in there.  And of course we lost a few that we never saw, and got some under sized Kings which had to be released (not in the Terminal Harvest area).

In early afternoon we prepped and then dropped the shrimp pots in the Clover Pass area, near Salmon Falls.  I have done well there in the past.

Then we moved over to the Grant Island area.  I was surprised at how calm and beautiful it was there.  But we got no fish there that we could keep.

From there we moved on out to Indian Point, which does not quite show on the map snippet.  I miscalculated here, thinking it would be calm, but it wasn't.  We trolled there anyway, but slowly made our way towards the Loring/Naha area.

We dropped our crab pots in front of Loring, and then went in to the dock at the Naha, where I have stayed many times.

I was concerned, as I always am, about getting a spot at the dock, since it is first come first served.  But we were lucky and were able to get up to the dock.  We tied up about 5:45 PM.

We took our obligatory walk around the loop and then started on dinner.

Jennifer saw this little guy along the trail.

Jennifer & Memo prepared a wonderful dinner of quesadillas.

After dinner I cleaned the fish, and Jennifer and Memo took a ride in the raft.

Memo shows off his catch of the day.

Memo and Jennifer along the Naha trail "Loop."

I apologize for the cloud of noxious fumes billowing out the back of the kicker on the raft.  Lisa is after me to replace that 1988 motor with an electric kicker.  Silent, no gas fumes, lighter, etc.

Jennifer got some good sunset pics from the raft.

We had a quiet night on board.

On Saturday we were up fairly early and had a good breakfast.  It was overcast with light rain.

We pulled out abut 8:10 AM and immediately went for the crab pots.  Too bad so sad only big starfish in them this time.

After that we went for the shrimp pots - taking a mediocre load.

We ran back up into Clover Pass and started trolling again.

After losing a real nice Silver right at the boat we finally hit a good fish.
It ran hard and I coached Memo on when to reel and when to wait.
We finally boated a 30" King.
It fought a lot bigger than it looks in this picture - it was a real nice King.
And I was so glad that Memo was able to get it in.

After that we just pulled the gear and headed in.
It's good to end on a good note.

Back in the stall about 4 PM.