It's fall and the weather can be pretty bad sometimes.
Not only do I need good weather, but I need it on a weekend, and that's asking a lot.
The forecast for this weekend was pretty good, but due to other commitments I could only get out for the day on Sunday. I don't usually do one day trips, preferring to stay overnight, but sometimes you take what you can get.
I must apologize for some of the photos in this posting. I must have bumped one of the many buttons or dials on my camera. I can tell it is not focusing the way it used to. I've spent some time looking in the manual, but have not found the magic button yet.
In any case I pulled out of the harbor just as it was getting light, about 7 AM.
Here are a couple shots behind me to the east where the sun was just starting to show.
My plan was to get the shrimp pots in the water just as soon as possible and then bounce around the area just bottom fishing wherever looked promising. Then get back to pull the pots about 2 PM and then head home with a goal of getting in around 5 PM. That's pretty much the way it turned out.
I dropped the shrimp pots in Clover Pass at my favorite spot by 9 AM, and then headed out to bottom fish.
To make a long story short, I got no halibut, or any bottom fish at all, so that was disappointing.
But, to make up for it, check out these shots of the water and the weather out where I was bottom fishing. To put things in perspective you have to realize that a lot of the time, perhaps most of the time, you can't even fish here. Look at the weather today! This is pretty rare for any day and even more rare for late October.
I went back to pull the shrimp pots and got there pretty much on schedule.
I usually leave the pots in overnight, so a 5 hour soak was a bit of a gamble.
They did pretty well, pulling in about 75 shrimp, mostly small ones.
Worth the effort and bait anyway.
When I pull the pots by myself I cannot really leave the puller and go do other things.
The pots are hanging off the rope on the puller and they need to be dealt with.
It was dead calm, totally quiet, and then "Whooosh!" like an explosion about 20 yards away from the boat.
It was a whale that surfaced and spouted right near the boat.
When they surface and blow it is quite explosive.
Unfortunately I could not leave the pots, so I missed a couple of good shots and only ended up with these.
Just as I was stowing the pots and preparing to behead the shrimp, I had a visitor, the US Coast Guard. Sorry for the blurry picture. They were out and about on this beautiful day as well, checking safety gear.
These are the things they checked:
My ID - check.
My documentation on the vessel - check.
In Alaska boats are either registered or documented.
Faraway is documented, and I have a certificate from the USCG that has to be renewed each year.
Life jackets - check.
Throwable life ring - check.
Horn or whistle - check.
Flares and smoke - check.
These expire and you have to make sure you have some that aren't expired.
It's OK to have some that are expired, which I did, but you must have unexpired flares and smoke.
The smoke is for daytime signalling.
Fire extinguishers - check.
2 are required for my size vessel.
I have 3.
They check to make sure they are fully charged.
Pollution placard - check.
You have to have a placard that reminds people that you can't discharge oil into the water.
Trash placard - check.
The trash placard shows how far offshore you have to be before you can legally discard different types of trash.
They gave me a copy of the boarding report, and since I had no violations it can be used as a get out of jail free card for a year. If they attempt to board me again for a safety check within a year I can just show them the report and they will not board me.
I got back into the stall right at 5 PM.
I like to be on time.
