2014-05-26 Memorial Day Trip

Memorial Day weekend signals the official beginning of fishing and cruising season in these parts.  It is also traditionally the first weekend of the King Salmon Derby.  In years past I would fish the salmon derby obsessively, but in recent years not so much.

For this year's Memorial Day trip my crew was my wife Lisa and our little puppy Bambina ('Bina).

Our goals for this trip were very simple, just to relax and enjoy ourselves.

I had just gotten the boat back in the water on Thursday so she was looking fine, if I do say so myself.

After loading gear and groceries I fired up the engines at 10 AM, and we pulled out at 10:15 AM.
The weather was overcast with light SE winds.

The intended route for this trip was North up into Western Behm Canal.  It is a long route and so to properly show it I have broken it up into two portions.  Total distance without diversions is about 45 nm (nautical miles).

This is the northern portion of the route, from Naha Bay up through Shrimp Bay and into Klu Bay -

And this is the southern portion, from Ketchikan to Naha Bay.

We headed North up into Western Behm Canal, and made a brief stop in Clover Pass and shut down the engines and drifted while we had lunch.

I apologize for the lack of pictures on this trip, but sometimes I get so caught up in the moment that I forget to take them.

The cruise ships are here in full force now and one of the tour activities they participate in is kayaking.  Here are a few of them in Clover Pass:

Quite colorful, aren't they?  As for myself, I've never been in a kayak.  I've done a lot of canoeing, but no kayaking.

Lisa and Bina spent a lot of time sleeping on this trip:

We stopped and did some bottom fishing near Gedney Pass.
The weather was nice so we just drifted while fishing.
I got a few "Brown Bombers" aka Rock Cod.
The only keeper I got was a big Red Snapper.
This one had a squid (or cuttle fish?) hanging out of his mouth.
Did not have time to get a picture before it drifted away.
I forgot to take a picture, but here is one from my files just so you can see what a Red Snapper looks like.

We moved around a bit and tried some bottom fishing in a few different places.  The weather was so nice and the water so calm that we eventually just drifted out in the open and prepared dinner.  Dinner consisted of fresh Red Snapper grilled on the Foreman Grill, salad, and veggies.  Terrific!

By now it was getting to be around 7:15 PM and I anticipated sunset about 8:30 PM, so it was time to get packing towards our night spot.

I baited and prepped the shrimp pots and got them ready to set, and we headed towards Shrimp Bay, that's right, Shrimp Bay.

As we entered the bay I noticed what I initially thought was a log about mid channel.  The water was very calm, but it looked like there was a ripple behind the log, almost like it was being towed by something, but there were no other boats around.

As we got closer I realized that it was a Black Bear swimming.  Now there's something you don't see every day.  I did not have time to put my telephoto lens on.  We only had a minute or two before he made it to shore, so these are the best pictures that we could manage.

He knew we were there and didn't like it much.  Once he made it to shore he scooted up the rocks without even shaking off the water.

I've seen a lot of deer swimming, and even a moose swimming, but not a bear.  You never know what you'll see out here.  You just have to be ready.

Right after that we dropped the shrimp pots right in the middle of Shrimp Bay.  As we set them we noticed another bear on the beach.  I got as close as I could and Lisa shot a few pics.

This is the time of year when the bears are out but there are no salmon in the streams yet, so they spend a lot of time on the beaches eating grass, turning over rocks looking for whatever they can find.

Shrimp Bay connects to Klu Bay, and when we went through the passage into Klu Bay I could see two boats in there.  One was a large cruising sail boat, anchored, and the other was small runabout, also at anchor.  I figured if they were anchored, the mooring buoy would surely be taken, but it wasn't.

The two guys from the smaller boat had made a tent camp on shore.

We had a very quiet night on the mooring buoy.

On Sunday morning we were up early.  It was calm with light rain falling.  By the time breakfast had ended, so had the rain.

As we made our way into Shrimp Bay we stopped in front of the double waterfalls and got a couple of good shots.

We pulled the shrimp pots but only got a couple of dozen. 

We moved on up to Bailey Bay and dropped the shrimp pots again, maybe better luck this time around.

We did a little more bottom fishing, but the breeze was starting to pick up and it was harder to find places that were protected from the wind.

So I decided to set the trolling gear and try trolling for salmon for awhile.
We trolled for about 3 hours in Behm Narrows, which a little later in the summer will be one of the hottest fishing areas around - but we're just a little too early.  No fish.

By now the afternoon winds had really picked up and it was getting really choppy.  Lisa was getting uncomfortable and it was up to me to fix that.

We pulled into Bailey Bay, nodded to our shrimp pots as we passed them by, and tied up to the mooring buoy at about 6 PM.  It was still very breezy in there and the mooring buoy seemed awfully close to shore, but I put two lines on it and we were home for the night.  73.3 nm to this point.

I fired up the Coleman gas stove and boiled the shrimp on the back deck.

Dinner this evening consisted of shrimp, chicken grilled on the Foreman Grill, salad and veggies.

After dinner we made a short shore excursion in the raft. 

Here is Faraway tied to the mooring buoy.  In the background on the shore you can see a diamond shaped trail head marker.  This trail goes up to Lake Shelokum.  There is an amazing water fall at the near end, and at the far end is a natural hot springs.  No time to go up the trail on this trip.

Here's Bina taking Lisa for a walk ... wait, did I say that right?

That breeze that was so strong when we pulled in just died completely, and it was a beautiful evening.

We had another very quiet night on the mooring buoy.

On Monday morning, Memorial Day, we pulled away from the mooring buoy in sunny, calm, cool weather.

First stop was to pull the shrimp pots.  Got about the same amount as last time, but this time we had an octopus in the pot.  The first time I got an octopus in the pot I dumped him out on the deck and then had a devil of a time getting him back in the water without harming him.  Now I have it down pat.  I just dump him in the orange tub with the shrimp, and then put the tub on the corner of the swim step, and he gets out by himself.

Somehow they sense the direction of the water because they always climb out on the correct side of the tub.

While they are in the shrimp pot they fill up on shrimp.  I find empty shrimp shells that look like they've had the meat sucked out with a strong suction pump.  Not a shred of meat left inside.

And he's just about home free.

We were a long way from home, many miles to cruise, so we just stowed the pots and headed south.

The run home was flat calm for awhile, just about up to the time I commented on how calm it was.  After that it got rough.  Figures.

We made it into the stall at about 2:30 PM.
Total trip mileage was 116 nm.

Another successful adventure aboard Faraway.

2014-05-22 Spring Maintenance

Boats in this country exist in a harsh marine environment.

One might be tempted to think that if the boat just stays in the stall and never goes anywhere that its condition will remain status quo.  False!  A boat deteriorates even just sitting in the stall.  And it deteriorates even more when you use it - unless you take care of it.

Faraway represents a major commitment for me, certainly financially, but also in other ways.  And so a certain level of maintenance is required.

I had the boat hauled out on May 8th, and she went back in the water May 22nd, exactly 2 weeks later.  Below is a picture from a previous haul-out so you can see the massive machine they use to lift the boat and move it around.

I pull the boat into a staging area below the area that you see here.  They lower the straps beneath the boat and then just lift it up.  This lift can carry up to 50 tons.  Faraway weighs approximately 10 tons.

Then the operator drives the boat along to where it will be set up on barrels and blocks so that I can work on it.

I will make a long story short here and cut to the chase.

Over those 2 weeks I sanded the bottom (a miserable job I might add), painted the bottom (2 coats of $140 per gallon paint), had the blue "boot stripe" at the water line repainted, and had the bite in the swim step repaired.  I also replaced all the zincs, and cleaned out the bow thruster tunnel thoroughly.  I also cleaned and waxed the sides from the water line up to the gunwales. 

Here is a picture of the boat right before she was relaunched.

I'm glad spring maintenance is done.

2014-04-25 Margaret Lake Trout Fishing

Some of you may recall that in mid April 2013 I went on a trout fishing trip in Margaret Lake.  We had such a blast on that trip last year that I really wanted to make another trip like that one this year.

For the trip this year I had my grandson Tyler, aged 9, and my long-time friend Bob Hammer going along as crew. 

I wanted to make the trip without having to take a day off from work, so I had everything ready to go before Friday morning and I went on to work very early that day so that I could take off for the weekend at about 1:30 PM.  I went over and picked up Tyler a little early from school, and Bob met us down at the boat.  We pulled out just a little ahead of schedule at about 3 PM.

The weather was sunny with light SE winds.  Pretty good traveling weather.

 

The above two map snippets show the route from my home stall in Bar Harbor north up into Behm Canal, and then into Traitors Cove, and then into Marguerite Bay.  Total distance one way is about 28 nautical miles.

There is a USFS dock there that is first come first served for moorage, and the lake is about a mile up the logging road.  A friend of mine has a small metal skiff hidden in the brush near the lake which would allow us to get out on the lake and fish.

We had a rough ride for the last portion of the trip, probably about a 6 on my 1 - 10 list of rough water.  I'm sure it was the roughest water that Tyler had experienced.  I was piloting from the flybridge helm and Tyler was in the cabin down below so I asked Bob to go down and check on him, and also to clear things off the counters that might go flying.  Tyler was struggling a bit but he held his own and managed to hold his lunch down until we got into calmer waters.

Once we got inside Traitors Cove we prepared the shrimp pots (3) and crab pots (2) and dropped all of them before heading in to the dock.  There were some guys there from Ketchikan Redi Mix working on the road, but other than that, the dock was clear and we got a good spot at the dock (very important for this expedition).

Here is my contented crew at the USFS dock on Friday evening.  Tyler was breaking in the brand new fishing rod and reel that I had gotten him for this trip.

We were treated to a beautiful sunset that evening, and I had one pretty happy and excited grandson.

We spent the remainder of the evening getting our gear organized for a long day of fishing on Saturday.

On Saturday morning we were up early and had a cold breakfast so that we could get moving more quickly.  The weather was on and off, with rain showers now and then.

The protocol here was to load all the gear we'd need into my rolling cart, and walk the mile or so up the road to the lake.  Sorry I forgot to get a picture of the loaded cart before we headed up the road.  We had to take the 4 HP motor (53 lbs), extra fuel, tire pump, life jackets, life cushions, oars, canvas deck chair, firewood log, and of course we each had our fishing gear and our own personal gear in our back packs.  The little cart was fully loaded.

It was a tough haul getting all that gear up the road, but with Bob and I both pulling we made it in good time.

Once up at the lake we left the cart along the side of the logging road and then busted through the brush to where the skiff was hidden.  Then we paddled the skiff back to where the cart was and mounted the motor and loaded the gear aboard.  It was tough work, but having a skiff and a motor on that lake made it very much worth it.

We spent the whole day fishing the lake, either from the gravel bar at the head of the lake where the inlet stream comes in, or from the skiff.  Weather was good and bad throughout the day.  I wore my rain gear all day, so that tells you a little about the predominant weather.  We had several rain squalls, at least 2 or 3 intense hail storms, interspersed with periods of blue sky.

Here are several shots taken throughout the day at various times that show how we did.  Obviously I could not take pictures during the drenching rain storms or the pelting hail storms, so the pictures may not give a true impression of the weather situation.  But at least you can see that we did catch a few fish.

Tyler said that he caught all his fish on his "lucky lure."  But when I asked him if he had tried any other lures, he said no.  Hmm, how does that work?

Bob brought both fly fishing gear and spinning gear.

I had brought along one of those Presto Log type firewood logs, thinking we could have a nice fire on the gravel bar.  But frankly it was so breezy and cold that even though it did light, it did not provide much warmth or even much esthetic value.

Bob hates to wear rain gear, preferring wool gear, so the fact that he actually put his rain gear on shows you what it was like just previous to this picture being taken.

I know I have posted numerous pictures of Margaret Lake from the bridge, but it is such a beautiful setting that I cannot resist posting yet one more.

After re stowing the skiff, and loading the cart we then had to walk back to the boat lugging that cart with all the gear, plus now we had fish to deal with.  Thankfully it is mostly downhill on the return trip.

Here's a proud little boy with a pretty good stringer full of trout.

That evening after dinner we had a couple of visitors, one I could get a picture of and one that I could not.  We saw this heron (or crane?) fishing near the boat and that was cool.  But then, way across the bay, on the other shore, I saw movement and put the binoculars on it.  It was a wolf walking along the beach.  Too far away to take a picture, but that is way cool, because you just don't see wolves that often in this country.

On Sunday morning we took the time to enjoy a hot breakfast of bacon and eggs.  After that Bob and I took Tyler up the road and gave him the opportunity to shoot his first real firearm, my old .22 rifle that I've had since high school.  Darned if I didn't forget to take my camera up the road with us.  He really enjoyed it and he actually made that Mt Dew can dance!

We pulled out from the dock about 8:45 AM and pulled the pots.  Got only 1 keeper crab, but a pretty good load of shrimp.

Tyler was impressed with the baby Tanner crab that was in the pot.

We tried a little bit of halibut fishing on the way home, but all we managed to do there was to lose some gear after getting hung up on the bottom.  I guess the fishing Gods were telling us that we're only allowed to have just so much fun on one trip.

I shut down the engines and we drifted out there while I cooked up some hot dogs for lunch.

We just ran to town from there, going through some rain squalls and a little chop.  Tyler sacked out on the couch down in the main cabin while Bob and I ran from the flybridge.

We got into the harbor about 3 PM with total trip mileage of about 56 nautical miles.

Another successful adventure on Faraway!

2014-03-22 Marguerite Bay Trip

I had been aching to get out again for some time, but bad weather and home and boat projects had kept me in port for awhile.  But the weather forecast for this weekend was looking good so I decided to make a trip to Marguerite Bay.  I had not been there yet this year and it is always a neat place to visit.

This first map segment shows the general route from Bar Harbor out to Marguerite Bay.  It is in Traitors Cove, which is in Behm Canal.  Behm Canal is the body of water that runs completely around our island.

This second map segment shows a little more detail of the entrance to Traitors Cove, and shows the location of the lake.  I've never figured out why the navigational charts show it as Marguerite Bay when the land maps show it as Margaret Lake.

In any case, I pulled out about 7 AM on Saturday morning in cool, calm, and partly cloudy weather.  Winds were light from the NW.

On the way out an alarm started sounding.  On a boat there are numerous things that can generate an alarm, none of them good.  I started searching all over to try to locate the source of the alarm.  Was it low engine oil, high engine temperature, high water in the bilge?  No, when unpacking the groceries and stowing them I must have hit the button on the kitchen timer.  That's about the only alarm on the boat that generally signifies something good.

Here are some ferries sitting at the shipyard docks.  All the ferries are named after glaciers (no, I don't know why.)  Also notice the bright orange life boat on the ferry Tustomena.  It is one of those totally enclosed, self-righting life boats.  Having never been inside one of them I must assume that the pilot sits in the raised section aft (near the back), which is where the small windows are.

I had a beautiful but uneventful run through Clover Pass and on up into Behm Canal proper. Water conditions were excellent.

As I approached Naha Bay I decided to drop my personal use halibut skate on the halibut hole out in front.  AK Dept of Fish  & Game allows a personal use halibut skate of 2 hooks only to be dropped as long as you are not rod fishing while it is down.  Basically it is a small anchor on the bottom, a long line with 2 hooks attached, and a buoy at the top.  I have yet to catch anything worthwhile on this, but it is easy to set and to pull so I continue to try.

I have been told that halibut like to feed on shallow plateaus that are surrounded by lots of deep water.  Check out this shot of my GPS unit.  It shows the current depth at over 1000', and the depths around waypoint #72 to be around 240'.  A waypoint is a fixed location on the ocean that is marked and identified by latitude and longitude.  I dropped my skate right near WP #72.

Since it was so calm out here I took this opportunity to prepare and bait my shrimp pots so that they'd be ready when I got into Traitors Cove.

Oil pressure in my port engine was reading a little low, so I shut down the engine and went down to the engine room and added oil to the engine.  That made it much happier.

I got safely inside Traitors Cove and dropped my 3 shrimp pots.  Then I prepped and baited my 2 crab pots and also dropped them, then went in to the dock.

Not a bad place to spend the night, don't you think?  Looks like I have the place to myself.

I have to warn you about this next shot.  It is a shot of wolf "scat," so if you are sensitive to this type of photo you might want to skip over it quickly.

There was a lot of wolf sign on and near the road.  Ever since I ran into that wolf in January (see my Shelter Cove trip posting) I have been more aware of their presence.  For this trip I loaded more rounds into my pistol magazines and made sure they were more accessible than in the past.

In any case, it appears that wolves cannot digest fur, or bones, or in this case, claws.  I've been trying to figure out what he ate that had claws like that.

I walked up to the first bridge, which is a little over a mile I think.  I know I have posted pictures of the lake from here before, but it was so clear and so sunny that I cannot resist posting just a couple more.  This time I remembered my polarizing filter which I have been told "puts the blue back in the sky," and so I hope they look just a little better this time.

My original plan had been to walk along the side of the lake until I got past the lake outlet area and do some fishing.  But as you can see the main part of the lake is still iced up.  So I fished in the outlet area for about an hour.  My biggest catch was about an 18 incher, hemlock I think, but could have been spruce.  I don't really know my woods like I should.

On the way back to the boat I took the detour down to the Margaret Creek Bear and Fish Viewing platform.  This is like a poor man's Anan Creek (see my Anan Creek posting from last summer.)  I rarely come here in the summer and so I rarely see either bears or fish here.

I came across this great "Bear Bread" fungus on the hike down to the platform.

I took a few shots of the fish ladder.  For those uninitiated in the ways of the salmon, a fish ladder is a man made detour around a particularly difficult section of river or creek, usually a falls that the fish cannot get over or around.  The fish ladder allows the salmon to bypass that obstacle and thus gain access to the creek or river or lakes that are above it for spawning.

It is a marvel to me that the salmon find their way to the fish ladder, but it is obvious that they do.

In this last shot you can just see the end of the fish ladder (mostly hidden by trees) as it enters calm man made pools, which continue to work their way around the obstruction.

It sure is nice to have a few more hours of daylight to work with now.  In the dead of winter I'd have to be back at the boat by 3:30 or 4:00 PM.  Now it is staying light until 7 PM or so.

I made my way back to the boat and was rewarded with just a beautiful evening in the bay.  Check out this sunset.

I had a quiet evening on board, spent playing guitar, reading, doing cross words, etc.  I always bring lots of "diversions" with me so I never get bored.

It was very quiet night with the stars out.  In the morning I was greeted with ice around the dock and around the boat.  Not heavy ice, but ice nonetheless.

Some docks are more prone to ice than others.  The Naha has the strong current from the river there so we rarely have ice around the dock.  There is a river (creek) here as well, but it is further away from the dock and there wasn't much wind overnight, so all around the dock and the boat was a thin layer of skim ice.

If the ice is thick enough it can damage a fiberglass hull.  It didn't look that bad to me and I wasn't planning to leave for a few hours so I wasn't worried about it.

Another small boat came in right before I pulled out, and they cleared a small path through the ice.  They were headed up the road for a short hike.

I pulled out about 10:15 AM and immediately pulled the 2 crab pots.  The first pot had 7 crabs, but only 3 of them were legal size.  A couple were very very close, but I tossed them back anyway.

The second crab pot had only 1 crab in it and he was clearly undersized, so back in the water he went.

Some of you may recall that I follow boats all over the world, and one of them blogged that while his readers want high drama, close calls, etc. he just wants everything to run calmly and smoothly.  Here is where some drama kicks in.

I went to pull my shrimp pots and had a lot of trouble.  There was a very stiff breeze blowing in the bay and that makes it very hard just to come up to the pots and hook the line.  When I am by myself and the boat is blowing all over the place I cannot pilot the boat and hook the line at the same time.  I cannot take a chance on running over the line with the boat and getting a line in the prop so I have to be overly cautious.  I would rather miss hooking the line 100 times than snag a line in the prop even once.

When I finally did hook the line I threaded it through the pot puller (see my previous blog on how I go after shrimp).  I immediately saw a problem.  The pots appeared to be hung up on rocks or something because they weren't coming up through the puller.  In fact the line on the puller was being put under more and more tension as the wind blew the boat.

I reached out to try to get the line out of the pot puller so I could tie it off to a cleat, and while I was doing this, the downrigger base to which the puller attaches failed and the whole thing went over the side in a big hurry!  I was just lucky that it didn't take my finger or my hand with it.

I threw the buoys over..

I considered my options at this point.  I could try to snag the line again and run up wind and try to free the pots from whatever was anchoring them to the bottom.  But in this wind to do that maneuver by myself didn't seem too likely, so I decided just to leave them and to come back with help ASAP to salvage whatever I could.

The pots have release mechanisms on them.  These are sections of the webbing that are tied with a piece of cotton twine that will deteriorate in salt water in "x" days (don't know).  When that happens a panel opens up and the shrimp can escape.

Needless to say this was very discouraging.  The pots themselves are a little over $100 each, and the pot puller was over $500.  After that I sort of lost my desire to take any more pictures so I just ran for home.

Nothing on the halibut skate, again, but at least I got it back.

In the stall about 2:30 PM with about 55 nm for this trip.

If you take enough trips, eventually some bad stuff is going to happen.  I'm glad I didn't get injured and there was no damage to the boat itself.