From the Inner Edge of Nowhere

This has been a tough season so far.  The first two months of mechanical gyrations were well worthwhile; the improvements have made a world of difference in our confidence in our equipment.  Even though I still spend a lot of effort worrying about things, it is not with the same intensity of apprehension I felt with the older, worn out motor, rigging, and other gear of last year.  Things happen; seawater, wild, assaulting motion, and a host of other factors all eventually lead to failure, that’s just the way it works.  At least when you rebuild and replace things, you have a better understanding of weak spots and potential show-stoppers, and that helps one to deal with the whole experience.

The tough part right now is made up of two factors; weather and fish migration patterns.  This year, we have been hammered over and over by major weather systems that are spawned somewhere in Asia, travel the Russian coast, then head our way.  We have had 1 sunshiny day since August 1; the words “Rain likely” seem to be the mandatory wording for our weather report.  Rain isn’t a problem, it’s just a reality here.  The large ocean swells that these big storms generate, along with the winds they bring are another story.  The fish numbers have dropped off to dismal amounts; it is not unusual for boats to work all day in the Sound for 20 fish.  That’s not enough to make this worthwhile.  Last week, some of the boats discovered that fish have moved thru Inian Pass to the Icy Straits area, and they are doing very well.  The number of boats fishing the outside coast has dwindled to a handful, and we hear numbers of 60-80 boats working the Straits.  New plan: Monday or Tuesday, depending on weather, we will try to make the Pass and move inside.  If fishing doesn’t pick up in there, at least we are one step closer to getting the boat back to park at Sitka for the winter.  Bank accounts are imploding, so hope there is work somewhere for the winter.  Give us this day our daily bread…

Enough gloom and woe – we still can laugh!  The 35 knot “breeze” blowing through the Cove makes being tied up this Sunday not feel too bad.  One of the guys was telling us about an old fellow who fished till the was 90 years old out of the Cove.  Things get slightly warped after so many years here on the inner edge of nowhere, and reality blurs more than a little bit.   This lonely old fellow spent a bit of time increasingly worrying about what he heard floating thru the ether on his radio, and became convinced that the Government was interested in monitoring his life.  The obsession got so great that he appeared back in town one day with a new hat, which he wore till the end of his days.  It was fashioned out of aluminum foil, specially shaped with ridges to deter the brain-monitoring satellites the government was using to spy on him…  I don’t know, maybe he had something there.  He was a tough old guy; his boat hit a rock at Point Lucan late one winter evening and went down.  He got off a radio call, but no one was near, so he (without survival suit) was forced to go for a swim.  The tide was coming in, and Dave the Boatwright took his large vessel out to search.  Finding a floating person in the dark who has no reflective gear, EPIRB, or strobe light is next to impossible, so the fellow floated right on past Elfin Cove to South Inian Pass.  Finally, hours later, fortune washed him up on one of the rocks there.  Most men would have been dead; not this one.  Dave, calculating tidal flow, kept searching, and finally came across his rock.  Rescued, he took a bowl of hot soup, dry clothes, and asked to be returned to home at Elfin.  No hospital, hypothermia ward, or other assistance, just get him home; after all, he was over 70 at the time!  I have no doubt that the story has improved over time, but if even half of it is true, I’m impressed!

Kirk has had to replace his head gasket during this storm.  On the way up from Sitka, he noticed his oil pressure was abnormally high; when we got here, he found that his oil was more like gelatin than oil.  He kept some samples for analysis, and cleaned out all the goo he could get.  Unfortunately, the only cause for such jelling of the oil seems to be if someone added something to it, and the only source of that would be sabotage.  Some investigation, dependent on oil analysis findings, is probably in order.  If it was malicious, it isn’t a far stretch to think an attempted murder charge would be in order; one’s life is very much in jeopardy if an engine failure occurs.  I hope it is just a case of product impurity, sort of unsettling to think anyone would stoop to such an act.   Of course, on re-assembly yesterday, a critical weld on an exhaust flange broke, so he is repairing that today; hope he’s ready by tomorrow so we can go catch fish.

Steve’s deckhand had to return home to her winter job.  She is from some small village on the Bering Sea, north of Bethel.  He promptly hired two more of his friends from Sitka to come out for the rest of the season.  The girls are high-school buddies of his from Mt. Edgecumbe – sounds like they are spoiling him already – boat is getting cleaned, goodies cooked,  Steve’s just smiling!  He said he needs 2 deckhands because the next 3 weeks are going to be phenomenal fishing.  Hope he’s right!

Stay tuned.

Have You Ever Seen The Rain…

That wonderful CCR song seems stuck in my mind the last few days – no small wonder, as it has been raining hard since Todd and Em left on Thursday, with no respite.  Most of the fleet migrated to Elfin Cove for a day or two, due to the gale force winds and 8-12 seas forecasted. 

We have had the luxury of staying in the small cabin we rented for a week from the Cross Sound Marketing Association while the kids were here – 4 people on our boat for a week would not have been too comfortable! 

I already miss the kids – Todd caught on real quickly to the rhythm of setting gear, so he and I worked the pit to set and pull.  Wow, was it ever nice to  unsnap a leader, put it on the fighting line, land a fish, and let him take care of coiling and stowing the hook while I brought the next one in!  We swapped off, and he got really good at doing the magic WHACK! that we use to stun and pacify the exuberant cohoes!  We only landed one king salmon during the 3-day opener, but coho fishing was great.

 

  

Em and Lovie would take over once we finished a pull, and guts would fly.  Two people cleaning make short work of the 20+ fish that came in each pull, and the hold became fuller and fuller.  By the time we unloaded Wednesday night, the boat was squatting down further in the water than I’ve seen in a long time – once we unloaded, it felt really frisky!

We did eat well – sea bass, sockeye, and the kids brought fresh garden vegetables from Montana!  Those are pretty sparse up here, and we get really hungry for good vegetables!

We went down the outside coast of Chichigof Island on Tuesday – still a little lump in the swell from last week’s storm, but generally nice.  Fishing was not so hot, but we had a couple of pods of Orcas go right by the boat, which was pretty cool. I heard on the radio that Steve had an Orca grab his gear and break one pole, so he was heading in to fix that.   On one pull, Todd brought up 3 sharks, between 4 and 6 feet long, something we rarely see, and which doesn’t bode well for salmon fishing.  We moved on to better places, and whacked and stacked for the rest of the day.

Thursday, they caught the float plane to Juneau – lucky they got out when they did, as there has not been another plane in or out since they left, and they don’t expect any for another day at least!

We haven’t seen her yet, but there is a lady working at one of the lodges here that we knew from the bank back in Montana!  Small world – curious to hear her story about how she came to be in this little corner of Alaska.  

There are a lot of extremely interesting tales of people who wind up here.  Perhaps in a future post I will tell a few tales that would be similar to what I’ve heard…  guess there are people who get a little sensitive if they think they are written about, so I’ll be careful not to get too detailed! 

The saga of the squirrel in the last post – we talked to the guy on DeathTrap, the boat where the squirrel was – he said that after 2 days up the pole, the little critter was so tired, he finally came down to the deck and collapsed.  Tom went out and put a big, clear peanut jar over him, slid cardboard underneath, and captured him.  The squirrel settled down and slept; he put water in, and the thirsty guy licked it all up. It slept till that evening when they anchored – he rowed it  ashore and let it go – the last he saw it was running full tilt for the nearest tree!  Success.

Well, we are going to try to fish this afternoon; it is quieting down, and we need the money.  Hard to believe there is only a month left to make our fortune…!  Somehow, I don’t think we will be vacationing much this fall…..

Drip, Drip, Drip… have YOU ever seen the rain?

Fish on.

Same Old Song

Somewhere down the dock, Neil Young’s harmonica is crying, and the faint words drift down to me -- “that keeps me searchin' for a heart of gold; and I’m getting old….”  I hum along to the classic tune, and it really seems to fit – still searching, but getting old.  Today, we are tired.  After a good run of fishing, with a few adventures thrown in, here we are again, with another setback.  Back at Elfin Cove after 5 days out, we are missing the last 2 days before the closure due to a steering system failure.  It’s getting old.

The days since last post seem all a blur.  We went back out on Friday, and travelled South as far as lower Surge Bay.  The storm that put us in port had left a big swell from the west, which worked with the 20 knot wind and tide to make the face a bone-crunching, mind-numbing non-stop roller coaster for 12 hours.  We left the Cove at 4:30 am, and by the time we rounded Cape Bingham, I knew the day would be long.  Locking my legs under the side of the pit, I was able to keep enough balance to set gear.  The action of a double-ended boat (pointy on both ends) like True North can get a bit tricky at times, and I often had to pull the line back up, untangle the gear, and re-attach it. 

It was Carmyn Gamma’s wedding day, and we sorely missed being with our friends to celebrate the occasion.  I just thought of Orin and Sarai in Korea, and Lovie and I had a little pity party thinking about scattered family.  Carmyn has been like one of our own kids for most of her life, and it just didn’t seem right to be missing the event.  Best of life to you, Carmyn and Dustin.  The fishing stunk.  Should have done the wedding instead.

After spending the night at Soapstone Cove, we poked our bow around the corner again.  Weather was a little better, but fishing was still slow.  The humpy count is way up, and they are hard to keep off the hooks.  The price is a bit better than last year, so they do add up, but the stinky things are just irritating.  We plied boringly up and down the coast, cleaning gear routinely, slowly and steadily getting a few fish.  Someone came on the radio and told us that Andy had a whale surface under his stern, and his prop cut several chunks out – the tail was wider than his boat beam, about 13 feet wide.  I hear his hair has turned a bit white in places!

That evening, we went into Hoktaheen about 7:30.   There is a northern entrance, thru a scattering of rocks and islands, that they call the “Back Door”.  We’ve never been in that way, but it looks pretty obvious on the charts.  We were right near the mouth, so we told Connley we were going to try.  We headed in, carefully watching our little blip on the chart plotter.  Looking ahead, I began to see massive amounts of kelp all around.  The agitation and surge of the waves tossed the boat around in unpredictable motion, as I tried to focus on the chart and make sense of what I was seeing.  I chose a path to evade kelp – the huge, bulbous stringers hang up on our stabilizers and cause immense amounts of drag, inhibiting maneuverability.   I became increasingly nervous, as the rocks on both sides became only feet away – something just wasn’t right.  I made an immediate decision to evacuate the area, and put the boat into reverse.  Tide, waves, and kelp all attempted to push us onto the rocks, but the prop finally overcame and we slowly moved backwards.  When I had enough clearance, I pivoted the boat around and dragged about 5000 pounds of kelp back out the way we had come in.  I got clear of the area, pulled the stabies in, and cut the kelp away.  We then went back out to sea, down the coast, and entered the cove on the path we had marked as safe.  Looking at the plot of where we had gone was scary – I was heading down a dead-end channel, which only had rocks just below the surface.  I still shake thinking about it.  Next morning, Kirk led me out of the harbor in the way I should have gone, and we plotted it so we can find it if we come in that way again.

Troy on the Bonnie Jean had set his massive anchor, put out lots of scope, and invited several of us to raft up with him.  One by one we came, until we had 4 boats; ours the shortest at 34 feet, his the largest at 48 feet, all tied up hanging on one anchor.  The Jager had the barbecue grill on, and the hot dogs were cooking.  Connley had fresh bread, ice cream; Lovie made a 7-bean salad, Troy had drinks and all the goodies for the dogs, and we had a fishing boat picnic.  The sunset was awesome, the camaraderie was great – sitting in the 50 degree evening, gently lifting and falling on anchor, motor noise ceased, we had a good time before going to bed.  Miles from nowhere, edge of the world;  makes it all seem ok for a bit.

Sunday, we usually like to spend the mornings quiet; this one didn’t get a chance.  Connley started out at 4:30, so we followed in an hour.  Once again, up, down, over and over, for a few fish.  Long days, tiring work.  We went back to Hoktaheen, and anchored again with Troy and Kirk.  Poor Kirk – Jason, his son, was pulling gear for the first time alone, and got the wire from one set of gurdies looped over the other gurdy without realizing it.  He wound things up so tight that it ruined several parts, and took Kirk about 3 hours to get the wire all removed from the shaft and spliced back together again.  Not a good day for the Jager.  

There are the unexpected happenings though – radio chatter can be quite interesting.   “Scotty, you got a camera on board?”  “Yeah, why?”  “Slide up close to the DeathTrap(a boat – whole story in itself…) and look at his trolling pole.  There’s a squirrel on the end of it!”  Guess the poor thing climbed aboard trying to evade a cat back at Elfin Cove, and rode out to sea.  The boat just came back in today – don’t know the fate of the stowaway.

We tied up again late Sunday evening to the Bonnie Jean in Hoktaheen, along with the Jager.  It was 10:30 before we got done with supper (freshest fish around!), so the bunk felt pretty welcome.  Up again at 5:30, ready to go.  It was a beautiful morning – scattered clouds, no wind, low tide movement, waves almost flat calm, just a little 2 foot swell.  We were the first to cast off, but Troy and Kirk were getting ready to follow.  Poles down, stabies in, we worked our way thru the rocky entrance and past the surf line.  About a quarter of a mile past the entrance, I noticed that the boat had developed a significant list to starboard.  My first thought was that our fuel tanks hadn’t equalized, and that there was too much load on the one side.  Looking back, I saw the port stabilizer had snagged a huge kelp monster, and was dragging right up against the boat.  I slowed, put the boat out of gear, and hauled the stabie up to the side to slash the mass away.  Back in the water it went, and we moved forward again.  I turned the wheel to correct the course, and got no response.  I tried the other way, same story.  I used the autopilot to see if it was the wheel malfunctioning; no response.   I went back to the stern steering station, and it became obvious that something was haywire.  I leaned over and could see the rudder – changes in the wheel made no difference.  Pulling up the plate that covers the steering ram in the pit, it was clear that there was a hydraulic leak of some sort.  Further investigation revealed a hose completely worn in two where it passed thru the deck of the pit, tucked away in an obscure corner that eluded detection.  After having replaced so many things on the boat this year, we had to stop somewhere.  Near the top on next year’s to-do list – you guessed it!  Replace all steering lines!  Well, guess that one got escalated.

We were so fortunate.  We had cleared the rocks at Hoktaheen, and were still able to head offshore.  The calm conditions made working upside down in the rudder area a bit more tolerable, and the boat was drifting slowly parallel to the shore near the drag about 20 other fishermen were working.  A call on the radio brought numerous responses with offers of a tow, parts, advice, instructions about how to steer using stabilizers, etc.  Last year, I foresaw the possibility of steering system failure and made an emergency tiller that would allow me to hand steer the boat under such circumstances.  We dug it out, put it on, and tried it out.  A bit different than usual, and not one I’d like to use for heavy tide or weather, but it worked.  We moved a bit more offshore to give plenty of drifting leeway, and I tried to repair the break.  Hose clamps and a double-ended hose barb did the job, and the unit was re-assembled.  The fittings all reside under the floor of the pit, which gets a regular dousing when the boat is being worked.  Though wrapped in protective PetroTape, water and time take their toll, and I had long been suspicious of the condition of the hose fittings.  When I got the repair back in place, I tried the rear wheel.  It was spongy as expected from air infiltration, but worse yet, I heard the distinct sound of splurping hydraulic fluid from a different, more inaccessible location.  The movement of working with the hoses had caused another fitting to fail completely, breaking off clean with no effort at all.  I got the message -- “Go back to the Cove and fix this!”   We didn’t tempt fate, but had a nice, hand-tillered 3 hour cruise back up around Cape Bingham and in to Elfin Cove.  I’ve pulled the whole apparatus out, and will order parts today if I can find a credit card with anything left on it!  

Guess our closure started early.  Kirk came in, loaded to the waterline with his best day in a long, long time.  He had 3 sperm whales feeding around his boat, a bit nerve-wracking given their size, and the size of their teeth!  Em and Todd come on Saturday – we hope to be ready for the 3-day king opener that starts on Monday – luckily we get 2 extra deckhands for all the work! 

Like they warn me – don’t ask what more could go wrong because you’ll probably find out!  We’re just going with the flow here, take each test as it comes.  Can’t think too far ahead, or I could get a bit overwhelmed.  Sometimes I look forward to sitting by the fire with a good book, patting old Willie the pup while a snowstorm howls outside, sipping on my tea and snuggling up to my wife.  Guess that’s not for now, though, so we persevere. 

Life’s good.  Stay tuned – we’re “Searching for that Heart of Gold..!”

The Cove, Revisited

 

At long last – a change in scenery!  From the bowels of the engine room, to the open spaces off Surge Bay!  The cuticles of my nails are slowly turning from a grimy black that even Goop! handcleaner will not remedy, to a lighter shade of salt-cured, hardened,  shininess that only constant immersion in sea water brings.   We are fishing!  And catching! 

After what seemed to be a string of endless setbacks, we finally reached bottom.  With the bottom of the bank account only visible from below, the credit cards maxed, and a list of things to do that seemed to be self-perpetuating, we came to that “one last” point – I told Lovie that we would give things one last shot – if we had anything go wrong that cost more money or time, we were done.  I wasn’t sure how we would even get back to Montana, but we would have to hang up the raingear, chalk the experience up to bad judgment,  and go home to try to eke out a living while we licked our wounds.

After the last post, the parts for the engine arrived, thanks to the efforts of Larry and Kathy at Stewart’s Marine in Seattle.  Kirk and I flushed every visible inch of the crankcase, pulled and replaced the main bearings, installed the new balancer unit and oil pump, put the oil pan back on, lowered the engine back into place, re-assembled all the peripheral equipment, realigned the engine/shaft unit, and filled everything up with fresh oil and antifreeze.  Careful bleeding of the fuel lines and priming of oil pump and filter enabled us to start the engine easily, with no incidents. 

To break in the new bearings and seat the rings, we spent 8 hours in gear, pushing against the dock(tough docks here!), running the engine at different rpms to vary the load.  We began to get some temperature buildup after 6 hours, and paranoia set in.  We decided to go back on the grid (3rd time this year!) and pull the prop, have it re-worked if needed to meet the exact specs for best performance, and try again.  I pulled it at low tide at 5 in the morning, and had it at the prop shop by 7:30; his measurements showed that the prop was actually a little less aggressive than the optimal spec, so we made no change.  I went back to the boat for low tide to put it back on – unfortunately, the evening low was 4 feet higher than the morning low, so I had to wade in to chest height, carrying an 80 pound, 24 inch diameter bronze prop, prop nut, pipe wrench, and a couple of small wrenches, all without dropping any of them into the 51 degree seawater!  I carefully put the pieces together, and began to tighten the prop nut.  Oops – had to undo, get the prop puller ( a whole different apparatus), re-position it, and re-tighten things.  The tide began to turn about the time I needed to use the puller, and I kept a nervous eye on the water level as it inched slowly higher.  By the time I got finished, it had risen to mid-chest, and I was beginning to chill down nicely!  I crawled back aboard, got out of the wet clothes, and toweled off by the  hot stove.  Lovie got me a cup of hot tea, and I still shook for about an hour as we awaited the rising tide to float the boat. 

That night we drove out to Halibut Point to see the 375 foot Russian sailing square-rigger that had just sailed in on a goodwill tour to the US.  The Pallaida is a very impressive, very seaworthy, very beautiful ship.  I took lots of pictures; unfortunately, I accidentally erased the whole bunch.  Google it.

At last, on Friday the 30th of July, we embarked on our voyage north to Cross Sound.  Nervous as could be, we were ever so grateful to be traveling with Kirk and Jason on the Jager.  We chose to go the long way around, just in case we had more trouble.  Inside, the waters are calmer for towing, and there are a few more places to get help if needed.  With an anxious eye on the temperature and oil pressure gauges, a paranoid ear for odd sounds, and elevated blood pressure from worrying about all the things that could go wrong, we traveled.  By the second day into the trip, we began to relax a tad – things were running very smoothly.  When we docked in Hoonah for the night, we were feeling a lot more comfortable with the way things were working.  I did discover that we were losing about a cup of diesel from leaks on the injector pump, so tried to tighten them up.  Finally got the last of them today, a week later. 

We were traveling in one of the biggest tide change phases in a couple of months – 21 feet of water moving through Icy Strait out into Cross Sound via the notorious Inian Passes.  We carefully timed our departure to try to reach South Inian at that magic moment when tidal flow is minimal, and the cauldron that occurs at the junction is at its lowest.  Kirk so helpfully pointed out that they only have documented 58 fatal sinkings on the South Pass in the last years….. 

Something worked out – after some squirrely passages due to the enormous tidal flow, calm water and no wind worked together to give the smoothes possible passage through the dreaded point.  We marked it down in our books as quite possibly the calmest passage of that place that we will ever have!  The last 20 minutes into Elfin Cove, we began to breathe easier – it was sweet to motor up the Gut to the picturesque little village.  Now – to fish.

Sunday night, the gang all assembled to welcome us back.  Connley, bless his heart, plied us with fishing gear of all sorts, groceries, and lots of good advice on where to fish.  Scotty gave us a good book to read; Troy gave us some gear, and we all shared tales of the latest adventures.  Do you still wonder why we love these guys?  I can’t say enough about what friendship we have enjoyed, undeservedly.  What an awesome bunch.

Monday morning early, out to the Sound to fish.  And fish we did, all the way down to Surge Bay, back to Soapstone for the night.  Again the next day, overnight at Hocktaheen.  Wednesday, back to the Cove for a blustery night; laundry, mail, and odd and end repairs that surfaced in the break-in period – out again in the morning.  We hope to stay out until the 10th, when there will be a general closure for 3 or 4 days. 

200 cohos and 100 pinks in 2 and a half days; not bad for a start.  The upgrades to rigging and gurdies, as well as the engine, are proving well worthwhile.   The little boat is awesome. Got lots to do yet, but we’re getting there! 

Fish on!  and stay tuned….