Summer 2013 - June

Fortune cookie wisdom from Kenny’s Wok,Sitka

Tonight Sitka is living up to it’s reputation for rainfall.  It’s 54 degrees and has been pouring a since Sunday, with the local populace suitably clad in rain gear and ExtraTuffs, while the cruise ship tourists waddle about town with their Eddie Bauer expedition rain suits and cameras.  The forecast just changed from SE winds at 20 knots with 6 foot seas to NW 25 with 10 foot seas for tomorrow, so we are snuggled into our berth at Sealing Cove, getting ready to go back after some cohos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn’t always this way – I came here the first week of June, and this is the first steady rainy weather we’ve had.  June was gorgeous; actually a hot 71degrees once -  shorts and tanktops on the locals, but the cruise ship tourists still were looking like they had just summitted Everest in their two thousand dollar coordinated outfits.

I spent about half my time in June programming to finish a project back home, and the other half doing projects on the boat.  Seems like there is always something that could just be better.  This year, I pulled the old Dickenson Bristol out, replaced the firebrick and cement inside, buffed it up, and put in an forced air combustion assist fan.  What a filthy project!  It burns diesel just like the engine, so the soot inside is oily and sticks instantly to everything.  One spot turns into a huge smear as soon as you touch it, so I was glad Lovie was still in Montana until I could clean the mess up.  New stovepipe and there you go, good as new.   They are a bear to get adjusted just right, and I’m still tweaking with it even this evening.  Overall, it was a worthwhile project.

Based on a couple of light-deprived episodes in the past, I added a new LED floodlight mounted on the A-frame.  We haven’t had to use it yet, and really don’t want to, but nice to have it there.

Inside, I replaced all the cabin lights with LEDs to save  battery drain when not running the engine, and they work really well.  I will be adding several more in spots that seem always dark, like the engine area, the hold, and the forward storage compartment in the bow.

I put in a cell phone antenna and signal booster to give us a little more range on the cell phone – I can’t tell if it really helps a lot or not, so the jury is still out on that effort.

While adding the lights, I got disgusted with the old decrepit switch panel and replaced it with a couple of nice banks of switches by Blue Sea. They are fused and easy to operate and make me feel so much better.  About three hundred dollars better, to be exact, but better nonetheless.

 

Our Avon inflatable that was also our life raft suffered badly last year on the barnacles at Samsing Cove.  I tried some expensive TufCoat restoration paint on the bottom, and it will probably work, but my patience and trust level were way down.  It sits in the storage unit awaiting it's fate;  I sprung for a new Mercury inflatable dinghy that is a little smaller, but NEW and stays inflated!  That is now our shore dinghy, and I made the investment we needed into a new Elliot 4 man liferaft, a real survival craft.  It stores in a flat fiberglass canister on the bait shed, and has a hydrostatic release so that it will deploy and float free if you sink, or so the theory goes.  You can also launch it manually if you need, so we feel a little more prepared than we were.

 

A new rearview mirror and TADA! a PortaPotty for the head!  No more nighttime trying to hit a coffee can and over the side dumping, but you can now get bladder relief in your PJs in relative style, just like in a real house!  Of course, it eventually needs dumped, but the  jury is definitely in on this one, and it is favorable.

The fishing this year has been good for most folks.  There was a lot of talk about the success early on in the spring troll openings, and when I got here in June there were daily reports of people having some nice little catches on spring kings.  Tragedy also struck early on – up at Homeshore in Icy Strait, a thunderstorm swept through and caught the chum fishermen by surprise; a local guy had his deckhand from Oregon wash overboard in the night and he hasn’t been found.  Another local man was working with his partner getting their troller ready to go, and he fell, striking his head.  He seemed ok for a while, left the boat with his mother, and a couple of hours later collapsed in a coma from a swelling brain injury.  Not sure what his status is now, but he was flown to Seattle, and last I heard was on the slow road back.  Nasty business.

We decided to really focus on learning how to fish kings this opener, so I only tied up king gear for use on July 1- July 6.  Since our running buddies were still in the middle of some big welding projects and neither have made it out yet this year, we got brave and set our sights on going down to Whale Bay for the opener.  It is about 50 miles south, halfway down to the tip of Baranoff Island at Cape Omnay.  We have wanted to go there for a couple of years after talking to a couple from Meyers Chuck near Ketchikan, and it all seemed to work out.

We headed out on Saturday evening on as still a water as you can imagine – ran south thru Dorothy Narrows into Windy Bay, and spent the night tied to the mooring buoy way back in Seven Fathom Bay.  There is a Forest Service cabin there, and it looks like a neat place to spend a day or two.  Sunday morning we pointed South, down thru First and Second Narrows and into Walker Channel.     From there, we had to cover about 12 miles offshore past Necker Bay, to get to North Cape, the entrance to Whale Bay.  That open water stretch takes us about an hour and a quarter in good weather, which it was.  We did not even have to put our stabilizers in the water, which lets us go about a knot and a half per hour faster.  Glassy smooth is nice.

After the smooth open stretch, we were rewarded with the stunning view of our destination.  A little poking around, and we found a wonderful place to anchor in Kristoi Basin.  A couple of other boats found their way in, and we spent a relaxing Sunday afternoon anchored up, checking things over, and enjoying the wonderful weather.

How did it go from there?  Well, I guess you’ll have to read the next post, won’t you?

Here’s how it started, anyway.

Fish On!