The ship's electronic chart after trolling the Shark Hole in Salisbury Sound for salmon all morningI like fishing… In moderation.
Sometimes the order of the day is fishing, fishing and more fishing. No problem, Deb loves fishing! Go have fun dear, enjoy some more fishing. I’ll just sit up here and drive.
Drive back and forth across the same spot over and over again, as slow as the boat will go. So slow the vessel barely answers the helm, taking her own sweet time to turn. It is a peaceful job of driving, as long as the little charter boats stay out of my way. I am driving a boat five times their size that just keeps moving with minimal regard to whatever I do to the wheel.
I just sit back watch the bald eagles, a humpback whale threading through the swarm of charter boats, and watch the log on the GPS display slowly fill in with the record of repeated passes…
Today Mercury passes through superior conjunction, passing behind the Sun as seen from the Earth. It will appear in the sunset later in the month, reaching maximum elongation on October 26th.
The pole twitches, then jumps… Fish On! This was the first time this season we had rigged for salmon and dropped the outriggers and lines, setup for trolling along the south coast of Admiralty Island. We did not have to wait long for results.
It was clear this was a large fish, the pull on the line was substantial. Deb strained with the reel, cranking it as hard as she dared. But unlike the usual coho salmon it did not fight and jump. We were worried it was a pink salmon, not as desirable a catch, these fish usually come in docilely to be netted. The far more desirable silver or coho salmon rarely give up without a fight and require real work to reel in. But when we got the first clear look at the fish it was indeed a silver.
Deb happy to display her catch, first of our season, a very nice fish indeedWhen we pulled the salmon from the net the reason odd behavior became clear… The hook was in the tail.
Somehow Deb had snagged the fish just a few inches from the base of the tail. There is a reason for this, Coho salmon often hit their prey to stun it before turning to consume it. This tactic works well for herring, not so well for a double hooked leader.
This salmon was the first we have caught this season, another fact that made my wife a very happy fisherwoman. I am afraid she had become infected with that dread disease, an addiction to lures and poles and the thrill of catching those wily fish. Not that I can complain too much about the results. However the fish was caught, this was a very nice salmon, making an excellent dinner that evening.
The jokes began almost instantly, comments about her unusual techniques to catch a fish. All in good sport, the pursuit is full of fish tales and jokes. Deb caught more than a few beautiful coho over the next few days, but we have not let her forget the Tailhook Incident.
Tonight will see the Moon and Jupiter rise together around midnight. The pair will be just under 1° apart. The 51% illuminated Moon competing with Jupiter shining at -2.4 magnitude.
We expected to find the bears at the back of the bay, where the stream and the salmon would be.
The mission of the morning was to see bears. So we cast off lines at Tenakee and headed up Tenakee Inlet. There are several side bays along this large inlet, each with streams that attract the bears. The salmon had not quite started to move into the streams, a bit early in the season yet, but they were around. We hoped the bears would be around as well, congregating at the streams in anticipation of their yearly feast.
It was a surprise when my dad spotted this bear, we were just starting into the bay and still a mile from where we expected to find bears. As everyone grabbed binoculars we steered towards shore to get a better look.
So often the bears will run for the woods when a large white object appears. This bear just kept eating grass. A further surprise… Just as we got closer a small bear cub appeared at mother’s side. Deep water just off the rocky shore allowed us to get the boat in quite close. On occasion the mother would look up at us as we drifted in for a closer look. The array of pointing humans, binoculars and cameras were dismissed as unimportant as she continued to graze along the shore.
The cub was a handsome fellow, dark, with a collar of golden fur. He stayed close to mother, but seemed curious. We may have been the first humans he had ever seen. He watched us intently from the safety of mother’s side.
There were several bears at the stream and the grassy flats at the top end of the bay. But the shallow water would keep us from getting anywhere near with the boat. The total was nine bears that morning, including four cubs, three with the same mother. With the morning’s plan a success, we headed back to Tenakee to collect our crab traps.
A mother Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) and cub on the shore in Long Bay, Tenakee Inlet, AK
I will be spending the next several weeks aboard the Nordic Quest. We are bringing the boat down from Juneau to Anacortes for the winter. During this time I will be out of contact with the world. No internet! Or, at best, sporadic contact.
I am taking the opportunity to re-post all of my old Alaskan travel posts to the new blogging platform, the better ones anyway. Something to keep my readers occupied while I am off voyaging the inside passage.
What to do while waiting for your plane? Fiddle with the camera?
My camera was already in-hand and I had almost an hour to wait for boarding. I may as well explore some of the little used functions and hidden menus the camera has to offer. Thus I took a few photos of a plane debarking and boarding on the open flightline of the Kona airport, playing with the camera settings. I didn’t realize just how much photos of a jet taken in black and white really do conjure up memories of vintage jet travel in the 60’s.
The SandpitOne effect that I was somewhat surprised to find was the miniature effect.
The miniature effect is just a bit of photographic fun. Something that can be used quite creatively in the right circumstance. I have been aware of the effect for some time, recently I had come across the effect in a number of online photos, and some great timelapse videos.
The Nordic Star anchored in Ford’s TerrorTime to cut the connection, for the next few weeks there will be little oportunity to slake my digital thirst. Marine radio offers little bandwidth, limited to simple audio and the daily marine weather forecasts.
For the next three weeks we will be cruising from Juneau to Anacortes. Three weeks of fishing, sightseeing, whale watching and photography. It should be a good trip, time spent with my father, an uncle and good friends.
There will be the occasional opportunity for contact, brief stops along the way to get fuel and supplies, places that may also offer a 3G signal. Those moments will be brief, just a chance for updates and perhaps a phone call to my wife to let her know I still exist. I can only consider the mountain of messages that will await my return to the digital world.
