The Hunt for Moby Salmon

Spoiler Alert... No fish were harmed today.   Darn!   The picture is of our photogenic good friends Bill & Nicki.

First a few pictures of our hike, yesterday in Yes Bay as Bill & I bushwacked around a bit.   Next time, I'll wear hiking boots.   My running shoes were a very poor choice on my part.

This morning dawned clear, bright, sunny, and windless.   What a beautiful place!   A quick breakfast of chili & eggs, then Bill & Nicki took our tender, named "Roe" out hunting for salmon.   No luck.

So, we pulled-up anchor and motored over to Loring, AK fishing along the way.   Nicki took the wheel and autopilot controller (named Otto) and got us to safely to Loring.

I should note that the water temperature was 70.1 degrees.   I am amazed that it is this warm up here.   Pretty much everywhere in Behm Channel that water was pleasantly warm.  I did not go for a swim.

Bill & I checked the engine room while underway.   All good!    I've got a natural list to port and I was playing with the fuel tank supply and return valves to shift fuel to the starboard tank to level us out.   And it worked!   Yea!    Normally I'd use my fuel polishing system/transfer pump, but its currently inoperative.

Boats, it's always something!

I'm not a fisherman, but apparently to troll for salmon, we have to go about 1.5-2.5kts through the water.   This is actually difficult to do on my boat.    At idle on the main engine, I do about 4kts.   That's too fast.    So, we tried just the small wing engine.   That was OK in terms of speed, but with its drive shaft offset from centerline it was impossible to steer.   I'm sure all the salmon we didn't catch (which was all of them) were laughing at our very erratic lures as we zig-zagged around.  Eventually we settled on just using the main engine and going in & out of idle to get the desired speed range.   Didn't matter in the end.

Tonight, its Karen's Bolognese sauce over linguini.   While her Bolognese is excellent, we'd rather have had salmon!

Here is a shot of tonight's anchorage near Loring, AK.   We are anchored out from the dock in the picture as that is only for small boats and tenders.

Tomorrow morning, we head into Ketchikan to drop off Bill & Nicki, reprovision at the local Safeway, and then jamming towards Glacier Bay (will take 4 days) to try and get there in time to make our reservation.