Craig to Ketchikan, 7/31-8/10

July 31 to August 10, 2014

Hydaburg to Ketchikan

After Beth Bream left us in Hydaburg on Monday, July 28, it rained and rained and rained.  Rather than anchor in the rain, we stayed in Hydaburg until Wednesday, July 30.  Once the rain stopped, we made our way toward Craig.  We cruised about half the way and anchored in Port Refugio…yep, got this place just about memorized! 

We pulled in to the south harbor in Craig and tied up to the same old spot, Thursday, July 31.  We were greeted by Brad and Darleen on “El Bucanero” (or “El Bucky”, as they call their boat.)   We had met them in Petersburg a month ago and were delighted to have fellow cruisers with whom to visit.

Before Jim Munch arrived on August 2, we had the usual chores to do…groceries and laundry.  We had not done laundry in about 3 weeks, so it was quite a load to haul up to the Laundromat…two huge bags full.  We’d invested in a collapsible handcart, to which we tied the laundry bags, and, later on, boxes of groceries.  This would have been a daunting task without this handy little cart.  This cart is our second one.  The first one lost a wheel as we were coming down the ramp in Craig a few weeks ago.  Fortunately, the local hardware store had a replacement.

Later in the afternoon a little green and white sport fishing boat tied up near us at the dock and we realized we had seen this little boat anchored near us in Port Refugio a couple of times.  We soon learned that the boat owner was from Salt Lake City and his buddy was from Ohio.  They had been out halibut fishing and we quickly pulled out our charts to mark with more halibut holes!  We wanted to be ready for Jim and his enthusiasm for fishing!  We had had such terrible fishing luck with Beth and we didn’t want to repeat that tragedy!

Saturday, August 2, Jim arrived on a Pacific Airways floatplane, right into Craig!  He said it was a fascinating ride from Ketchikan.  The skies were clear and he got great views of Prince of Wales Island as they flew across its width.  I’ve included one of the photos he shared…looks a little like the San Juans, I think.

Sunday, August 3, we departed Craig for the last time this summer and made our way to the first premier halibut hole.  

We fished in four different spots and the day’s tally looked like this:

  Quillbacks:       Jerry 5            Jan 4               Jim 0

  Pacific Cod       Jerry 1             Jan 0               Jim 0

  Cabazon            Jerry 0            Jan 1                Jim 0

  Irish Lord        Jerry 1             Jan 0               Jim 0

  Starfish           Jerry 1             Jan 0               Jim 0

Are you seeing the trend?  Jim was not pleased, nor were Jerry and I!  We kept a couple of the fish for bait and threw everything else back.  The quillbacks are just annoying, hard to clean and really ugly…check the photo!  On top of that, once we pulled one up, it was usually dead…note the bugged out eyes…so they became eagle food.  It was exciting to watch an eagle swoop down and pull one of our cast offs out of the water.

Our first night out with Jim we anchored back in good ol’ Port Refugio, in a spot slightly closer to the beach where we had seen the sow and triplets with Beth.  If we couldn’t catch a decent fish, at least we could get some more bear photos.  We had company in the little bay:  El Bucanero was there, as well as a small sailboat and a commercial fish processing boat.  What we thought would be a quiet anchorage became windy overnight and we were all awake for awhile listening to the waves slap the bow.  To add insult to injury, the carbon monoxide detector in Jim’s cabin went off, due to a low battery.  All in all, not a very restful night for anyone.

Monday, August 4, we made our way to Soda Bay, just north of Hydaburg, and picked out some likely fishing spots.  As you can see from the photo, the weather was rainy and cool, although not windy.  We all had the appropriate rain gear, and we were determined to not let the weather be a deterrent!

At the third fishing site, we dropped the anchor in a little cove and started to get some serious hits.  It wasn’t long before Jim brought up a beautiful 42” halibut!  This fish was big enough to put up quite a struggle and it took some serious work to get him settled on the swim step.  Well!  We were all quite excited at the prospect of more lovely halibut, so the two engineers began figuring out how to harpoon the next one, with our one and only harpoon.  Of course!  The solution was to bleed out this halibut, tie him to the swim step by his tail once he was dead, and we would have the harpoon ready for the next lovely catch.  Unfortunately we under-estimated the halibut’s resilience.  

We turned our backs on him for a tiny second; he gave a heave, wriggled out of his tail tie, and was gone!  Jim grabbed the harpoon and threw it at him…to no avail!  I thought for a moment Jim was going to dive into that cold water after the fish but he didn’t.  Whew!  But, we had lost the harpoon handle since it wasn’t secured to the boat.  You’ve never seen 3 more disgusted people!  Jim and Jerry created a new harpoon handle (the harpoon itself was tied to a rear cleat) and we tried again. 

Jim’s next catch was an even larger fish…one that broke his 50 lb. test line. Whatever it was put up quite a fight and was gone!  Humph!  This was getting serious!  

Jerry had the most interesting catch of the day…a huge skate.  At first as he brought it up we thought he had a halibut, but no such luck.  The photo shows the underside of the fish…strange, huh?  Jerry thought it was about 3 feet long.  We let this one go, too, since we had no idea what to do with it.  Later we read in our fish book that a skate is really good eating, but we will never know.

Monday’s fishing tally:

  Quillbacks:       Jerry 0            Jan 0               Jim 

  Cabazon            Jerry 1            Jan 0               Jim 0

  Halibut             Jerry 0            Jan 0               Jim 1 got away!

  Skate               Jerry 1             Jan 0               Jim 0

  Something really big                 Jim 1

It certainly wasn’t my day for fishing!!!  In defense of my fishing skills, though, the guys fished more than I did and I drove the boat.  At the end of Monday, we anchored in Soda Bay, in a little cove almost at the head of the bay.  It was beautiful and we enjoyed an amazing sunset.  We watched the deer on the shore and tried fishing after dinner, but didn’t have a nibble. 

Tuesday, August 5, dawned foggy and damp.  We had a leisurely breakfast and by midmorning the fog had lifted and we hauled anchor.  We looked for more likely fishing spots on our way south down the west side of Prince of Wales Island, through Cordova Bay, but didn’t have much success.  I didn’t even keep close tabs on the tally on this day.  

Somewhere in one of our fishing stops Jerry caught this great sculpin, a remarkably unattractive fish.  He was returned to the deep blue sea, quickly.

We anchored in beautiful little Mabel Bay.  What a glorious afternoon!  The water was absolutely calm and sky was as blue as it could be.  This was a new anchorage for us and we had it all to ourselves.

While I was fixing dinner, the guys tried fishing in this pretty spot and caught 5 spiny dogfish aka little sharks!  These got thrown back, too.

Wednesday, August 6, we continued south on the west side of Prince of Wales Island through Eureka Channel and Thompson Passage.  This was a new route for us and took us through the rocky islets and craggy shoreline.  The scenery was breathtaking and scary…those craggy rocks were just waiting to grab us below the water!  Thank goodness for GPS, good charts, and Jerry’s nerves of steel!

We arrived at the entrance of Nichols Bay, at the very south end of Prince of Wales in mid-afternoon and decided to stop and fish.  This turned out to be a really good idea!  Once again I drove and repositioned the boat while the guys fished:

            China rockfish  Jerry 2            Jim 1

            Quillback         Jerry 3            Jim 1

            Ling Cod           Jerry 0            Jim 2

            One really big one that got away:          Jerry 1

Jim’s lingcod was the biggest one he had ever caught…39” long!!

Once we were settled in the middle anchorage in Nichols Bay, Jim gave us a fish-filleting lesson….he was really good at this!  When it was all said and done he had 7 packages of lingcod fillets that we will deliver to Anacortes.  For dinner that night we had “Lingcod and Rockfish Ritz”.  Yummy!

You will notice in this day’s tally that Jerry had a big one that got away.  We don’t know what he had on his line, but he was using my new heavy-duty pole and line.  He was almost pulled off the boat, as he tried to edge the fish toward the surface.  Finally the leader broke and this sea monster got away.

August 7, 2014, Thursday brought rain and weather reports that got progressively worse over the next several days.  Rather than continue to fish around Prince of Wales, we decided to make our way across Clarence Strait and try some spots around Ketchikan.  As we crossed Clarence Strait, the wind kicked up and the water got progressively rougher.  The seas weren’t any worse than we had been in before…20 k winds and 4’ seas…but made for an unpleasant ride.  

About an hour into the passage, we heard a crash from above the pilothouse, but could not imagine what had made the noise.  Jim poked his head up through the hatch leading to the boat deck and the photo on the previous page is what he saw.  

Yep, the mast had fallen over and it had crashed into the port side VHF antenna.  The cables running from the mast down into the boat are probably what kept it from going over the side! 

That was the end of any thoughts of fishing and we changed course to go to Ketchikan, Bar Harbor Marina, and to figure out how bad the damage was to the mast and the boat.  All of our navigation, radar, weather data…so many of the tools we rely on for safe boating…were in that mast.  Of particular concern was whether the radar still worked since fog is always an issue in the waterways of Alaska at this time of year. 

Once we were safely moored, Jerry took a good look at the damage and soon realized that the mast had been bolted to the pilothouse roof with only deck screws but had no backing plate in the ceiling below.  Just four bolts held this mast in place and he was surprised it had survived this long! 

Jerry called a contact at the Nordic Tug factory in Burlington, WA, to figure out how to go about the repair.  He learned that the installation had been done incorrectly and indeed there should have been bolts and a backing plate. 

Jerry was able to find a fabrication shop here in Ketchikan that could make a backing plate and we were in business.  It took all day Friday to get it done, but by the end of the day, we once again had a functioning mast with all it’s components working.  Yay!!  

Although this mast failure cut Jim’s fishing short, we were grateful he was here to help with the repair.  I’m not sure Jerry and I could have managed by ourselves.

Jim wasn’t due to fly out of Ketchikan until Sunday evening, August 10, and we had hoped we could play tourist Saturday and Sunday, but no such luck!  The weather forecast predicted 4-6” of rain between Friday afternoon and Monday morning, and I think we had at least that much.  I’ve never seen it rain like it does here in Ketchikan.  Raining sideways wasn’t all that uncommon.  We went out to dinner once and stayed on the boat the rest of the time.  We played a lot of Mexican Train!!!

Monday, August 11, we awoke to beautiful sunshine and a temperature of 63 with a high of 71 predicted.  We watched this cruise ship come down Tongass Narrows on its way to its moorage I Ketchikan.  We got groceries, did the laundry, took on water, and got rid of the garbage.  It sounds like the weather is going to be good for several days so we hope to take on fuel about 0700 tomorrow and begin our journey back to La Conner.

One more blog entry to go!  In a few days I'll get the final installment posted:  Ketchikan to LaConner.