Enjoy the moment

Posted under North to Alaska

It is June , or  with the rain and cold, possibly June-uary, and it is Sunday and it is the twenty-second and Mike and Janet arrive. Just like on schedule. They also arrive with sufficient food and beverage to care for the Argentine navy for a full fighting season. A new water line on the boat hull and a new notch in my belt will accommodate this little problem.

 

Monday AM and we are in hot pursuit of things that swim, excluding mermaids and the girls synchronized swim team, and as we have strong winds from the south-east we head north to the Work Channel. This makes for a somewhat smoother ride with a following sea. It is later in the day when we arrive at Trail Bay but there are a number of charter boats fishing the turn of the tide. We did note that although there were quite a number of these boats, there were not quite a number of them catching fish, but not t be outdone we too fished a great deal and caught not so many. Fortunately hunger and thirst overcame us and as the winds were still up, we hunkered down in Trail Bay for the night. When the sun is well up in the sky (if you could get a glimpse of the sun) we are back at work, fishing the shore, accompanied by still another cluster of charter boats. The difference this time is that although the other boats still appeared to be having limited luck and we had three in the bucket on the first tide. Rather than fish aimlessly until the next tide, we decided to drop anchor and have a little lunch. As we got ourselves settled, we noticed that most of the boats had left as well. No sooner had the girls prepared some tasty sandwiches and we made ourselves comfortable, when our solitude was broken by the sound of roaring engines along side our boat. This was accompanied by a major type wave as the high speed vessel of the fish Gestapo came abeam and requested to board our boat. Now I often wondered what would happen if one refused this request, but not wishing to be blown out of the water, or rammed or whatever it is that they might do, I readily complied with this request. Actually quite a nice young chappie, and as the ladies said “ he had nice dimples”. At any rate, he just wanted to see our licenses, and as we had actually had our catch marked in as we were supposed to, everything went quite well and we parted company on reasonably good terms.

 

Next AM we were alone in our fish pursuit and the weather reports were still not great. On the upside, the weather was supposed to get worse later in the day. With this in mind we decided to poke our nose out into Chatham Sound and make a decision at that time. As luck would have it, the water was not too cranky so we headed across Chatham to Dundas Islands. The water continued to “lay-down” and allowed us to quarter the waves and swells, for quite a pleasant crossing. Even Bonnie didn’t seem to notice the lumps in the water, as she and Janet discussed everything that was happening in “good old Dawson Creek”for most of the crossing. We set our prawn traps and shut it down for the day in a very secure moorage, locally known as “God’s Pocket”. More massive meals and good spirits and we are off to bed. One thing about these marathon eating binges is that with my increasingly rotund form, I can now rock myself to sleep by lying on my belly and letting the wave action propel me back and forth. Fishing is still nasty and we manage only a dinner fish and a good sized Ling cod. Back to God’s Pocket where we can listen to the rain thump on our roof. Oh yes, we did manage to get enough prawns to supplement the yearling cow that Mike tastefully prepared on the barbeque. Now for those of you who don’t know Mike, his idea of steaks for four, is to knock the hooves and horns off a fully grown grain fed beef, cut the remaining part into four equal sections and cook until medium rare. To eat one of these “puppies” is very nearly a career move, but I can assure you that it can be done. A new leisurely day, and the plan is to fish for a while and then cross back over Chatham and up into Tuck Inlet and a feed of fresh crab, prior to getting Mike and Janet back to Prince Rupert. First we once again pull the prawn trap, which once again was not so full as to make the pulling difficult, and then out into Chatham Sound to fish the east side of the Moffats. Now as logic would have it, this is the day for the fishing to pick up and we had scarcely dropped the hooks when we caught our first of five spring salmon. Next we managed to troll up a thirty pound halibut on Mike’s line. Certainly a pleasant change from the past several days. All this in two hours fishing. About this time I noticed that the water was starting to build and thought it prudent to get with it if we were crossing to Rupert. Each tick of the clock seemed to build the water a little more and after a rather short period of time I did a one-eighty and high tailed it back to God’s Pocket. Neither Janet nor Bonnie were enthused about a lumpy crossing and a Kermit the frog impression. It isn’t easy being green.

 

It seems that the plan of staying in the “pocket” was rather fortuitous as the winds gusted fifty, fifty-five most of the afternoon and a good part of the night and we soon had the company of other boaters in our safe-moorage spot.

 

The AM brought a change of wind direction and rippled water with low swells for our crossing. Perfect except for the fact that the sooner that we reach Prince Rupert, the sooner that we loose the company of some wonderful friends, whom we don’t get to see often enough. Enjoy the moment!!