Blog Reader come in this is vessel Domino. We have recovered from the very tough day yesterday making our way around Cape Caution. There will certainly be tougher waters to traverse but remember that this is all new to us and we are proud to have made it this far, all in one piece and still happy that we made the decision to take on this trip through the inside passage and into Alaska.
5:30 I am up and ready to go fishing with Dan. Today we are going to set up my new salmon poles and go jigging. I am going to let Andrew sleep in today along with the Little Kitty. Amazing, as tired as I was yesterday, I jumped up this morning, put on my fishing overalls and rubber boots and prepared my fishing gear. Dan picked me up and we headed out to a little island cove to fish. I caught a couple of small Kelp greenlings which we cut loose. One of them floated on the surface for a while. Dan says they are usually stunned for a few minutes and then they will recover and take off. He also said that if there any eagles nearby that they would be watching closely for food. We started to motor to a different area and we weren’t 15 feet from the fish when an eagle swooped down beside us and grabbed the fish and flew back into the tree from which it had been watching. I was so stunned that I didn’t grab my camera! I have only ever seen videos of eagles that close. It was so graceful and so powerful. It swooped down without much wing effort and glided right over it and grabbed it up, in those dangerous yellow talons that I have seen in pictures, and swooped away. It never as much as flapped a wing! As Andrew is fond of saying, “Nature is red in tooth and claw!”
My catch today was 1 Rockfish, 1 kelp greenling and 1 Ling cod. Dan and I cleaned the fish on his boat and kept the carcasses to put in the crab and shrimp traps tomorrow as nothing gets wasted.
Little kitty is better today. I think she has forgotten us, I wonder if the fresh shrimp I gave her this morning melted her angry heart! She has had her bath and now has a belly full of shrimp, freshly caught this morning and steamed to her liking, and now she is sound asleep in the helm seat. My guess is that she sleeps all day to recover from yesterday.
Andrew and I are having gourmet Neoguri with freshly sautéed rockfish! The rockfish is white and firm and really works well in the soup. We both thought it was delicious and filled our bellies and now we both need a nap. I am pleased to know that I can catch and bring home a fish but that I can fry it up in a pan!
Uneventful calm day underway and we landed in Codville Lagoon without a problem. Dan and I went fishing and crabbing and the rest of the group took the dinghies and went to shore and walked up a path to a little lake called Sagar Lake. Andrew says that it was beautiful but they had to turn around because they were getting rained on. We all headed back to the boats pretty much at the same time and afternoon naps were had by all!
Domino over and standing by on VHF channel 68.
- Left Dock/Weighed anchor: Pulled Anchor at 10:10
- Cruise Log: 39.2 Nautical Miles
- Weather Conditions: Slight wind, intermittent clouds and partially sunny
- Navigational Obstacles: Slight chop at Fitzhugh Sound which is the inlet to the ocean
- Wildlife Sighting: Eagle hunting! Rock Fish, Kelp Greenling, Ling Cod, Crab
- Arrived Dock/Dropped anchor: 4:15
- Slip for the night: $0
- Time today Helm for TEA: 3 hrs
- Time today Helm for ACA: 3 hrs
- Lessons learned: It is great to take showers underway because you are using heat that would otherwise be dumped into the ocean unused. There is a coolant loop from the engine to the hotwater heater. So when the main engine is running it is heating the water in the hot water heater to the same temperature as the engine coolant which is 180 degrees. So underway you can have all the hot water you want and since we carry 300 gallons, a long shower is ok too! The hotwater heater is 20 gallons and that is plenty, especially now that I have short hair.
- Fun Meals underway: Gourmet Neoguri with Rock fish.
