After my last trip, which was salmon fishing, I needed to clean out the cooler on the back deck because that's where I keep the fish. I have one of those new style "slinky" water hoses, not plastic or rubber. I really like it because it is so flexible. I cleaned out the cooler and then went to coil up the hose. A section of the hose had hung over the side of the dock and the strong current had swept it up under the stern of the boat and caused it to get tangled up in either the props or the rudders or both. In any case I could not free it by pulling. I was grounded for a few days. After literally decades of avoiding crab pot and shrimp pot lines I managed to get a water hose fouled in my props while sitting at the dock. Diver came on Monday and cleared it out in about 30 seconds.
For this trip I pulled out of Bar Harbor at about 7:30 AM in calm and mostly sunny weather. Forecast was good for the next few days, so my plan was to go to Port Stewart and spend the night.
As I passed through Clover Pass, I saw "the fleet" was still there, fishing for Silvers I assume. I have more fish than I can handle as I only have a small 45-liter freezer on board, so no more salmon fishing for me this season. I would like a halibut, however.
I stopped at the halibut hole out in front of Naha Bay. I call it a halibut hole because the water all around that area is over 1000' deep, but at this one place it comes up to a depth of about 150' - 250'. People say that halibut like to come up into those shallow areas from the depths to feed. I know I have caught many halibut there over the years but have also gotten skunked there as well.
I did not anchor as it is hard to pull my halibut fishing anchor by myself. It is not on a winch, and I use a buoy pull system to pull it. It's just much easier to do that with a little help.
Conditions were perfect for drift fishing. It was right at low tide slack so there was very little current flowing, and there was no wind. I stayed there for about 3 hours, but alas, got no fish at all. I just don't seem to have much luck with bottom fishing. My son Steven had the nose for it and would repeatedly find us fish. I sure miss him.
The 2 little spots on the horizon are the floating pontoons of the US Navy sub testing station. They have a building on land on Back Island, but they also have these 2 floating pontoons out in the middle of Behm Canal. When they are actively conducting sub testing, they don't want boats running in the area and will frequently call vessels and ask them to go dead in the water for the duration of the testing.
This is the commercial troller Mona Lee. He was trolling in the area and came up very close to me. I thought he might call me on the radio because we have a history together, but he just waved. On May 28, 2011, I responded to his distress call very near to this area. His engine was running but he was having transmission trouble and could not get it to go into gear. I always carry a professionally made tow line, so I hooked onto him and towed him into Knudson Cove Marina. It took me over 3 hours to do that. It was a challenge to "slingshot" him into the dock as he had no maneuverability, but we got it done. It was over 11 years ago so perhaps someone else owns the boat now.
I suspect they have always been there, and I just never noticed, but today for some reason I became very aware of the clouds overhead. They just seemed to be especially unique and beautiful today.
After 3 hours of not catching anything, I decided to pull my gear and move on. Port Stewart is on the other side of western Behm Canal, and so I started across. I think it is about 6 or 7 miles across at that point, and as I was tooling along, I saw something in the water ahead of me. It took me a minute or two to figure out that it was a deer swimming towards me. Over the many years I have been boating in this area I have seen deer swimming many times, but I think this is the first time I've seen one so far from land. It was at least 5 miles to the nearest shoreline in the direction this little doe was swimming. At first, she turned towards my boat, and I thought she might come up behind the swim step, but at the last moment she turned and continued on, swimming towards the shore about 5 miles away. I hope she made it.
Several years ago, there was a story with some photos circulating via the Internet about some guys that were out in a boat much larger than mine in winter, January or February, I think. They were in the Juneau area. Four deer swam up to them and apparently the guys on the boat were able to haul them on board over the swim step. There were photos of the deer laying down and chilling on the back deck of the boat. They took them into Taku Harbor, which is about 20 miles south of Juneau. Three of the deer were strong enough to walk to shore under their own power, but one of them was so weak they had to take it to shore in a wheelbarrow. I'm glad I didn't have to try to yard that deer aboard my boat without any help.
I made it into Port Stewart without incident. The entryway is a little "skinny," but with careful attention to the helm, and a constant eye on the depth sounder and the chart plotter it is very doable. There is a little "nook" just to the right as you go in, and that is the best place to anchor.
Port Stewart can be a beautiful place to spend some time. When the weather and the lighting conditions are good there are some really beautiful vistas. I enjoy just being in the area.
I put the raft in the water and prepared and baited a single crab to set out for the night. In the morning I pulled the pot and there were 3 crabs. Two were inside the pot and the third was hanging onto the outside of the pot. In Alaska the Dungeness crabs must be 6 1/2" from notch to notch on the outer shell to be legal, and they must be males. These were all males, but they were all just barely less than 6 1/2". In hindsight I wish that I had kept a couple, but in the end, I tossed them all back.
When I pulled the anchor on Saturday morning and headed out of the anchorage, I noticed that the autopilot was again not showing a compass heading, which means that it is not recognizing the heading sensor, which is like a dedicated electronic compass. I have had this happen before and it took literally weeks of time and numerous calls to Furuno tech support to figure out the problem. There is a small button on the heading sensor labeled "terminal resistor," and sometimes it gets popped. I reset it and the autopilot was working again. I think the anchor winch might pull so much power when I am pulling the anchor that it causes this button to pop. Next time I am pulling the anchor I will wait until I am done with the winch before powering up the autopilot.
When I left Port Stewart, I really did not have much of a plan. I just knew that I did not want to get back to town too early. The weather was good, and I wanted to time my return to get into port right before dark. At this time of year, it is getting dark at about 7:30 PM.
I thought about going into Margeurite Bay for the afternoon, but there are a lot of commercial trollers in the area, and they like to hang out in there, as do the fish tenders. Also, they are still flying in tourists to see the bears there, so I decided not to stop there.
I found myself right in front of Naha Bay at about 11:30 AM so I decided to pop in there and see if there was room at the dock. It's a nice place to hang out for a few hours.
There was indeed room at the dock, so right about noon I got in and tied up OK. There was only 1 other small boat there, but I saw no one else around.
I took a short walk up the trail. It is very emotional to think back of my many trips here at the Naha. I was only 27 the first time I came here, and now I am 71. There have been so many trips with family and friends over the years that come to my mind. This day I felt a true loneliness here since I am now very much alone most of the time with not much hope of that changing anytime soon.
This is the picnic shelter where we have come so many times over the years for family picnics. Standing here all alone almost brings tears to my eyes. I wish that I could be buried here rather than at Bayview Cemetery when my time comes, but I'm sure that would violate umpteen Federal regulations.
An obligatory shot of Roosevelt Lagoon, which is fed by the Naha River.
There was a seal playing around the dock and the ramp. I heard him slap a few times and saw him briefly a time or two. I got my camera ready and waited, and waited, but he never appeared again. But I did see these 3 little birds that came by to say hello to me.
I hung out there until about 4 PM and then started my run back to town. Lately I have been playing my 20-year-old iPod which amazingly still works and plugs into the stereo on the flybridge. It helps to have some good music for the 3-hour run back to town.
I got into stall right on schedule just before dark at 7 PM.
Mileage for this trip was 61.9 nm.
A good trip.
The weather will start getting very nasty soon and I don't know how many winter trips I will be able to make. Plus, I will be running the City League Basketball program in town and that will keep me tied up somewhat. I am also going to be offering free beginner guitar lessons soon to kids 16 and under and I don't know how many students I will end up with. So, we'll see how many winter trips I can squeeze in.
