Halibut Fishing - Day 4

We started back on the long haul home on Thursday after all the gear was aboard.  After a 6 hour run, we anchored for a short night's sleep.  Away we went, but that's the advantage of being crew.  The boat was cleaned up, and so I went back to bed.

Fabian called in our information and we got a sell time of 3:30 p.m.  We made it in plenty of time.  Now to get the fish off the boat into the fish house, in this case Seafood Producers Co-op.

Captain Fabian has a great system of brailer bags and slush.  We hooked the brailer bag ropes to the dock winch.  A brailer bag of fish is coming out of the hold in this photo.  Nice bag of halibut, huh?

There goes the bag of fish, slime draining down, as it crosses the dock.  The heads will be chopped off with a little halibut guillotine.  Then they'll be weighed and listed on a fish ticket.  We get to go do the paperwork with the Feds and State of Alaska, and then finally we can get a check for all our work.  Of course, the price went down 25 cents a pound in the last couple of days, but that's the fishing business. 

So long Fishing Vessel Sunbeam and Captain Fabian.  It's time for you to take off the longline gear and put on the gillnet and reel for gillnet season.  Good luck and we hope to visit you again next year!

Halibut Fishing - Day 3

I'm not totally accurate in the daily schedule for yesterday and today.  On both days, we set all 700 hooks and pulled them back in.  For blog purposes, I figured I'd concentrate on setting yesterday and pulling today.

Now it's time to pull the lines and see what comes up.

The line comes up from the water and through the block above Fabian's head, then over to another block, and then back onto the reel.  Fabian is the "roller man" who unsnaps gangions and deals with whatever comes up on the hooks: rockfish, starfish, skates, sharks, coral, and sometimes a halibut!

Oh yeah!  Here comes a halibut.  Get ready, Greg!

Greg pulls the small ones aboard, bleeds them like he's doing in this photo, and snaps them over to the other side of the boat where I can clean them and get them in the hold.  The faster they get on ice, the better quality they are for the consumer - and we like our fish to be the best quality!

Sometimes the big ones take two people to haul aboard.  If we're really lucky, we'll get a three person fish.

Get that one, Greg!  It's a nice one!

Greg and I switch jobs every set.  It helps our "mature" hands and arms to vary the job and we end up being less sore.

Greg got this 100 pounder to clean.  Then he'll take it and slide it in the "ice slush" ready in the fish hold to his right.  It'll be kept nice and cold.

Captain Fabian put us on the fish.  We tally the total by measuring each fish.  You get in quick trouble from the National Marine Fisheries Service if you go over your quota. 

It always happens.  As soon as we caught our limit, 5 fish between 80 and 120 pounds came up on the line.  We released them gently.  Come back next year!

Halibut Fishing, Day Two

Longlining is simple in it's most elemental terms.  Throw out a buoy, let out enough buoy line for the depth of the water, and afix an anchor.  Then space out hooks every so often that are baited with something appetizing for the fish you wish to catch.  Then add another anchor, more buoy line, and finally the second buoy.  There you have it - you're fishing.

The buoy is out!

Let out the line!

Aw shucks.  The day is so bright you can hardly see the line stretching out behind the boat.  Fabian and Greg are baiting hooks and snapping on gangions as the line goes out. 

The best thing is the ocean.  It's flat calm.  Nice.

Now we'll set another 700 hooks.




One of the reasons I like longlining is that you can do something else while the hooks are (hopefully) catching.

So off we went to the beach for some beachcombing.

  

We walked for longer than I thought.  You can see the boat at anchor in the distance.







 

Time to anchor up.  Nice little anchorage, huh?  Too bad it's called "Murder Cove."  Makes you think.

Commercial Halibut Trip, Day 1

I've been a very small time commercial halibut fisherman since the spring of 1980.  That first year, ML and I bought a $35 dollar halibut license and set a hand skate from our 14 foot hylaker open skiff with a 33 HP Evinrude on the back.  Surprisingly, we caught one!  But, we didn't know what to do with it after we caught it.  We learned, though.

As you can imagine, like many things, halibut fishing has changed over the years.  Now it is an "IFQ" system, which stands for Individual Fishing Quota.  Every year, I try to fish my quota so that I have some money to support my boat and outdoor habit. 

Like the last couple of years, I combined with my friend Greg who has about the same number of IFQ's as I do, so that it's worth it for a bigger boat to make a bit of money off of us.  This year we went out on the Sunbeam owned by Captain Fabian and had a good trip. 

The first day was a 12 hour run . .  . or maybe walk at 7 knots.

On our way out of town, we passed two StandUpPaddle boarders.  Unluckily for one, our wake caught him and he ended up in the ocean.  I'll bet it was cold.  You can see the road out of Sitka in the background.







But the scenery is nice, and we got lucky with a great sunset.  These pictures are taken over a 16 minute time span, from 10:24 p.m. to 10:40 p.m.  One nice thing is that when you do get a sunrise of sunset here, they last quite a while since the angle of the sun is so low compared to more southern latitudes. 

It'll be time to start fishing tomorrow. 

Door Number 1, Number 2, or Number 3?

There are a variety of consumer activities that I really really don't like.  I confess that I always feel like I'm being taken advantage of when I buy a car, a mattress, major appliances, or rent a car.  Let's stick with that one for a minute - renting a car.  All you need is a credit card and a license - and then a ton of decisions marked by "INITIAL HERE, HERE, HERE, and SIGN HERE" that you agree to all the fine print that no human being could EVER read before the next person in line would DIE from waiting.   Not to mention, that I don't understand it anyway, even if I did read it - and I have a Master's Degree! (although some question that I got it from the back of a matchbook and paid my money)

But this time, I THINK I DID OK!

A Chevy Camaro.  Whew!  HOT!

$12.09 to rent it for a day but pick it up in Tampa and drop it at Orlando Airport.  Including TAXES and FEES!

I think I'm one up on Alamo this time!

Out and About Close to Home

We got back to Sitka and actually had some sunny weather.  That's always a good invitation to take a walk out the house and along to the cross trail.  It's always nice to not have to get into the car to get a good walk in.

Cascade Creek is a pretty little creek of cold clear water.  Now it has a bridge over it that the son of our good friends, Steve and Sandy, designed and implemented.  He used an old bridge that someone found somewhere and shipped in.  It is a beautiful spot.

This photo looks up the creek from the bridge.  There's quite a bit of water in it this time of year due to snowmelt.

I had to climb down off the trail and get closer to the stream for this photo.  Climbing back up, I banged my shin pretty well on a stump.  Not too smart.

The water in the stream is absolutely crystal clear.

If you're a bit tired from the long uphill from the creek, you can sit and watch Mt. Edgecumbe for awhile.  Do it today because most of the time you'll get your butt wet from the wet bench.

On a clear day in Southeast Alaska, take advantage of it because there might not be one for awhile. 

A Week at Indian Rocks Beach, FL

Hannah called a couple of weeks ago.  She was thinking of coming down from NYC for a break after the end of her semester.  She was all prepared with a link to a beach condo at Indian Rocks.  It was a great idea, so we snapped it up on airbnb and you might want to also - it's a nice place and Ben was great to work with: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/666335  We've had good luck with airbnb.

For awhile, 8 or 10 years ago, we spent a week at the beach nearly every year.  We missed it.  Why did we stop going it?

The sunsets are always fun to watch.

We trailered the boat over and everybody got to go sailing.  Hannah, Jude, and I went out and Jude started to get seasick but fell asleep instead!

Hannah, Tasia, and John made a fine drip castle.  Jude wanted to wreck it, but turned himself around and helped.

Sometimes I like the subtlety better than flash.

Take off your shoes, squish sand through your toes, read a book, wander down the beach, pick up shells, toss them back down again, float on the water, watch the sunset, and visit with family.  Nice.

POST POST KITCHEN update . . . not over yet.

Tile, tile, and more tile, but none that we like - other than the three that we found and ordered.  ML picked it up at the store and was smart enough to open some boxes to look at it.  Lo and behold, it was substantially different than what we saw in the showroom.  The tile store agreed and refunded our money with no questions asked.  All we needed was more pink rather than red.

As a reminder, these two pictures on the right are what we started with.

This picture shows the new "pass through" oak countertop along with a slim glimpse of the trimmed out opening between the kitchen and dining room.   What you don't see is a new trimmed out window, tile backsplash - including behind the absent stove hood, and the custom shelves that will be on the left of the picture. 

 Here are the floor transitions.  I think they look fine.  I had to sand some dents out of the dining room floor and refinish a bit of it.  I must have dropped a hammer too hard on the protective cardboard . . .

And then there are the less obvious improvements, like a CLEAN GARAGE!!  You can barely see the new rack to store wood in the top right of the picture - which took all the scraps of wood and plywood that I couldn't bear to throw away - I might need them someday!  The ladders are all hung up, too.  ML always likes to keep the Christmas wreath because it smells good all year round.

And here is what's left.  A couple weeks of throwing some tiles and shelves in the trashcan and we'll be back where we were 4 months ago!