Category: Life in Alaska

Personally I felt this trip was ill-omened, because instead of any kind of back-and-forth discussion between Arthur and me over when we would go next, Arthur simply imperiously announced, last night, “So we are going fishing tomorrow.” It’s just another example of his recent imperiousness in matters of communication, I guess. It meant I was grumpy, starting out.
Arthur got up quite early – around 5 AM, which is also when I normally get up. I found him already up when I went into the kitchen to get my oatmeal. But he futzed around with his anxiety with respect to a freezer malfunction and we only finally left at 6:30.
The weather was supposed to be light wind and no rain, and it cooperated in that respect. The swells at the open ocean felt quite substantial, but that was forecast too.
We drove the boat directly out to east side of Noyes Island just west of Siketi, where we’d caught the two coho on our last trip. We trolled through the channel and down along the east side of Noyes at Saint Nicholas Channel. We caught one quite small coho and one small black bass. We ventured into the open ocean south of the channel, but the swells made me uncomfortable and I could tell Arthur was struggling keeping his footing as he deployed the downriggers, though he’d never have admitted it.
We trolled back up alongside Noyes, back and forth over the spot where we’d had success the other day, until the low tide had come. Nothing more.
So we went to San Ignacio (which is on the way back, anyway). The commercial fleet was still there, as they’d been the previous few times. I theorized that it was because it was where they were being allowed to fish, and not necessarily because that’s where the fish were. The commercial boats are often restricted by regulation to smallish areas. Arthur said he hadn’t thought of that – his tone said that meant it wasn’t worth thinking of.
But I saw a lot of sonar fish (I’m never sure if they’re really fish, but their shape/size/movement on the under-boat sonar always make me think they’re fish). So maybe there were some fish here. We trolled all the way down the east side of San Ignacio to the southern end, and back up. We caught a tiny black bass. Finally, Arthur landed a fairly substantial coho at around 1:45, back up at the northeast corner of the island.
Because we needed to get fuel, we decided that despite that unexpected success, we should pull in and head back.
We had a stuttering engine problem – which we’ve had before, sporadically. I always feel like it seems like vapor lock or some kind of fuel supply problem. When we have it, it’s always much more likely when the tank on the boat is low. It was much worse this time. It was like the boat was running out of fuel. The indicator was at a quarter tank. But maybe that’s not very accurate? We had brought along the 5 gallon extra fuel, so we added that to the tank. We still had the stuttering problem, on the way in to the dock.
We got our fuel. The fuel dock was busy – the sports fishermen are out in force, COVID be damned. I feel a lot of anxiety about parking the boat at the fuel dock when there are other boats – I don’t feel like I have enough experience to be particularly competent, and I worry about offending the other boaters with my bad driving skills. It’s hard to slot yourself in to a spot at the dock when other boats are tied up there.
We got fuel and headed home. The engine ran smooth for about 20 minutes and we were feeling optimistic that the stuttering problem had been entirely an issue related to the tank being low. Perhaps the fuel pump had trouble getting fuel when it was low? But then the engine stuttered when we were within one mile. This is the most common place to experience the stuttering problem, in the past – enough so that Joe once called it our “Bermuda Triangle.”
It’s annoying, because neither Arthur nor I have any idea what causes the problem, and since it’s sporadic, it’s very hard to take it to a mechanic and have them diagnose it. Not to mention that taking the boat to the mechanic is a very major ordeal, requiring taking the boat out of the water and putting it on the trailer.
I left Arthur to butcher the fish and I went up to water the garden. I don’t like being around when he butchers the fish. When he was done, I walked back down to the dock and washed the boat. Arthur seemed surprised that I was going to wash the boat, despite the fact that I always wash the boat, and I had told him when we’d docked that I would come back down later to wash the boat.
Year-to-date totals:

• Coho: 6
• Halibut: 1
• Lingcod: 1

Coda
During this trip, I had resolved to not bother talking except when spoken to directly – because we spend most of our time in a communication no-man’s-land, between my spontaneous statements and his refusal to listen or care what I have to say. I mostly stuck to this resolve, so I was quite taciturn I suppose. Arthur didn’t seem to care. And the few times when my resolve failed and I did say something spontaneous… each and every time, they began with “what?” (because unless he himself has immediately asked me a question, he isn’t paying attention), and ended with a dispute about some factual aspect or another of what I was trying to say. Trivial things:
“That boat is towing something, a raft or skiff,” I said. I had been watching the boat for a while, and had seen the two from the side. It was evident to me.
“What?”
I repeated my exact words, more slowly. Then he said, “What boat?” He scanned the horizon for a while. “No. The black thing is in front of the boat.”
“I saw it earlier. It’s towing,” I explained.
“Maybe. If you say so.” An almost resentful tone.

The trip was exhausting: not physically, for me, but emotionally. Not because it’s a fishing trip, but because 10 continuous hours cooped up with Arthur in our communicative purgatory is taxing.

We went out fishing today.
It started overcast and drizzly, just like our last trip, last Saturday. But instead of keeping that up all day, it cleared up nicely. And the seas were calm and almost glassy on our way out.
We trolled along San Ignacio from south to north (for a change – we normally do the other direction). No fish.
We went out Siketi, and trolled there. Nothing until we’d gone through the channel between Cone Island and Lulu Island, and were in the confusingly-named Saint Nicholas Channel (confusing because we live at Port Saint Nicholas, 15 miles to the east).
There, amid tide-roiled waters and a brisk wind from the open sea to the south, we caught a black bass and two coho. Arthur was pleased. We also tangled our propeller in some kelp. Arthur was displeased. These things happened in no particular order.
And then we came home.
Arthur gets grumpy when he cuts up the fish. I’m terrified to even offer to help, because every time I have attempted to assist with fish-butchery, he gets very controlling and perfectionistic and he makes clear that I can do nothing right. So I leave it to him, even though it makes him grumpy.
Year-to-date totals:

• Coho: 4
• Halibut: 1
• Lingcod: 1

[daily log: walking, .5km; boating, 40km]

Art and I went out in the boat today. Joe went fishing too – but not on our boat, rather, on some other friend’s boat. No report yet as to how he made out.
The weather was predicting drizzle and light wind. That’s about accurate, the only piece that was maybe off was that the swells on the southwestern exposures were broad and maybe 3-4 feet. It drizzled or rained the whole time.
We got launched without problem by 7:45, but then realized about a mile west of home that Arthur had forgotten his cellphone and fishing license. Since I don’t have a phone I felt more strongly that Arthur should have his, and of course, the fishing license is a good idea. So we turned around, re-docked (I think it was a good docking, smooth and gentle), and Arthur went into the house to get those things.
We re-launched at 8:05 and cruised through the misty rain out to Siketi Bay. We trolled along the south shore of Lulu Island, hooked one Coho salmon that got away, and then landed another moderately-sized one. We turned around and trolled through Paloma Passage back into the Marina Real channel. We saw a salmon jumping in the water, but no more catches. We went back east to the north end of San Ignacio Island. There were lots of commercial boats there, and we trolled down the east side of the island. We got to the southeast corner and the large swells from the south were making me nervous, so Arthur and I agreed to not proceed along the south side of the island. We turned around and trolled back northward. No more luck catching, though right at the end, back at the northeast corner, Arthur landed a tiny Coho, which we returned to the sea “to grow up some more.” We pulled our downriggers out at around 1:45 and came back home. It was very drizzly and misty, that meant calm winds so the docking was again very smooth.
I was tired when we got home, but I had dried another batch of salmonberries, and found some fresh blueberries down between the kitchen and the sea, and so I ambitiously made another berry cobbler. It came out much nicer than my first effort; I think drying out the berries helped a lot in reducing the liquid content.
Then after dinner when Art and I were watching TV, the power went out. So this is posted a bit late.
Year-to-date totals:

• Coho: 2
• Halibut: 1
• Lingcod: 1

[daily log: walking, 1km; boating, 35km]

We went out fishing today.
We left early – before 8. That was easier without the dead battery we had last time. It was only Arthur and I, since Joe or friend didn’t come along. It was raining as we left but cleared out nicely during the day. The forecast for “light wind” seems to mean about 10-knot winds, but it was fine.
We went to the fuel dock to get fuel and ended up spending a long time there, because Arthur couldn’t get his credit card to work. He called his bank on his cellphone and found out he hadn’t paid his bill. He was definitely disturbed by this news, as it was a real-world bit of confirmation that his attentional issues are “real.” Fortunately I’d brought along my card, too, so we used that. We left the fuel dock around 9. But it put him in a grumpy mood.
We went out through the north entrance to Craig harbor (north of Fish Egg Island) and then southwestward to the northern tip of San Ignacio. We trolled southward on the east shore of that island. There were a lot of commercial boats clustered in the area, trolling up and down. I saw at least one of the commercial boats pulling in a fairly steady supply of smallish salmon – so we took that as a good sign.
We didn’t hook a salmon until we reached the southwestern corner of San Ignacio, at Coco Point. The swells were pretty sloppy there, but we trolled back and forth twice hoping for another. No luck. Anyway, as Arthur put it, “at least we’re not skunked.”
“Not even for the season,” I agreed. It was, after all, our first salmon of the season.
We trolled up the western side of San Ignacio, where it gets quite shallow. I’m not sure that was a productive use of our time. But we made a full circumnavigation of the island, which I don’t think I’d ever done before in a single outing.
We finally pulled up the downriggers at the island’s northeast corner, and headed home. We arrived home at around 2:20. I didn’t dock the boat very well this time. I used the “crash the boat into the dock” method, which is a bit humiliating. No damage, though.
Arthur cut up the fish and cussed a lot because he wasn’t happy with the quality of the job he was doing. He fired up the traeger woodsmoke grill and I had a brainstorm to try to make a salmonberry glaze for the salmon, since there are fresh salmonberries abounding in our driveway right now.
I adapted a recipe for raspberry glaze that I found online, using salmonberries instead, with honey, garlic and balsamic vinegar. I thought it was pretty good, but I think Arthur didn’t like it, mostly because he didn’t like all the little salmonberry seeds.
No pictures, because no smartphone.
[daily log: walking, 2km; boating, 30km]