Captain’s Log: Bears Galore in Kitoi but back to “life” in Kodiak!!

July 26-29

Hi All,

Yep….even though we are on this “once in a lifetime adventure”, Life has chosen to give us another hurdle to overcome. We got word Saturday am that Kathy’s brother Paul passed away Friday night. We were actually already on our way back to Kodiak for boat reasons….which I will explain later….when we found out. So, we spent Saturday in a hectic frenzy to make plans to go back to Dallas to be with Kathy’s family.

Kathy will fly out on Monday….~13 hours to Dallas….and get in close to midnight. We just hope that the planes can fly as both Kodiak and Anchorage have had a lot of fog lately with many canceled flights…fingers crossed!!!

John will not be able to fly until Wednesday…..same deal, 13 hours, 2 stops, Anchorage & Seattle and get into Dallas around midnight….joy….NOT!! The marina is basically full….the salmon sessions are closed for a week or more and many boats have also returned from Bristol Bay. But the marina once knowing our situation has been super accommodating and found us a spot but could not confirm we could stay for a week until Sunday or Monday thus keeping John around in case he had to move Mystic to another slip….plus there were more power issues on the dock….as in busted breaker and the power not turned on….took me another 3-4 hours to help the marina figure all that out…the electrician does not work w/e’s so I worked the issue with the Harbormaster….ugh!!! By the time we could book my flights the earliest I could leave was Wednesday. We suspect that is because passengers that have been stuck on canceled flights are taking up the seats…ugh!!!

The services are to be held on Saturday, so we hope to come back to Kodiak on Sunday and resume the adventure on Tuesday, August 7th…..the marina is “pretty” sure the slip is good for that long….so we need to get back quickly ….in all, a 10 day “life” interruption!! Since the weather in the Gulf of Alaska starts to change mid-August and can be on the nasty side in September we were already on the edge as we had planned to be out of the Gulf and in the “Inside Passage” or Southeast Alaska by early September. We will rework the “plan” over the next few days and let people know the “new” plan which most likely will be dictated by Mr Weather….yep, sometimes I wish Mr Weather and Mr Life would get together and let us know “The Plan”:)))))

Kitoi: a BIG WOW…..maybe WOW, WOW!!!!!

First the boat stuff: On Friday am as we were moving to a better anchorage the Simrad CA44 unit gave us the “blue screen of death”…..it just went to solid blue screen at s/u and then never booted up…..we tried everything with no joy….called the tech in Florida we used when the unit’s GPS went out in the Philippines this year….yes, this unit is about to die….Zack said either the mother board or the special battery Simrad used is bad….nothing we can do but send it to him and he might be able to scrounge some parts from some other “dead” units he has. So, we went to do the hatchery thing and when I came back I started the unit for giggles and voilà it worked….oh, praise be DG….we are now just going to leave the unit on until we get to Sitka…maybe another 45+ days…mid to late September…we shall see if that doesn’t kill it for sure:))) In the meantime I went to the local store in Kodiak and got a small unit with a transom mount which potentially can be mounted on our hull….I will test it in the next few days and see….if it works we have a b/u!!!!

Kitoi Bay: Wow, wow, wow…..bears galore!!! We did leave Kodiak on Thursday, July 26 as planned around 9am….civilized….it was 28.5nm, took 3.5 hours in moderate to calm conditions…yea!!! When we approached Kitoi Bay out of Izhut Bay, we discovered about 15 purse seiner fisherman all in the Bay….we barely squeezed by one….but to get to the anchorage was impossible so we went to the north part of the Bay and anchored….wow, salmon jumping everywhere….we thought crabs and salmon tonight….hmmm…..not to be. I did fish and crab but got nothing….we later learned that the salmon were dogs/chum and were here to go up the Kitoi River to spawn and were basically in their death/spawning zone and do not eat….there were a few sockeye salmon but they also do not take lures…in fact, they told us the best way to catch a sockeye is during a run to snag them….great, so not to be. We also learned no Dungeness crab in the bay…..they do not know why as the place we anchored in was called Crab Bay but no one has caught any crabs for many years…..hmmmm!!

I went to talk with many of the fisherman….they had just opened this Bay for fishing….right in front of the hatchery will close at 9pm tonight and btw, thanks for anchoring out of the way….tomorrow move over to the anchorage by the hatchery and you will see many, many bears!!

We did try a new salmon recipe….I grilled a King fillet with no skin on an Alder plank….then Kathy sautéed some fresh spinach, placed the salmon over the spinach and covered with a lemon, dill sauce….complimented with mashed potatoes and a 2000 Thomas Coyne, Livermore Valley Cabernet….yummers!!!!

The next morning we moved to the anchorage by the hatchery….we had our meltdown over the CA44 unit crashing….that was the 3rd and last depth sounder to fail so not being able to tell depths is a bit of a nightmare in these waters…ugh!!! Anyway, we made it to the hatchery….wow….

“Kitoi Bay Hatchery (KBH) is located on Afognak Island on the west side of Izhut Bay approximately 48 km (30 miles) north of the City of Kodiak. The hatchery infrastructure was constructed in 1954 by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, but was destroyed in the 1964 earthquake and rebuilt by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in 1965. The hatchery was initially designed as a sockeye salmon research facility. By 1976, hatchery production priorities had switched to pink salmon fisheries enhancement. The present goal of the facility is to provide enhanced common property salmon fishing opportunities for Kodiak Management Area (KMA) fishermen by increasing returns of pink, chum, coho, and sockeye salmon through broodstock development, egg takes, incubation, hatching, rearing, and releasing juvenile salmon, primarily to the Kitoi Bay area. KBH’s primary contribution is to KMA commercial fisheries. Secondary user groups (in terms of the number of salmon harvested) of hatchery production include subsistence and recreational fishermen.

Species produced at KBH:
Pink Salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) – permitted for 215 million eggs
Chum Salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) – permitted for 36 million eggs
Coho Salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) – permitted for 2.3 million eggs
Sockeye Salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) – permitted for 850,000 eggs”

Kitoi Bay Hatchery

We were given a tour by Chet, the Assistant Manager….we first started at the stream where they had built a ladder for the salmon to run into their egg collection operation…..they had damned the stream to not let any salmon get to the lake until they had their quota….in this case they were taking 40,000 chum salmon to collect 36MM eggs…wow….later in August they will do pink salmon…..800,000 salmon for 215MM eggs. All these quotas are calculated to sustain the salmon fishing industry!!

By the stream were the bears….in 1+ day we had 44 bear sightings, some we were sure were the same bear……..these are still Kodiak bears and huge….many mamas with 2-3 cubs, some born this year some 1+ years old….it was a delight just to watch them hunt/catch and eat….especially the mamas teaching the cubs how to fish!!! We watched for hours and I even came back after dinner to watch some more. There was one pretty old female….with gray facial hair…yep, I can relate as well….she stayed for 6+ hours….just leisurely fishing when it suited her….I did see several bigger males steal her fish…she did growl at a few, let some take what they wanted and then sauntered over to the stream to get another one!!! Some of the bears walked along the shoreline right past Mystic….it seemed for a day wherever we looked were Kodiak bears!!!

The egg collecting is a process….they first collect out of the ladder 20+ fish in a basket…then kill them with an electrical current for 80 secs…separate male/females…..females they efficiently slice open the belly where the eggs just fall out….bright orange and fairly big….for the males they squeeze out the milk/sperm. From there they collect a 5-gallon bucket of eggs, that have been coated with the male sperm, add about 1 qt of fresh water, stir, add in some iodine mixture to kill any bacteria and then incubate for 3-6 months depending on specie….no need to feed just keep oxygenated with fresh lake water. Once the eggs hatch, they then move the fry into a pen where they let them grow and survive off their yolk as in nature. From there the species that can survive in salt water at this stage they hold in pens in the Bay until big enough to release, called smolts….maybe another 6-9 months for chum. For sockeye they must live in fresh water for several years so they take the fry to the lake!! The process seemed very scientific, and clean…very concerned about bacteria and viruses….very impressive!!! They do dispose of the dead salmon out in the Bay….so where are the crab????

That’s it for now…..MAC is closed down for now:((((

John
Mystic Moon
Rest Mystic Rest

Mystic in Crab Bay part of Kitoi Bay….note all the trees!!!

Anchored in front of the hatchery

Kodiak Bears on the hunt for salmon

Two cubs loving life!!

Yummers….note the orange eggs

Look at those claws!!

Mama and 2 cubs born this year

Belly full, heart content!!

Mama and 2 cubs….little one trying to figure out how to rip open the salmon!!

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