May 28 – June 1
Hi All,
Woke up Friday to dark, cloudy skies but no wind….glass waters….deep reflections from the mountains….DDG. Picked up the crab pots…..3, THREE HOGS…..while I’d have liked to limit at 6, we will not be greedy and take these guys…7-8″ big….wow!!!
MV Ellipsis, a Selene 60, Carl & Melody, came into the anchorage around midday. They have been in Gambier for several days and were in the Good Island Inlet….a very pretty and narrow inlet with a nice stream and mudflat…they were with another buddy boat and spent sometime kayaking up the stream!!! They came over for a nice visit and helped me untangle the downrigger after the canon ball incident in Santa Anna and then we went over to Ellipsis for HH with drinks and hors d’oeuvres….good times!!!
Bear Count: 8….yep, 8 Browns in one day….amazing!!!
May 29: Woke up to another grey, low clouds, misty, rainy, cold Alaska spring day…..hmmm. Checked the crab pots…holy crab batman….5 keepers, 4 almost in the 9″ range!!!! Raised anchor about 8:30am for the 6nm run to Snug Cove still in Gambier Bay. We were here in mid-May 2019 by ourselves, then late May with Craig & Jeanette, in sunny weather!!! Saw lots of bears and got 7 keeper crabs. Anchor down, crab pots set, Bloody Marys made and prawn pots set all by 11:30am!!!! Kathy cooked and picked the crab….7 full cups of crab meat with 5 crabs….1.4 cups/crab….a new record for us….normally it is around 0.7-1.0 cups/crab!!!! Checked the crab pots in the evening….Zero….from our best poundage haul to nada….hmmmmm…yep, Mr Crab God has a sense of humor we think!!!
May 30: Weather: got to luv this forecast: “A front that moved in last night will bring rain to SE AK today. Continued onshore flow will keep the rain in place tonight as another front moves in
which will bring another round of rain late tonight and Monday. So the short term forecast is a simple one, rain today though Monday night.”
And that is what we have…low clouds, mist, rain and cold….yuck!!
Trap pulls: In the morning, 3 small tanner crabs, which I threw back, 2 spotted prawns, both traps ended up in mud…ugh!!! Mr Crab & Prawn gods still making us work hard!!! Evening: too cold, too rainy, stayed in:)))
The one bright spot today….Kathy saw a whale…maybe a fin whale…a few blows, body, then gone!!
May 31: HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!! I was up and out at 6am to gather all 4 pots….raining hard, yikes, I needed goggles for my glasses, the hardest part besides the rain and cold was finding the pots in the fog/rain….1/4 mile visibility…ugh. But, here is what it is all about…I’m pulling in the 1st prawn pot, totally soaked already, muttering about livin’ the dream when all of a sudden 2 dolphins appear, hi how ya doin fellas, we are doing ok but may we ask what are you doing out here….well, pulling my prawn traps….hmmm, has no one told you there are not many prawns in this bay…I’m getting to know that….excuse us but you don’t sound too chipper….well, I guess I’m not, pretty miserable out here this am…yes, but just think, out of 8 billion people, you are the only person here this morning that get to see us dolphins feeding and talking to us…not so rare except maybe the telepathic conversation, and one you will cherish for a long time….now that is livin the dre
am!!!!
Snug Bay trap count: 0 crabs (3 tanners and 1 female with eggs), 12 Spotted (3/trap pull…pathetic). The one thing we have noticed is the sea surface temperature (SST) has dropped to high 40’s and it had climbed to low 50’s….maybe the crab have gone deeper….hmmmmm!!
All traps stored, dinghy stored, engines on by 8:15am…..out we go to Cannery Cove in Pybus Bay…the engines are not even warm and there are whales….a mom and juvenile….they look a bit different than the normal Humpback….hmmm, I think they dove, but no tail….wait for about 4 mins and they surface again….wow, beautiful…..after much study Kathy determines they were Sei whales….don’t get to see them very often!! Way too cool!!!
We arrived Cannery Cove, 25nm, around 12:30pm in hard rain and fog…..hmmmm, didn’t we just leave this scenery:(((( We did need to turn on the stabilizers while in Stephens passage as the winds picked up to 10-15G20 but the seas stayed in the 1-2′ chop so not so bad!!
It rained hard the rest of the day with some wind gusts up to 20 kts in the anchorage. We couldn’t even get the dinghy down to set the crab pots….I don’t think that has ever happened. We are a bit depressed as this anchorage is one of our favorites, surrounded by 2-4K’ snow-capped mountains, very green meadows, a lovely salmon stream and a gazillion waterfalls…..but none of that is visible through the fog/rain….whaaaaaaa….except we can hear the waterfalls…..I tried sitting in the cockpit to just listen, what a lovely sound, but got rained/winded out w/in 5 mins….yep, pretty nasty outside!!
Well….there was a brief break in the weather….no rain….got the dinghy down and started to set crab pots and yep, raining buckets….whoa….I think the Crab gods are definitely pissed for some reason, as in, you have enough, no mas…yikes!!!
June 1: Wow….what a storm last night…15-25G30 kts in the anchorage until the wee hours…yikes!!! But, woke up to calm waters, winds <5 kts, glass mirror waters and holy cow, we have a view of the DDG snow covered mountains…..set against the green, green grass meadows it was a moment of Mother Nature beauty…wow, wow, wow!!! It did stay cloudy all day, but occasionally the fog was in, then lift and we could see almost to the top of the mountains, then it would close in again.
Crab Traps: wow….the poor crabbing continues….nothing on morning pull, reset deeper to 80-90′, nothing on afternoon pull, but watched the owner of the hunting lodge come and pick up his 2 pots…ODG….he threw back about 50% and kept close to 20…..after he left I went over and the pots were in 16’…..hmmm, maybe I’ve been too deep…..so reset to 20 and 25′ deep, away from his but close to the mudflats….we shall see!!
Bears: 4 good looking Brown bears….but they are skittish….who wouldn’t be this close to the hunting lodge…another boat started their engines and 2 bears took off…..hmmmmm!!!
The Plan: We will leave Cannery Cove early tomorrow for Baranof Warm Springs for Kathy’s Birthday celebration….it’s got a five in it so a big one!! After that the King salmon season has opened around the Kasnyku hatchery in Chatham Strait so we will try our luck for a few days!!
Critter Stats:
Whales: 26, (12 Orcas, 12 Humpback, 2 Sei)
– lots of whale blow near Five Finger Islands in Frederick sound, but no bodies so no official sightings.
– one juvenile Humpback in the middle of Gambier Bay, Kathy saw one whale off in the distance from the pilot house at anchor, and 2 Sei whales as we left the anchorage, a mom and juvenile….now that is different!!
Bears: 40 (28 Brown, 12 Black)
– 8 large Brown bears on 5/28 in West basin Gambier….our most in one day so far this season
– 3 Browns in West basin in the am, 4 in Snug, including a mom and a juvenile
– 1 Brown in Snug through the fog, probably more out there but couldn’t see through the fog/rain:(((
– no sightings on Day 1 in Cannery Cove, too foggy, but 4 nice viewings on Day 2
Wolves: 1 (big male Grey on the mud flat in Klu Bay)
Dungeness Crabs: 37 (5 in Manzanita, 0 Punchbowl, 8 Fitzgibbon, 11 in Yes Bay, limited 1st day, 2 in Klu, 3 in Marguerite, 0 Santa Anna; 0 Farragut, 8 West Gambier; 0 Snug, 0 so far in Cannery Cove)
Prawns: 213, (209 Spotted: 7 Punchbowl, 36 Fitzgibbon, 50 Shrimp Bay, 56 Marguerite, 48 Santa Anna; 12 Snug), 4 Coon Stripes, small size (Fitzgibbon)
Marten: 1 (1 Punchbowl)
Stellar Sea Lions: ~30, (20 in Sucia Bay, 10 on buoys out of Wrangell)
Hope all is well!!
John
Mystic Moon
Position: 57 18’21.49 N, 134 09’22.60 W
Course: Stopped.
Position: 21-06-01 16:10:37 -0800
http://maps.google.com/maps?&ll=57.30597,-134.1563&q=57.30597,-134.1563&z=16
