July 8, 2022 - Hoonah

July 08, 2022

Early start from Flynn Cove to Mudd Bay. En-route, as we rounded Pt. Adolphus, we saw fin whales and humpback whales feeding. Spectacular site as we navigated past the whales.

Arriving at Mudd Bay, at high tide, we anchored in 65’ of water and set out the fishing lines. After two hours we had caught our limit, four halibut. The first one Lois had within 30 minutes at 34” (17 lb) – it was a great start!

About this time a sea lion starts surfacing around the boat, within ~10’, then popping up at our stern, right near where Lois had her line in the water. She tried to shoo it away – not much affect – but he did leave the immediate area. And shortly she pulled in the next one, 28” (9 lb), within 30 minutes of her first catch.

With her limit I took the rig she had been using and within minutes of dropping the hook, we had a 40” (29 lb) halibut on the hook. And he was a fighter taking off initially, so we had to work him back to the boat. As we were getting him to the surface, Lois spotted the sea lion in the near vicinity, and we were concerned he would take the fish. So, we abandoned the plan to spear him and used the net to get him quickly out of the water. He did not fight too hard but was still hard to get out due to his hefty weight.

We had the lure set on the other rod and dropped it in the water since it had bait on it and within seconds, we had a 20” (3 lb) halibut on. Since he had the treble hook it would not be easy to release, so we kept him and called it our limit.

Once again as we rounded Pt. Adolphus we saw humpback whales, and a bit later Orcas.

Arriving at Hoonah, Friday afternoon, we were fortunate to have access to water and shore power, although we were on H-10, a very rickety dock. The new fish cleaning table worked well as Lois filleted the three smaller fish and Geary took on the 40”. Lois sealed and vacuum bagged all but the smaller fish, which we had for dinner. Craig and Ann from Shot 8, Queen City, stopped by and chatted while we were cleaning the fish.

Saturday was crab cracking and vacuum bagging, laundry (3 loads) and housekeeping (inside and out). A nice bottle of Odette to celebrate our success along with and crabcakes for dinner.

Sunday, more laundry, and some administrative work (skating, HOA and BLN-R). As we looked around the boat, we found some little black soot balls and wondered what their source was. Allison Marie came in looking for dock space (no response from the harbormaster) so we helped guide them to a nearby location on the transient dock.

Monday Lois completed skating activity and Geary picked up some tackle and arranged for an engine oil/filter change from Harbor Marine (Greg Garrison). Walking back to the boat we passed Airship and met Laura Domela and husband of the Slowboat Team who were leading a flotilla of which a Selene 53, Impulse, was participating.

Greg’s son was two hours late getting to our boat for the oil change. We had invited Paul, Lynn and Tom over for Happy Hour from Allison Marie at 4:30 pm so time was getting tight. And we had more little black soot balls on the boat. I asked Greg’s son about these, apparently one (or more) of the fish boats behind us has an oil-fired furnace and these are the particles that they emit. It was VERY FRUSTRATING as we cleaned them off the boat (that was washed on Saturday).

I had to dash to Harbor Marine to pay Greg for the oil change service – and I met a very interesting person, sort of a renaissance man, but with different perspectives. He shared his view about COVID as a conspiracy to eliminate the elderly, along with banking conspiracies and inflation to buy up land, introduced me to Iridology, and his vison on building a floating lodge for naturopath treatments. Very interesting for a Vietnam vet, age 72!

Tuesday morning when we gladly departed, we found more soot balls on the boat. I had to clear the walkway so I could move along them without tracking the oily debris further. I will spend the rest of Tuesday cleaning the boat and cushions to get rid of this mess.