Day 32 ~ Taku Harbor to Auke Bay, Juneau

Consistent with the past week, we woke to a light rain. Dad and I pulled the crab pots and then we headed out towards Juneau. As we exited the harbor, Wendy got up saying that she was reporting for duty – after all the lines and fenders were up!  She took over the helm and I made our smoothies and updated our blog. Our cell phones started beeping as we rounded the corner and had a visual on Juneau. We are heading around Douglas Island towards Auke Bay which is closer to the airport and we are going to stop and fish for a bit.

Fishing was more than just a little bit exciting. Dad and Wendy were fishing and I was driving the boat and catching up on emails. We were down just a few minutes and I heard the lovely words of ‘fish on’. Quickly, I took the boat out of gear raced to the back of the boat to help pull up the extra lines and the down riggers, while Wendy played the fish. It didn’t take long and the fish was in the boat and we were back in gear. When I went back to take over the helm I noticed that the whale watching fleet that was up the channel a ways was moving towards us. That is when I saw this beautiful hump back that they were all observing. Then I heard ‘fish on’ again, so I took us out of gear and raced back to help. This time we had one of the rods tangled around the other one and while we were untangling them a salmon came up and took the bait on the one that was tangled. By the time we were all untangled, we had lost both of them and Dad put one of the poles up! 

When I returned to the helm the second time, the whale boats were getting extremely close. I inquired with Dad how I should approach the mess and he said just stay on course because we are catching fish – he is such a help sometimes. It was about that time that Wendy let out a yell because the whale had come up on the starboard side of the boat and was just swimming alongside us right under the water. We figured that he was camera shy.  He went along with us for about 2 minutes and then disappeared as quickly as he appeared and we were back to the ‘fish on’ routine.  Before we were finished we had 4 lovely salmon in the boat and our last sighting of the whale was a beautiful breach we also had a great shot of the Medenhall Glacier. We cruised into the Auke Bay public marina and found ourselves some dock space. Much to our surprise George and Margery off the M/V Break A Way were just across the dock.

We had a really simple ‘one pot wonder’ for dinner. We didn’t think that Dad liked the ‘wonder’ but he did like the biscuits. In fact, he was enjoying them so much that he requested some of the jelly that Judy had on board. In the condiment fridge I found ‘flamingo mango’. He added a heaping spoon of the tasty treat to the top of his second biscuit and took a rather large bite and then rapidly stared looking for something to put out the fire in his mouth. It seems that I read about as well as I type….Wendy read the label and it said ‘Flaming Mango’. We spent the rest of the evening updating Facebook, reviewing emails, talking to home and doing laundry. Juneau marks our turn around point. When we leave here we will officially be heading home.