Like all the
recent days, we woke to rain. Dad had negotiated with Wendy the night before
that she could stay in bed and he would take over after I got us off the dock. Our
established float plan indicated that we had a fairly long run heading up Peril
Straits, to position ourselves to fish Salisbury Sound for the trophy kings. We
are going to drop the shrimp pots in Fick Cove and anchor in Douglas Bay.
Michael was
sent up the dock to take a picture of us sitting on the dock and expanded her
assignment by photographing the local flavor and visiting with them where she
learned that the ‘Moose and Goose’ were in the area inspecting the fish in
preparation of the season opening. Once she was back on the boat we shoved off
and headed out the inlet and back down Chatham Sound. Wendy was in heaven
sleeping while the boat was running; she had found the ultimate white noise. Dad
was at the helm with Michael serving as watch and log steward. I had lost technology
so I worked on reports for the Navigator Rendezvous, until the printer broke. Good
thing I brought a second printer as a backup.
As we
charged down Chatham Sound, the fishing fleet was charging towards us to get to
the fishing grounds that were opening momentarily, it was like watching a movie
or an episode of Deadliest Catch. At one point we counted fifteen boats
stretched across the horizon. The humpbacks were also putting on quite a
display of tails in the air. As we turned up Peril Straits, Wendy crawled out
of the bunk, two hours late reporting for duty.
We dropped
the prawn pots at the entrance of Fick Cove and then went up to Douglas Bay and
dropped anchor. Wendy, Michael and I went around the corner and dropped the
crab pots. For dinner, we had crab that we had caught that morning on the upper
deck, crab and blue cheese stuffed mushrooms and crab and artichoke dip. Dinner
was all about the appetizers.
After
dinner, Wendy and I decided that we needed to go fishing in the bay. We trolled
around for salmon for awhile and then decided to try our luck for halibut. In
the still of the night we could see the boat off in the distance. Then we heard
a whoosh sound and Wendy said that she thought that she had heard the sound
earlier. Then we heard it again and it
was even closer. You really feel like a
little fish in a big pond when a humpback is swimming around you in the dark
and you are floating around in a 12 foot dinghy with herring. We used the
portable VHF to call the big boat to confirm if we should be concerned and they
didn’t answer, causing us to feel even more vulnerable. Michael stopped working
on the next day’s float plan and responded by relaying Dad’s advice of, “If you
see an open mouth, you might want to get out of there”. We didn’t want to be
mistaken for dinner so we headed back to the boat.
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