A combination of some truly awful weather, mechanical issues with the boat, and commitments in town prevented me from making any trips in December. I have many commitments now with all my volunteering responsibilities, but the weather cooperated, and everything came together to open up a one-day window for a day trip.
I had been craving shrimp for some time now. I can drop my shrimp pots pretty easily by myself but pulling them is another matter entirely. I have about 600' of line on them and my pot puller is pretty slow, so it takes a long time to pull in all that line. While I'm doing that the boat inevitably moves around with the wind ad tide even if its' calm, and since I'm on the back deck I cannot maneuver the boat. And one thing you really want to avoid in a boat is getting a line wrapped around the props. So, controlling the boat is essential.
The weather forecast was very good, so I decided to take the risk and drop the pots in Clover Pass. If I was alone, I could just drift around for several hours while they soaked, possibly doing some bottom fishing in the area while the time passed. But now I have Nova and she needs to go to shore every few hours. She is not yet trained to do her business on board, something we're working on. So that meant I needed a dock, and the nearest 2 docks are at Loring and at the Naha.
I left the harbor at a little before 7 AM in calm conditions, but full darkness. I have radar but in the very tight confines of Tongass Narrows the radar is of little use. There are many lights around town, so until we leave the areas of town it's a matter of watching the GPS, checking the radar, and watching for lights that are identifiable, like the ferry terminal, or Vigor shipyard.
The weather was calm but there was a slight NW breeze coming in. As we approached Pond Reef it started to get a little roly-poly. Nova hasn't been in conditions like this and eventually she lost her breakfast on my new rug. I will research Dramamine for dogs. Once we turned north at Survey Point it calmed down and she had no more issues.
I had prepped the shrimp pots as much as possible before pulling out, but there were a few things left to do with them before they were ready to drop. Once we got into Cover Pass I stopped and made final preparations for dropping the pot.
Dropping the pots when I am alone is a matter of running only one engine at dead slow speed and then engaging the autopilot to keep us going straight. Then I dump each of my two pots in sequence and then just let the 600' of line spool out on its own. At the end I throw over the 2 buoys, and they are set. I did a little circle with the boat so the track on the GPS would show where I dropped them. The GPS has a "Mark" function that creates a waypoint at your current location, and I will use that in the future.
We arrived at the Naha dock at about 10 AM, and as I expected there were no other boats there. Not many recreational boaters go out in January.
When I'm photographing people and I want to be in the shot I use the time delay setting and I just run over and jump in the shot. But I didn't think that would work with Nova, so I got a little remote controller for my camera. I just set it up in the settings and then push the remote-control button. It delays 2 seconds and then takes the shot.
Conditions were excellent, and it is quite beautiful in this area, which is one of the reasons I come here so often.
Of course, I had to take Nova up the trail a couple of times. I still don't trust her off leash, but maybe someday she can be off leash.
It looks like the trail sign finally fell down. I think this is the same sign that was there when I first hiked this trail in the summer of 1978.
We have pretty short daylight hours at this time of year, and I was hoping to get back to town just as it was starting to get dark. So, we didn't have much time here. Just time for lunch, a couple of short walks, and a few boat chores, and then we had to leave. My boat is slow, and it takes about 2 1/2 - 3 hours to get back, and we still had to pull the shrimp pots, which takes some time.
We pulled out at about 1 PM and headed for the shrimp pots, which were about an hour's run away.
Pulling up to and grabbing the pot buoys is another challenge, especially when running solo. You have to get close enough to grab the buoys with the boat hook, but you definitely do not want to get too close and get the line in the props. With the wind and tide running it's always tough to get this done. This time it took me 3 or 4 attempts before I was able to grab the line on the buoys and thread it through the pot puller and start pulling.
One pot was totally empty, but the other pot had 8 shrimp in it. I consider this a victory since the last time I pulled the pots I got exactly 1 shrimp. I told people I got 800% more on this pull than on the previous pull. 8 shrimp is enough for my dinner, so from that perspective it was a success.
And of course, we just eat the tails, so this is what I was left with after popping off the heads.
The ride back was uneventful, but I did notice some interesting cloud colors above Gravina Island.
We got into the slip a little after 4 PM with no issues. It was pretty much dead calm in the harbor.
I logged about 42 nm for this trip.
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