My in-town responsibilities and the weather cooperated to allow for an overnight trip to Port Stewart in Western Behm Canal on Friday 02/16 & Saturday 02/17. My shipmates for this trip were once again my dog Nova, and my cat Luna.
Here is a map snippet that shows my track for this trip. It shows a sort of dog leg on the return trip because I stopped in Loring for a few hours to stow all the pots and gear and to clean up the decks a bit.
I was eager to get out on this trip because the weather forecast was exceptionally good for this time of year. I got down to the boat very early and made all preparations for a 5:20 AM departure. Of course, it was still pitch dark at that hour, but there was no wind and no rain or snow.
Departing the town area in the dark is not so difficult. There are so many lights from town that with the lights, the GPS chart plotter, and the radar, it's pretty easy to know where you are. The radar doesn't help much until you get a little way out of town and away from all the lights.
I think Nova and Luna are starting to understand that being on the boat is just part of our daily lives. Luna still hides while we are underway and only comes out once we've stopped. But once it gets light and if we are close enough to shore to see anything, Nova seems to enjoy looking out the window.
Of course, cats know no boundaries, so when the sun came out Luna decided that the ledge above the lower helm station was the perfect spot to hang out.
Port Stewart is on left side of Western Behm Canal as you are heading north. There is a little "nook" on the right, just you go in, that is suitable for anchoring. The rest of the area is too shallow for larger boats to navigate. I tried to circle the anchoring spot in red in this screenshot.
This chart snippet makes it look more difficult to enter than it actually is. There is plenty of water depth to get into that little nook as long as you follow the channel.
I dropped my two shrimp pots in about 380' of water near the entrance to Port Stewart with high hopes to finally get some shrimp this time.
Once I got inside the anchoring area, I was completely surprised to see a lot of ice! It wasn't very thick, but it was definitely there, and there was a lot of it. I very slowly and carefully eased in, with the ice making a grating sound. I hope I did not damage my gel coat on the hull. I have a haul-out scheduled for mid-April in Wrangell and that's when I will really be able to tell if any damage was done.
I eased over to the anchoring spot and dropped anchor in about 45' of water.
Here are some more shots of the ice in that part of Port Stewart.
My first task after anchoring was to get the raft in the water and to take Nova to shore for a potty break. Fortunately, my raft has a fiberglass bottom. If I'd had a fully rubber raft, I don't think I could have used it under these conditions. I had to push through considerable ice in order to get Nova to shore.
Here is a shot of the Faraway at anchor amongst the ice in the nook at Port Stewart.
After taking care of Nova's needs, I brought my 2 crab pots down and got them baited. Then I took them out in the raft one at a time and dropped them.
After getting some lunch I was ready for a nap. I had gotten up at 3:15 AM this morning in order to get an early start on the trip.
When I got up from my nap at about 2 PM the bright sun was out, and all the ice was gone!
I have about 150' of sinking line on each crab pot, but it is only about 45' deep in here, so there is a lot of slack line. When I got up from my nap the buoys from one of the pots had drifted to within 15 - 20 yards of the boat, which for me was too close for comfort. So, I jumped into the raft and pulled the pot and reset it much farther from the boat.
The rest of the afternoon was spent on the boat doing chores, reading, doing crossword puzzles, etc. I eventually had to take off my long johns because the bright sun was beaming in, and it was almost 80 degrees inside the cabin. I kept trying to block the sun with the blinds & curtains, but the boat kept swinging around on the anchor, so it was a moving target.
Right before it started to get dark, about 5 PM, I took Nova to shore again.
After returning from that shore excursion, I started the generator and began to prepare dinner. I usually bring something that does not require a whole lot of preparation on board, since I have no oven and a limited galley area. For this trip I had made some chicken fajitas in my air fryer recently, so it was just a matter of heating them up in the microwave.
A little after 6 PM it was time for the evening video. I usually try to check some videos out from the library for these trips, but I had neglected to do so, so I had to pull one from my onboard library of videos. For this evening it was "White Men Can't Jump," which I've seen many times, but is kind of a basketball classic comedy.
After the movie, at about 8:30 PM, I took Nova to shore again, this time in complete darkness, which was a challenge to say the least. I have a new 2,000,000 candle power spotlight which turned out to be just the ticket for these nocturnal trips to shore. Like everything else these days, it is cordless, and rechargeable. It's even waterproof.
We had a quiet night on board. I slept up front this time because I had Luna with me, and she is all over me during the night.
I woke up at 3:20 AM and was up and about at 4 AM. First task of course was to take Nova to shore. It's not so much fun in the dark and one time I stepped in over my boots because I couldn't clearly see how deep the water was.
I had put a thermometer on the back deck overnight, and in the morning, it was showing 41 degrees. No ice anymore while I was there.
Once I got Nova secure, I went out in the raft and pulled the crab pots, one at a time. The first pot had 8 crabs, 4 of which were legal sized males. The second pot had 12 crabs, 7 of which were legal to keep. So, I ended up taking home 11 crabs. I only keep 1 for myself and give the rest of them away. I don't like to freeze crab meat.
After pulling the pots I took Nova to shore for one last potty break before departure.
Once I got the crab pots secured, I had to put the raft away, which takes about 45 minutes.
Then it was Go Time.
I pulled the anchor and headed out of the cove.
I pulled the 2 shrimp pots with no difficulty and faced disappointment once again. Only 1 shrimp which went back into the sea. I'm doing something wrong...
When I pulled the shrimp pots, they were covered in literally thousands of sea lice. I don't know the precise scientific name for these things, but I've always called them sea lice. I apologize in advance for the grossness of these things - they were everywhere.
It was still fairly early, and the weather was stunning, so I decided to run across to Loring and do most of my gear stowage and boat clean up duties there, instead of doing all that back at the harbor. Loring is a neat spot to visit, and I could dewater Nova there as well.
After doing gear and boat clean up, dewatering Nova, and getting a good lunch, I pulled out from Loring at 12:30 PM and was in my slip in Bar Harbor at 3:15 PM.
60 nm traveled this trip.
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