Hunter Bay – Going On A Bear Hunt! I’m Not Afraid!
(July 13th, 2017)
The move from Hessa Inlet to Hunter Bay in the morning was quick but rainy with low visibility. We slowed down and fished a bit, adding another nice Coho to our growing onboard collection. As we trolled slowly along we encountered many sea otters, curious about us but keeping their distance.
Coming into Hunter Bay we discovered an old pier, that seems to have been for a now abandoned and mostly destroyed cannery. There are remnants of a saw mill as well, including bricks from an old building that had fallen and a sawdust pile where if you dig down a couple feet you can find the original floor. The hill by the pier on the beach, which has vegetation and trees on it is built up from left over canning tin piled high and rusting into a pile of iron dirt stars (the star shape left over after punching out 4 round lids in the tin)
We knew this to be “bear country” and Jim Rard wanted to get the group together, along with the bear gun, bear spray, radios, and horns, to explore a “bear trail” on shore. As it had been raining a lot lately, the ground was very wet, but seemed like it is always wet. There were fallen logs that were nearly reduced to pulp. Since we knew the tide was going out, promising to leave all our dinghies high and dry later, one of Jim’s crew from Ruby Slippers became our Dinghy Valet, actually towing all the dinghies back to Ruby Slippers while we hiked, waiting for our radio call to being them back once we were done.
Not realizing ahead of time how wet it would be, we didn’t really wear the the right foot apparel (except Ellie who somehow chose boots) nor the appropriate jackets to bushwhack (fleece collects stuff from the bushes and trees easily). Despite this, once our feet got wet and the kids accepted their fate, everyone did great. The girls hiked through the thick woods, mud, swamp, encountering various kills where something (bear or wolf) devoured something else (a deer or goat, not sure) VERY recently and left fur and bones. They were wet but they had lots of fun.
We eventually wound our way back to the beach a couple hours later and called the valet for our dinghies. It was so sweet!
Back aboard, having dried off and warmed up, Devon baked another salmon filet for lunch, mixing it with spaghetti, oil, garlic, red peppers, and green onions. A great lunch!
While relaxing I spent a little time wiring up the cockpit table LEDs that I mounted in Ketchikan. My initial wiring plan didn’t work out but plan B was just as easy and I got it all working. While I was working on that, s/v Sea Otter’s dinghy stopped by with fresh HOT corned bread, the super tasty kind with corn bits in it. A fantastic thank you gift after we gave them one of our salmon the other day.
Devon filleted the remaining salmon, keeping one filet out for dinner, another filet out for making lox, while I vacuum packed the rest for the freezer.
Later, while spraying down the back of the boat from the fish cleaning and filleting mess, I slipped on the slimy wet wood and nearly fell in the water head first off the back. The good news is my foot slipped behind the fender we store on the swim step, the fender line tied to the boat found it’s way between my pinky toe and the next toe, and the combination of jamming the foot and the toe with the line kept me on the boat. The bad news is that same combination broke my pinky toe–and that hurt! I’m still not sure which would have been better, falling in the water and NOT breaking my toe, or staying aboard and breaking it.
I checked email and pulled down weather data via satellite, which showed slightly better weather coming in over the next few days. We had one more salmon filet for dinner along with honey mustard glaze to go with the corn bread–delicious.
Next morning we had LOTS of condensation inside, due to high humidity inside and out. There was hard rain early morning before we woke which didn’t help. We may want to get a dehumidifier for the boat, not sure if it will be useful once we head south though. Another option may be to add some small fans to the vents in the hatches, to get more air moving, but that requires some planning, and may not solve the problem.
Devon and the girls went to shore by the pier with the others, to explore, build a fire pit, and a castle from bricks, old oven parts, and other stuff. I rested my foot (toe) and worked on blog posts and other computer projects.
Potluck dinner on the beach was planned at the pier and nearly the entire fleet showed up. ~30 people and 3 dogs, lots of good food, some music, stories, photos, drone footage, and exploring a bit more of the remnants from the cannery and sawmill. Upon closer inspection, the pier is very well constructed, mostly steel, with wood decking in very good condition. We are still a bit stymied about why that pier is there, since it seems so much newer than the cannery/sawmill leftovers, but yet no apparently purpose. I attended the potluck with my toe wrapped, wearing sandals, and it seemed okay as long as I didn’t try to flex that part of my foot in any direction.
Tomorrow we move on to Hydaburg, a sleepy little Haida Tribal town with recently rebuild marina docks.
