Hobart Bay to Petersburg

(August 1st, 2017)

Sun.  Glorious sun.  It was the second day in a row we’d woken up to the sparkling glimmer of sun on rippled seas.  It was the only time since reaching Alaska that we had seen the sun two consecutive days.  It made my early, 6AM wake-up nearly effortless.

The fleet was to leave by 7:30AM for Petersburg.  However, a 7:30AM departure time really meant the time the last boats ended up leaving; invariably, most boats would head out at least half an hour early, whether it was because they had slower motors, preferred fishing, or they were just ready to go. 

Today was no exception; when I was ready to weigh anchor, at least four other boats had already left.  Rich and the kids still asleep, I made my coffee, grabbed a quick breakfast of toast and boatmade (as opposed to homemade) gravlax, and climbed out into the morning sun.

The anchor was well set, but came up easily.  I reluctantly walked back to the enclosed cockpit, and proceeded to remove the side curtains to let the sunshine in.  Sun was hard to come by in these parts, and I was going to let every ounce of it in.

The sunshine itself wasn’t the first good omen of the day; as I proceeded out of the inner bay, and into the larger bay, I saw several whale spouts up ahead.  It was a family of three humpbacks, including one small one, playing or spy hopping in the calm harbor. 

I turned to navigate the rocky channel exiting the outer harbor, when a whale popped up just 100 feet in front of our boat.  I immediately put the boat in neutral, and waited to see where the next spout would appear.  Slowly, and calmly, three spouts appeared and then disappeared, and then appeared and disappeared again, as the family of humpbacks meandered on out of the cove. 

They clearly had no sense of urgency, as it took them at least 10 minutes to move through the channel far enough for me to proceed behind them.  I waited until the spouts stopped appearing for several minutes, and then cautiously navigated the rocks.  Just as I passed the last rock, spout appeared in front of me, followed by a large hump.  Again, I put the engine in neutral.  I waited, and watched, as the whales again meandered along across my path, shifting into reverse as needed to give them their space.  After another several minutes, the spouts stopped, and I again made way, this time down the channel to the south.

As I turned south, a large spout appeared in front of me, perpendicular to my path of travel, yet again.  Again, I stopped, and waited.  Several spouts, and then they stopped.  Surely, this time, the whales had left, and I could proceed south.

I put the boat back into gear, and just a few minutes later, the large whale appeared in my path, perpendicular to my course.  Again, I stopped.  It couldn’t be coincidence that the large whale, in a group with a baby whale, kept appearing in front of me, impeding forward progress.  I would have protected my babies, too, and the whale’s herding was a gentle message that this channel was closed while her calf was in it.  So, after watching a few more spouts, I turned around and headed around the north side of the entrance island, where the whales were content to let me pass.  I then made my way south for our day’s passage.

We had a long day to Petersburg, but fishing was the topic of extensive radio chatter.  Ruby Slippers, who left after us, was unavailable to join the conversation; they were just outside Hobart Bay, bringing in a 5-foot 3-inch halibut, weighing approximately 120 pounds.  Jim was largely unavailable on the radio for the remainder of the day, as was his cockpit, while he filleted it.

Jealous of his haul, and, I admit, a little competitive, I was then determined to catch a halibut.  I wasn’t at all confident we could bring in a 5-foot halibut, but something more manageable would satisfy my competitive spirit.  Our first location was a bust; I failed to notice the markings on the chart for grassy bottom, and we pulled in two small sculpin.  Our second stop, however, yielded 3 halibut on the hook, and two in the boat.  (The second halibut got away while we were trying to net him.). With a 29-inch and 35-inch halibut sitting in our helm’s footwell, and afraid of getting anything bigger if we kept fishing, we pulled up and moved on.

Humpbacks were plentiful during our morning cruise; in the first fishing bay, we watch a family of 6 humpbacks bubble feeding just off the coast.  Then, as we left our second, successful fishing hole, we all but ran over another pod of three or four.  We also encountered a large school of porpoises.

I had my hopes set on also catching several salmon on our way south, so that we could pack them up and send them back to family when we arrived in Petersburg, but the run was too long to justify the slowdown.  Instead, we simply motored on, enjoying our lunch in the cockpit in the warm sun.  We had halibut we could send home if we were able to find the means of doing so, and we still had several fillets of salmon in the freezer as well.  (Unfortunately, although Petersburg has an entire business devoted to freezing, packing, and shipping sport fish, we ran out of time to send any.)

We arrived in Petersburg around dinner time.  The girls were eager to go out, and I was eager to get them off the boat (they start getting pretty wild when they don’t get off the boat enough), so we changed out of our fishing clothes and into town clothes.  We’d been out of wine on the boat for a week, so our mission was to find a restaurant that served wine.

The problem is, Alaska is quite skittish about their alcohol.  Sure, pot shops are fine, but we’re going to put in a bunch of weird regulations about alcohol, especially in the small fishing towns.    So, sometimes it’s difficult finding a place that serves alcohol and isn’t a full-fledged bar that disallows kids.

We asked around town, and we were told that the Mexican food truck was quite good, but didn’t serve wine.  The only places that did serve wine, and allowed kids, were Inge’s and the pizza place. We couldn’t find Inge’s, but we’d already walked past the pizza place, so we went there.

It was busy in there.  Most of the Sail Alaska fleet, and numerous fishing boats, and a few adventure-cruise tourists, were eating there.  We found a table near some of our fleet-mates, and I waited in line for 15 minutes to order.  I was quite pleased to hear that people were ordering margaritas, but I was surprised no one was ordering beer or wine.  Imagine my disappointment when I discovered they were ordering margarita pizzas, and the establishment did not serve alcohol at all.

Rich and I are still trying to wrap up our side business, a decision we arrived at in part because work – even (and maybe especially) infrequent vacation work – stresses me out to no end.  To date, our days in port have been spent trying to provision, do laundry, clean, and cram in at least 14 hours’ worth of work while internet is available.  Doing all of that in a 16-hour day makes for a grumpy mama.  So, Rich and I decided to shut down the side business for a while.

But, having already been disappointed by the lack of wine, I was grumpy to no end as I worked with painfully slow internet to try and accomplish what I couldn’t have accomplished in a single sitting even with fast internet.  My mood was diminished even further by the lackluster and greasy quality of the pizza, which had been expensive to boot.

We ended up staying past closing, and being the last ones there.  Despite having closed, the owner saw that the girls were disappointed at having missed the shop’s ice cream stand, so he offered to serve us despite the hour.  As we waited for our ice cream, we spoke to the owner, about his career in groceries, and about our travel plans.  He was excited about our plans, and the girls’ excitement about it, and he sent us away with not only ice cream, but also some fun logo items – a frisbee, a beach ball, a keychain flashlight, and a keychain bottle opener with a measuring tape.  Work behind me, my mood lightened, despite not having had any wine in, now, more than a week.  It was past nine when we made it back to the boat, and we enjoyed a fabulous sunset view on our walk back.  The girls headed for bed, eager for the following day.