This time, it isn't the sleep deprivation that's getting us; it's the wind. It is a strong onshore wind, so strong that I feel it's unsafe to people and equipment to deliver fish to the beach. When we come into the shallows with a wind like this, we just get hammered. The neighbor got a broken motor out of his efforts to deliver to the beach and another got his skiff high centered on a big rock. So we waited until the tide was out and used the Friendly Ranger to deliver. That takes a lot longer.
This was the tide we tried the small anchor for the deep water set. Here is Bob, heading out to the net just about as the sun was setting.
Chris had a burst of energy - this photo shows him running through the mud to catch up with Jake.
Using the anchor to hold the tag line worked well. And Jake found a great technique for getting started in the right direction despite a howling wind - it is backing up, pivoting around the anchor line until pointed in the right direction. We had a snag with the nets - there's a way to stack them so that they (probably) will play out without grabbing corks from lower in the stack and coming out in a lump. Some kind of error was made in the stack because the web caught the bottom end of the lead line and out went half the net together. I had put a long tag line on it just in case, so we quickly reeled the errant part of it back in, thinking we'd have to start over. But I noticed that we were very close to the target buoy, so we just played it back out and there we were. I call that a success. We set at midnight. We were out there preparing for the set at 11:30, when the sun was setting. I was glad I happened to have my camera with me.
We came in on the Grayling a little before high water - there hadn't been enough on the flood to justify beating ourselves up in the wind more than necessary. We anchored the Grayling high on the beach so we wouldn't have to try to row to it... and it swamped while we waited (in vain) for the wind to die down. The Grayling swamps fairly gracefully - the air pocket keeps the outboard up and as long as the gas tank is in the transom, it probably stays out of the water too. So it's just a matter of emptying the boat (several energetically deployed five gallon buckets take care of that, though at some cost to the crew) and retrieving the stuff that may have washed out of the boat. And we were off. The outboard sputtered disconcertingly as we were heading to the other skiffs. My thought at that time was that we didn't have any back up means of propulsion in that skiff - no other outboard, oars, sail - nothing. And no radio. And the whole crew in the boat. Of course, we could throw the anchor and wait for the tide to go out, using the opportunity for crew bonding... but overall, a second means of propulsion might be good. Having had that thought, all of my mental energy was suddenly concentrated on keeping the outboard alive long enough to get us to the Ambi - I felt like it was the force of my will that inched us those last several fathoms. In truth, the Grayling did it on its own with Josh's coaxing. I think the problem with the outboard might be that the fuel was mixed too rich with two-cycle oil. It's um, not exactly a precise measurement. We'll try adding some gas to the mix to see if it improves its performance.
As we were going through the nets, the wind was so strong, we started having to call out big waves to each other so that we would hang on, and hang on to the net. It goofed a lot of people up. And even though more than 6000 lbs is a lot of fish, we're tired like 20,000 lbs. Strong winds suck out energy.
Our current total is 187,941 lbs. I have a hunch (actually, it's more of a deduction) that we'll have a lot fish on this tide. ADFG has opened the Kvichak river to the drifters, so very few will be out here in the Naknek district in front of us. Plus this big onshore wind. I feel like I'm stuck to the railroad tracks watching the freight train bearing down on me. We have the makings of a very bad tide before us. Everyone is tired, the wind hasn't laid down any, and I think we'll be hit with a lot of fish. If the wind keeps up, we may decide to skip the night tide.
Now, to nap.
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