It’s probably just as well that we’re not fishing today. The wind is blowing hard. Today is the day Mom returns to Palmer. She came to the beach for some farewell photos and a visit before heading to the airport. It was so windy that when she was climbing up the steps (in four wheel drive), I wasn't so much afraid she'd trip and fall off; I was more afraid the wind would blow her off. But David and I had her surrounded and all was well.
It was really stormy today! Between taking the farewell photos (and here we are - all except Jake who was still in the cabins) and returning from the airport, two neighbors’ boats swamped. Here are photos of Boat 1 and Boat 2 - these are sights that no fisherman wants to see. And come to think of it, the second swamped boat is barely possible to see, it's buried so deeply in the water. But you can see a little bit of the outboard peeking up and a little bob of the corks. All that is attached to a skiff with a power roller and a power pack... aieee. Terrible.
Our boat didn't swamp (thankyouthankyouthankyou!), but the caribiner holding the Ambi to the buoy gave up and stretched out so that the Ambi slipped out of its anchorage and drifted in with the incoming tide and wind. David said that when they saw the conditions of the neighbors' boats, they looked out and counted ours. But it's kind of confusing, because, in addition to our three skiffs, the are the Williams', the Hakkinen's and the Webster's. So at first, they didn't notice that the Ambi had made a break for it. Jeff finally noticed and they went looking. The Ambi tends to come in and it did this time too, thanks to its natural tendency and to the help from the onshore wind and incoming tide.
Also, it didn't swamp and didn't end up in a bad place - just about a half mile down the beach, past the swamped skiffs. It looks great; just in the wrong place. If we had to have a problem with one of our boats in this tide, this is the boat, this is the way to have a problem: no harm done. After resolving a false alarm about the cable that controls the throttle (it was just pinched, not stuck due to corrosion), when the tide came in, we used the propane truck to push the Ambi to the water's edge, and then the crew pushed it on into the water so that David and Josh brought it back home... after recovering from it being out of gas.
For Chris' birthday, we (sadly) did not get 30,000 lbs, but I think we can hold out hope that we'll approach that much more in our remaining fishing time... if we get more fishing time. Fish and Game is rightly concerned primarily with escapement and if they don't get enough fish up the river, we don't get to fish. It's reasonable... and a little nerve-wracking. So instead of 30,000 lbs, we had about that many calories in lasagna and lemon cheesecake. Mmmm.
Anticipating another high tide tonight, we parked the trucks up on the beach access road and when we went to move the ranger up, we discovered that the starter has probably gone out. Sigh. So we towed it with the four-wheeler. And then called for help with it.
The next fishing update will be tomorrow at noon. The soonest we may fish is tomorrow night. Several people have seen jumpers. That's promising. Chris and Joe fly out tomorrow. Boo!
But for tonight, though - we had a glorious moon. Poor Roger - he has an excellent camera (I have camera envy) so it's 2:30 am and he was awakened to "Roger? Roger! Bring your camera!" I think it was worth it...I want to stay away from town. Many have given up on the season (and I don't like that vibe) but our buyer wants us to keep fishing (as they are sending their extra processing staff home). I don't think we're done. I keep remembering that five years ago, we got slammed by fish on the 12th after no real fish for the rest of the season. I think they surprised everyone. Harry said it's possible except there's no data to support it. He's talking about the Port Moller test fishery. Our fish have to come around the corner there and they have test boats out to see how thick (or thin) they are. They crank their catch through some sort of equation and come up with an estimate of what we'll see in about 10 days. But I have a thought about that - earlier in the season, those indicators were pointing to a massive body of fish coming through ... and I don't think they did. So if that predictor can be wrong in one direction, isn't it possible that it could be wrong in another? After all, it's just an indicator, like the weather report is an indicator of what the weather will be like... Keep your fingers crossed!
No comments:
Post a Comment