July 1: Fog morning

Even though we started fishing very early this morning, today was more about the beauty of being here than the fish itself. It was dark when we set the nets at 3:30, and the water was much higher than we hoped it would be. The New Boat crew has the running set down. In my boat, I'd say we are fair at it. It was dead calm this morning, and even though we could walk the net out of the boat, because it was so calm and Roger, AJ, and Rohan were out there about up to their armpits, we decided to experiment with running the Ambi backwards, feeding the net out the bow (and keeping it away from the prop as the prop and the net have a known affinity for each other). It worked out pretty well, though the net got tangled up with the brailers in the last fathom or two, so they crew jumped out and finished the set on foot. The New Boat came over, standing by to help if we needed it. Jake and Sarah went on to the inside site to set that for us. All the nets were set by 4 am.

After setting, we anchored the Grayling in the "quad," the space between the outside buoys of the inside site and the inside buoys of the outside sites. As the sun began to rise, the fog thickened. Sometimes it is so thick it is hard to know which way is toward the shore. When I was younger before we started using skiffs, we experienced that a few times on foot... and it's scary.

We always go through the nets at least once after setting it. There are three reasons for doing this: 1) there might be fish in it and if they are hitting hard, we want to get started as soon as possible getting them out (and if there is a way to deliver, getting them on ice) and making room for more to come in; 2) there might be only a few fish in it, but when they hit in very shallow water when the net is very billowy, they are able to pinch the net closed by getting caught toward the leadline and then thrashing around and getting caught along the corkline too. They can also get caught twice 5' away, becoming the lynch pin in a strained net. When that happens, it is very hard on the fish as the tide rises, and the rest of the net doesn't fish so well; and 3) we might have messed up the net in setting it and this is a chance early on to correct a mistake. Here are Roger and AJ - they are on the roller side of the boat, Roger on hydraulics and AJ helping to pull. (Rohan and I are on the picking side of the boat. Roger and AJ have the frustrating job of keeping Rohan and me in fish, meaning that they sometimes have to give up the fish they are working on to keep the net moving.) Here they've stopped the roller to get some fish out of the net. That light behind them that looks like a search light, is the rising sun.

Here is Roger, making sure we're ready for him to pull in some more of the net. This crew is great to work with. More than one person has said that fishing out here is my religion and I think it's kind of true. But I don't think I'm the only member of this church.

I think we went through both nets twice this morning. Sometimes, they don't hit in the first 20 minutes and come around a little later. But there were only a few in each pass. So we decided to go in and wait until just before high water. Here are Rohan and Roger with the great big sun burning behind the fog, waiting for the New Boat crew to transfer to the Grayling and come to get us.

The fog didn't really let up this morning. We could see well enough to see the four New Boat crew members crowding into the Grayling. It is so great to have a working outboard on that skiff. Even if there had been no fish and no obvious beauty, it would have been worth coming out this morning just to go for a ride in the Grayling under its own power.

The fog was beginning to burn off to reveal a beautiful blue sky. In this photo, the sun is still low on the horizon over to the left, about a quarter turn from where it sets. After rising it follows a big looping arc across the sky, sort of tracing the shape of a C. In the winter, the pattern is the opposite. The place of the sunrise is still surprisingly close to the place of sunset, but in the winter, the sun takes the short path between them, staying low in the sky. This photo shows the crew dispersing to separate cabins - David, Sarah, and Roger over to the Space Hut; Jake to the bunkhouse, Jeff, AJ, and Rohan to the crew cabin. We came together briefly to agree on the time to return to the boats. Some people napped, some read, some ate.

Before we came up, AJ noticed a "rainbow without any color." This is the second time I've seen one of these. I don't really understand it. Maybe someone out there does? I think both times it was in the fog - if it doesn't already have a name, I want to call it a lightbow. It was still out when we got up to the cabins, so I was able to grab a different camera and get a broader view to try to capture the whole thing.

Here is the crew cabin and the walkway from my cabin, both under the lightbow, which ends on the left right on the Space Hut.