July 17 2016: Winds delivered as promised

The fishing continues to be remarkable mainly in its steadiness. We still haven't had a big tide, just chipping away a few thousand pounds at a time. Well, that's better than a few hundred pounds at a time.

Sarah took Trina and Bruce into town today to show them where we freeze our kings. I hope that they will be able to take them in for us in the future. We really like to save our kings, but it definitely cuts into our sleeping time to run any in after each tide. If Trina and Bruce are comfortable taking that role, that will ease it for us quite a bit.

We continue to break into three skiffs to be sure we have the chance to get through all the nets on the flood, beating the turn of the tide. We missed it one day, but since then, we've been doing well - sometimes getting through them twice before it turns.

We made it over 100,000 lbs a few tides ago - and in a few tides, I hope we make it to 150,000. The forecasted winds arrived on the afternoon tide. I was hoping the forecast was just an exaggeration - more fear-mongering. Nope.

We have now gone into July 18th. We are just in from the flood pick - at least as much of it as we could manage. The crew did great and it was really hard. The winds are at about 16 MPH tonight. We went out on the flood - swift current, strong wind, pitch black - sounds like setnetting!

Jeff is doing a great job as our pilot. He has nerves of steel in the face of big waves and big surf. He dropped us off at the Ambi (and then ran back to shore through the surf to retrieve a forgotten life jacket) before transferring to the New Kid. I don't know how they noticed that the Bathtub was starting to get away from them, but the anchor was dragging and the wind and current were conspiring to push it onto the shore. They rescued it in time. We decided to call it a night and wait until the tide turns and the sun begins to come up. It'll still be windy, but at least we'll be able to see.

We all transferred back to the Bathtub - harder than that sounds in winds like these. Jeff and Patrick dropped us off and backed back out before being thrown up on the beach. Matt, Inku, Austin, and Davey ran for the rowboat and pulled it out for them. A rogue wave swamped the rowboat and knocked over the people. They pulled it back to shore, emptied it out, and pushed it back out again. This time they made it. While Jeff was keeping them from being pushed in, Patrick called for the line and tied it off. I asked them to anchor so that the boat would drift over one of the running lines, so we could pull out to it.

As I stood in the breakers waiting for them to make it back in, I just wasn't sure how they would get through those breakers without swamping. They were as tall as I am and the rowboat isn't that big. As soon as we could reach them, Inku rushed out to grab the bow of the rowboat and pull it in. This happened to be during the two or three breaker lull.

Everyone was OK. Matt observed that this is really fun... once we know that everyone is OK.

As we pulled the rowboat the rest of the way in, we noticed another skiff right next to us, swamping. Oh no! It belongs to our neighbors! Patrick went over to let them know - they had the sense to stay in on the flood. There wasn't much to do except for collect things that had been washed out of it and anchor it so it won't be washed out as the tide goes down.

We noticed that the Bathtub was working its way in as well. It seems that that anchor was dragging. We've been watching it. It may have dragged into the swamp zone, but stopped on a running line. It seemed to be riding the waves OK, not taking water over the bow. As soon as I finish this, I'll go out and check on it. It's 3:45 AM now. The tide should have turned by now, but it's overcast so it remains black outside. I'll let you know in the next post whether it swamped.