Home!

Just got home last night and I'm starting to settle in for a couple of weeks. Cod season in Kodiak is almost over. The jig fleet will finish off the entire quota next week sometime. Almost 8,000,000 lbs. of fish for the jig boats this year! That's gotta be some kind of record.
    I went up the first of March.  I don't know what possessed me to do that.  Money probably.  The weather was bad most of the time and when it wasn't, the "calm" didn't last very long. One day I tried to drive up Piller mountain, which overlooks Kodiak.  I got about half way up and that was it!  The snow hadn't been plowed any further.  Not out of neglect, but neccessity.  The snow was higher than the top of the car. I would show pictures, but I deleted them all by mistake.  Ya gotta be smarter than the tool!  I spent most of March huddled inside the boat doing small projects in the engine room. Had I really been motivated I could have done them in a couple of weeks.
   My regular cod crew were just finishing up the pot season when the captain decided to do all his Halibut IFQ's right after pot season.  There went my crew for jig.  I moped around for about a week thinking about just going home and coming back when salmon started, but I was pretty sure my reception, when I got home, would be even chillier than the weather in Kodiak. Not good, so I poked around and picked up a couple of green kids to fish cod with and they turned out just fine.  We had a pretty good time and caught a few fish too.

It's that time of year, again!

The skiff is done and ready for shipment.  Off to Tacoma or Seattle with it and also a new bale of web for the seine.  I'm running into difficulties finding a ride north for the skiff.  All the tenders headed up are stopping in Sitka for herring and can't have a skiff sitting on deck.  They'll need every square inch of deck space they have.  Horizon doesn't carry skiffs anymore, so I don't know who to go to.

Ah, Samson Tug & Barge will take it to Kodiak for the paltry sum of three thousand one hundred dollars, one way, please.  Anyway, I just got home from delivering the skiff and web.  I went a little overboard on the skiff bridle and painter line.  Inch and a half Blue Steel Dynema, hahaha. I don't think I have to ever worry about breaking it. Not even sure what the breaking strength is, pretty darn big though. Here are the pictures:

Wish I knew what the breaking strength on the Dynema is.

Loaded up and ready to head for Seattle.

They're just about to touch down on the flat.  I was real happy about how balanced the lifting bridle was. I was surprised at how much the skiff weighed 6,020 lbs.  Wow, fat boy.










And there we are, touch down and delivered!  Now, if they can just make sure it arrives intact.

The weather outside is frightful

Brutal is a good word for what's happening, weather-wise, in Kodiak right now.
Sub-zero temps and high winds seem to be the norm.  Lost two boats the other day.  One grounding and a roll-over.  Had it not been for the Coast Guard, 11 people could have been lost.  The margin of error when trying to make a living on the water is pretty skinny to begin with.  But try it in the winter, in these kind of conditions and, well, there isn't one. Any small failure or anomaly can and will kill you, or try it's best to do so.  This is the grounded boat as she sits in Jute Bay on the Mainland.  It happens pretty fast. without much warning, and usually in the middle of the night.  When the doodoo hit the fan, these people had to do everything exactly right and so did the CG or it would have been a far different result.  Man, that is a scary picture!

The Skiff

Well, I'm still working on the instrument console wiring and installation of the console onto the engine cover.  I'm very lucky NW Diesel Power is letting me camp in their shop. Dry and warm suits me just fine.  Sooner or later I must finish up. One thing bears mentioning,  I was installing the downsounder in the console and I broke off the data pin plugin.  It stuck out too far and pressed against the back wall of the console.  Never saw that one coming. I think I'm to the point where I can bring the skiff home and finish up.  This is what we came up with for the instrument panel and positioning it in the skiff.

Halibut - 2011

After a lousy salmon experience, Halibut was a dream.  I do my IFQs in the fall, so I have Halibut to distribute after the season closes down in November.  I have been doing them on the Viking Star with my friend's (Thorvold Olsen) crew.  What can I say,  We went out for a day, had a good day fishing and came in with all the "But" I was allowed this year.  Perfect!

There was a Salmon season in there somewhere?

I would love to avoid it, but that's not how I do things.  Salmon season 2011 is one I would like to forget.  It stunk from the start of day two clear through the whole season.  Day one was good.  We were on the "Mainland" chasing early Reds.  We had a pretty good day and then the liquid line on the refrigeration system ruptured in the fish hold.  That allowed a significant amount of seawater to enter the the refrigerant lines, compressor, condenser, and chiller tubes.  Needless to say, none of those things like salt water.  It took 30 seconds to do over $30 thousand dollars worth of damage and shut us down for the entire month of June. Not my idea of a good time. After that incident, the salmon season turned into a series of personnel problems.  I got through them and managed to learn a little bit.  That is all I'm going to say about the 2011 Salmon season.  It's over, I survived, Amen!

Smaller Pink Salmon returns.

The fall and winter weather is a big factor in the survival of Pink Salmon smolt.  If it freezes too early and stays cold, there is poor survival.  The same, if there is too much rain or not enough water in the streams.  The scientists are touting a 30 year ocean cycle shift to colder winters and I think they are right.  While this bodes ill for the Pinks, the other species, especially the Sockeye, will do better. I hope.