Monday May 27, Memorial Day, we pulled anchor and headed to Peril Straight and Appleton Cove. We were intent on doing some crabbing before the commercial season started. We placed two pots, the skies were blue and in the evening we were able to spot brown bears, a momma and cub on one side of the cove and then two other brownies on the other side. They had come down to graze on the grasses. WOW.
On Tuesday morning, we pulled blanks so we weighed anchor and headed to Hoonah Sound to try our luck at prawning. We set two prawn traps and three crab pots. Kurt and I each placed guesses when the sun would set behind the ridge in our new cove, I guessed 9:00, and it set at 9:03. Not bad! I rarely win those type of competitions with Kurt. It all had to do with where on the ridge and our boat position. A short time later, Kurt spotted a brownie on the beach. We are seeing bears in nearly every anchorage where we would expect to see them it seems.
Wednesday May 29th, Kurts birthday and no rest for the weary. We started checking pots early. Found 1 keeper crab in the pot in our cove, and one undersized in two pots in another cove. But we hit the bonanza with the prawn pots. Forty two nice sized spot prawns and two coon stripe! We reset two crab pots in our cove and pulled everything else and were really glad we did because the wind really kicked up in the afternoon, so it would have been quite a challenge to retrieve the pots that were a distance away. But the wind died down, and around 5 p.m. Kurt pulled the crab pots in our cove and each had a very nice size keeper, one over 8”. I was cooking the birthday dinner, including fresh bread during our genset run. I hurried out to dispatch the crab, and clean and cook them before ending the genset run. I then finished making dinner—spaghetti with prawns and the crab sections were cooled and refrigerated overnight.
On Thursday May 30 we headed back out Peril Straight to Chatam Straight with a bright and early 5 a.m. start to take advantage of a favorable ebb current and try to get off Chatam Straight before the afternoon winds hit. I picked the crab and packaged it and froze it. Along the way we saw a big brownie on the beach along Peril Straight. Later for the first time this season the Alaska State Ferry HSC Fairweather (High Speed Craft) 35+ kts passed by us, they were heading southbound in Chatham Straight to Peril Straight and Sitka. They go 5-6 times faster than us! We suspect they will pass by us at other times this cruising season.
Just as we were getting near the turn into Pavlof Bay, our anchorage spot for the night, we spotted a humpback whale who put on quite a show for us, with lots of jumping and water slapping. In fact we needed to change course to make sure we gave the whale a nice wide berth before turning into Pavlof. There were ~ a half dozen eagles to greet us at the entrance and ……… three bears on the beach! Brownies all, grazing the lush grasses together and we think they are a momma bear and her two yearlings. With the rangefinder, I determined they were 271 yards away from where we anchored, a distance that changes as the boat swings around due to wind or current.
Friday May 31 we left early again, and the whale waved goodby as we left Pavlof. Very grey day but conditions not as bad as we thought they would be. We went to Port Fredrick and past Hoonah, a Tlinket town just off Icy Straight and further in into Neka Bay, north bight. No beach bear upon arrival, but there was a humpback who greeted us as we turned into the bight. We anchored and spent 3 nights in this very lovely but bear-less setting. We did not see any bears. We set crab pots and one shrimp pot and got one crab 7” but otherwise struck out.
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