We hung out for a few days in Sitka while waiting for Kevin’s brother Craig to join us.
We made pizza one night that turned out super good. Our usual pepperoni with fresh oregano, honey, and hot chili oil, and an experimental one with burnt ends, tomatoes, olives, and jalapeños. Both were great!
Since we had a spot on the transient dock on the outside of the boat harbor, we had a perfect view when Craig’s plane came in.
We left the next morning and headed for Peril Strait. It was foggy and rainy and an ideal day to make the 47nm cruise around to Appleton Cove.
Appleton Cove was super crowded…we counted 18 boats!!
We left Appleton and decided to go north to Basket Bay before doing the east side of Baranof Island. The tide looked like it would work out for us to go back in a check out Marble Grotto, and last year we got 6 big male Dungeness crab in here, and we really would like more crab.
We weren’t able to get very far up the river though, probably due to a combination of a lower high tide (10.5ft) and the enormous amount of rain we’ve been getting…the current was haulin! Still gorgeous though!
Russ and Missie came over to Airship for dinner: grilled tri-tip with chimichurri, baked potatoes, and a caesar salad. Super fun night!
Missie took this cool photo of a bunch of moon jellies while they were out fishing today:
When Kevin and Craig pulled the crab traps the first time, we had one, but he was a BIG one. (Big like, usually we can put two males in the Instant Pot to steam them…this ONE took up the entire pot. BIG.)
In the morning Kevin and Craig pulled the traps and found that this rockfish had gillnetted itself on the crab trap’s net. (No more crab, in spite of the very fresh pink salmon head bait in each of the traps.)
We left Basket Bay and headed for Takatz Bay this morning. Just as we got to the entrance to Peril Strait, right around Morris Reef, we saw some humpbacks spouting, and pretty soon…they began bubblenet feeding. So awesome. We watched and photographed for a while at a nice distance.
In this kinda soft image below, you can see the little fish jumping at the surface and around the whales’ mouths:
Craig was on the bow of Airship with his iPhone zoomed in for the next surfacing, and I’m standing in the doorway of the pilothouse with my camera and zoom lens at the ready, and holy crap the group surfaced about 20 feet from Airship!! It was such a shock and my lens wasn’t able to get much. (I think they maybe used Airship to help them corral the fish!!) I could see their bodies under the surface of the water…that’s how close they were. Whew!
As you can see from this video, Kevin was aiming WAY further away (where the whales had been coming up for the last hour) but the whales had a different idea.
And here are the shots I got with my inappropriate zoom lens (the iPhone would have been perfect…unzoomed):
More little fish visible in this shot below:
Such a treat to get to see this for the second time this summer. We’ve gone a couple years without seeing any at all, so we feel quite fortunate.
Here are a few fluke shots for you, Andrea, if you want to take a shot at identifying. There was one enormous whale in this group, and I think this could have been it. Also, the light markings on the inside edge of their upper jaw are unique, and I can tell there are two that are the larger ones and the ones who tend to come up together, both in the group and a couple times just together but not with the group, like in the last shot above. So fun!
This next one is not a full fluke capture, but maybe?
Update: Thank you Andrea, for the great info! The first four shots are of Scratch — a male first spotted in Hawaii in 1986 (!!!), and the last partial fluke is of Barbera, aka Trumpeter, a male first sighted in Hawaii in 1994. So both pretty old mammals (they were both very large!) and part of the known SE Alaska humpbacks.
We cruised the rest of the way to Takatz Bay and are now anchored inside near the biggest waterfall. There’s a layer of fog on the water and in over the tops of the hills, but it’s beautiful and quiet.
Kevin and Craig and Russ went out fishing (and brought back a nice coho!). I cooked and picked our giant crab in some prep for crab wontons, and we had rockfish fish tacos for dinner.