We’ll be buddy boating a bit over the next week or more with Dave on Turnagain, now joined by his brother Kyle. We all left Juneau this morning around 6am because low tide was going to be a minus 3.2ft at 9am, and Turnagain had some fishing boats rafted three deep between him and the jetty/breakwater and needed to get out while he could!
We saw quite a few humpbacks (and a zillion whale-watching boats). As we neared Point Retreat, we saw a mama with calf, near another two adults, but didn’t get many photos because they were a bit far (and the others tail- and fin-slapping were surrounded by tour boats).
After we rounded Point Retreat, we spotted several orcas heading north!
And about two minutes after this group of orcas passed us, following them but further from shore: another group of about eight! I snapped a few shots of several of them…hoping to get a good one of the HUGE male with the very tall dorsal fin. So cool!
Also saw a couple more humpbacks just north of Funter Bay, as well as some Dall’s porpoises that never came to surf our bow (too busy eating fish!). There were so many fishing boats out here today as well, so pretty clear the fish are here.
We anchored in Funter Bay, dropped crab traps, and then Kevin and Kyle headed out to see about some fish!
They came back with four salmon…three silvers and one big bright chum, also known as “bait”:
It was a little tricky to tell these apart, since the chum was super bright, but the large pupil, larger mouth, more forked tail, and a couple other things were the tips. So he’ll go back to the sea and hopefully bring in some crab and halibut. (Update: astute reader who commented below recommends we don’t use chum for bait…that there are many ways to cook it to make it shine — Google says smoking, grilling, and using in dishes like chowders and curries work well with chum salmon– so we’ll revise our ways and give it a fair chance!)
Tonight’s dinner: grilled salmon (with a maple sriracha glaze) and asparagus, with some coconut rice.
Tomorrow we’ll head west in Icy Strait…Flynn Cove is the plan at this point (and likely more fishing).