Today began with an air of renewed excitement amongst our crew. We all slept well back on the Island C and the anticipation of our sea voyage to Shuyak inspired high spirits. Shuyak is the most northern island in the Kodiak archipelago. It takes between 8 to 12 hours by boat to get there from the town of Kodiak. Since the Island Sea makes about 7 knots (9 mph) at top speed, our arrival time was predicted to be closer to the 12-hour mark. It took a few hours for everyone to adjust to being on the water, but luckily the seas were relatively calm—maybe about 2 feet at the most. Thankfully, most folks did not experience much in the way of serious seasickness. Most everyone was just drowsy and felt the need to get some sleep.
By the afternoon everyone had awoken from his or her naps just in time for some humpback whale viewing. They were so close to the boat that you could here the sound of them spouting water through their blowholes. At this point we were over half way through the trip, and were coming close to our anchorage for the night in Kitoi Bay on Afognak Island. Afognak is the second largest island in the Kodiak archipelago and is just south of Shuyak Island. Both islands are largely uninhabited, being owned in their entirety by native Alaskan tribes who only allow resource extraction, fishing, some logging, and ecotourism to occur. On the way in to the anchorage Trevor scouted out an underwater shelf on a steep incline that he thought would be a perfect place to find rockfish and ling cod. The sun came out for us, right on cue as Andy prepared the fishing gear. Andy and Trevor taught us how to “jig” for rockfish and within minutes we were plucking them out of the water. Shane caught a tiger rockfish, which we were told is very rare. Trevor estimated that it was 80 years old! Most everyone caught at least two fish within seconds of their lures hitting the water, and for the next half hour the decks were a blur of flapping fish and smiling kids.
As we continued into the bay to our eventual anchorage for the night, Andy showed us how to clean a fish, but only Tom and Mike (our crew leaders) took to it. The fish went straight from the cutting board outside into the oven in the galley and before long we were eating our afternoon catch. What a life!
After dinner we dropped anchor and loaded into two skiffs to motor around the bay in pursuit of some bear watching. Besides being one of the safest anchorages on the way to Shuyak Island, Kitoi Bay is also home to a very large salmon hatchery. In these parts the presence of salmon usually equals Kodiak bear sightings, and we were hoping that would be true tonight as well. For some reason luck was not on our side tonight. We even docked at the hatchery and hiked around for a while in hopes of a glimpse. While we never saw a bear, we did find a rope swing that everyone took part in. I got some great videos as our city kids careened out over the lake and back. I am so proud of the how well they have adapted to country life and now boat life! We returned to the Island C after 11PM, but of course it didn’t feel that late since the sun was still out. Between the whales, the fishing, dinner, and the rope swing, I’m guessing this was one of our best days yet.
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