The Wonders of Stephens Passage

July 7 - Ginger started the day in a sad and somber mood, mourning the death of a friend, but Alaska just kept throwing spectacular nature shows at us, making it impossible not to smile. We motored down Stephens Passage from Taku Harbor, expecting a south wind and rough seas. The passage stayed a mill pond all day. Passing Sunset Island we came upon a colony of sea lions. There must have been a hundred, swimming, fishing, and lolling on the rocks. Wish this blog had a sound track so you could hear their groaning and growls. The bigger ones looked like they weighed 1000 lbs.

We were seeing whales all along the route, but at the southern end of Stephens Passage, the humpbacks started breaching. We first noticed it off in the distance, by the giant splashes they were making. Leaping into the air and landing on their backs- kerplosh!

We motored in to Port Houghton, headed for Sanborn Canal. We stopped to fish a little, mainly because we needed some fresh bait for the crab trap. We hadn’t been fishing more than a half-hour when Ginger tied into a big one! Another barn door halibut! This time, we felt like old experienced deck hands. Frank got the halibut spear ready while Ginger horsed the beast up from the bottom. Then a sea lion popped up, right next to the boat, obviously attracted by all the splashing and thrashing. So much for old experienced deck hands… we really didn’t know what we were going to do if that sea lion grabbed a hold of the halibut, which by this time was tied to the boat dragging in the water behind us. Ginger started yelling at the sea lion like it was a misbehaving dog. NO! GET BACK! And other words not suitable for a family-friendly blog. Maybe the yelling worked, because the sea lion stayed away long enough for us to get the beast hoisted up by the lifting boom.

After a couple hours of labor, the 100 lb halibut was reduced to 45 lbs of ziplock bagged fillets, completely filling the mini-fridge of the DUNVEGAN. Dinner was cooked and cleaned and it was time for rest. But no, there’s more.

All day long we had been hearing the Coast Guard talking about a boat in need of assistance, but we couldn’t really tell where the boat was located. Finally, we heard the skipper of the broken-down boat spell the name of the bay where he was located, and we realized we were in the same bay. So, off we went to do some “night ops”. The broken boat was a commercial crabber, who has lost his outdrive. I mean really lost it as in totally gone! We towed him into Sanborn Canal, a safer place for him to wait for a tow to town. (58 nm away).

Finally hit the rack at midnight, with the realization that being sad wasn’t going to help anyone. We will carry on with the trip.