crabbing – Riveted

Another Night in Taku Harbor

Laura Domela — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 16:43:47 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

We left Juneau yesterday at around noon, after saying goodbye to Steve at Nordic Tug Charters (with a loaf of homemade beer bread) and also to Dean at the boat yard (with another loaf of homemade beer bread). They both were so helpful and Steve’s hospitality was just….beyond any expectation, ever. It’s nice to be getting back on our way, but bittersweet saying goodbye to new friends.

The weather on Tuesday sucked, but by yesterday it had lightened up quite a bit and the conditions in Stephens Passage were fine — SE wind 15 kt seas 3 ft — and it was just about that.

We saw a handful (well, maybe two handfuls) of humpbacks on our way over to Taku Harbor.

We figured we’d go to Taku last night because it was close (20 miles from Juneau) and also because we’ve almost run out of crab.

When we pulled in there were no other boats at the dock, as we were getting ready to put out the crab pots a sailboat came in. It’s quiet, and we have no internet…but…crab!

After about an hour, there were probably 6 more boats in Taku.

We hiked out to swing on the Big Swing and stretch our legs a bit.

Looking out into Stephens Passage:

Walking along the shoreline:

This morning we checked the crab traps and we had two good keepers. Here's one of 'em (also known as "dinner"):

Now we're headed down to Port Snettisham to meet some folks who manage a hatchery there (and who generously offered to give us a tour and let us stay at their float). Fun!!

Oh, and if you want the beer bread recipe, here it is below. My mom used to make a really good beer bread, and this recipe I found seems really close to the one she used…but I think hers had honey in it so I’m going to try that next time…maybe substituting honey for sugar…I plan to further experiment.

Beer Bread

3 cups flour (sifted…that part is important)
¼ cup sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 12oz beer
¼ cup melted butter (unsalted)

Heat oven to 375.

Mix the dry ingredients, add the beer (and honey?), stir it all together. Pour into greased loaf pan, then pour melted butter over the top for a crusty crust.

Bake at 375 for one hour. Let cool for 15 minutes before slicing. (Whatever, not that important for that first slice.)

Makes one loaf of hearty beer bread with a crunchy crust. Good by itself, or toasted with an over easy egg and some chipotle tabasco on top (like we did this morning for breakfast).

Original recipe source: http://www.food.com/recipe/beer-bread-73440

Taku Harbor to Juneau, AK

Laura Domela — Fri, 19 Jun 2015 00:40:27 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska

This morning we got up on the early side (I know, big shocker) and Kevin went out the check the crab traps. He took the walkie talkie with him, and pretty soon I get a call saying the first trap was stuffed full with crabs and that he doesn't even know how many are in there.

This is how many legal males we had: 15!! We limited out again, so we put some back. But holy moly! We have a lot of crab cleaning and cooking and picking to do! (These are all WAY bigger than the six-and-a-half-inches-not-counting-horns measurement across the back. WAY bigger.)

We got out of Taku Harbor at 7am (before the 3 foot minus tide, so we could get our boat out from the inside dock space!) and decided to troll for salmon. Our cruise to Juneau was only 19 miles, so we had time. It was quiet and drizzling a little as we motored on, watching a couple of eagles fishing alongside us (good sign!):

We'd barely exited the harbor when there was a big splash next to the boat. We looked around and waited, and pretty soon there were four Pacific white-sided dolphins playing around our boat. They were coming from over there by the shore and rocks where they'd probably been fishing too:

They were in front, then going under, popping up along side, back in front….I love these guys! It's so much fun, because they aren't just going about their business while you watch from a distance. They're over there eating, doing their dolphin thing, and they see your boat, and they're all "Hey!! Let's play!!" and THEY come to YOU. It's awesome, and it was my favorite part of sailing to Catalina on my grandpa's sailboat when I was a kid….sitting out on the bow sprit with the dolphins surfing beneath me.

It was a magical morning. We're trolling along for salmon after catching a ton of Dungeness crab, heading for Juneau, Alaska, in our boat that we brought here ourselves, and there are dolphins playing all around us. Kevin said "Is this even REAL?"

It's real, and it's fantastic.

The shoreline at the base of Taku Mountain, at Grave Point, is so rocky:

We caught no fish. We might have had one strike, but no matter. We continued on to Juneau, fished a bit more after entering Gastineau Channel (there were fish and bait fish showing on the sonar, and several other boats fishing) but we eventually pulled the line in and headed for the harbor.

Waterfall below cloud cover in Gastineau Channel:

Cruise ships in Juneau Harbor:

Misty mountain cover:

We're in Harris Harbor now, the harbor closest to town. We'll be doing laundry, re-provisioning, cleaning up the boat, doing a whole lotta work, getting a couple things at the marine store, and then meeting up with our friends Tiffani and Deke when they arrive on Saturday night. They'll be cruising around with us for the next two weeks, so posts might be less frequent, but we'll try to keep updating with the highlights!

Our plans at this point include Tracy Arm, Sawyer Glacier, Ford's Terror (don't worry mom, it's not as bad as it sounds), Pack Creek Bear Observatory, Pybus Bay (again), Kake, Saginaw Bay, Red Bluff Bay, Baranoff Hot Springs, and then…? We'll be in Sitka around July 3rd, so we'll see how much we can fit in before then (a lot, I bet!)

Here's today's track (26 miles in all, counting all our coastal trolling):

Pybus Bay to Taku Harbor

Laura Domela — Wed, 17 Jun 2015 23:27:00 +0000

Today was another 50+ mile day, so we left Pybus Bay at 6am (after pulling in one more Dungeness crab). Kevin pulling up crab traps at 5:30am:

I'm glad it was clear when we arrived, or we'd have missed those beautiful mountains back there, covered by the misty gray this morning.

One of the rocky islets in the entrance to Pybus Bay:

We cruised up Stephens Passage (forecast for seas 3 feet but this morning changed to less than 2 feet) and it looked like this pretty much the whole way:

We saw humpbacks ALL ALONG OUR CRUISE. All. Along. We probably saw 40 or 50 humpbacks. Here are a few (too many) photos:

Humpback at 2 o'clock!

Humpback in the foreground, with two more behind him:

I'll chill out on the humpback photos, but it was super cool.

Oh yeah, we also saw a seal tossing a salmon about before he ate ‘im. It was raining and pretty gray, but I managed to get a few long lens shots:

We were the third boat to show up at Taku Harbor (two other Nordic Tugs were already there, a 37 and an older 32) and we opted for the north dock rather than anchoring out near all the crab pots. The north dock has land access and some hiking trails that we wanted to take advantage of.

Facing into the harbor:

Facing back toward shore:

(There’s also a floating dock in the south of the harbor with no land access, but I think it’s got a courtesy dinghy on it if you wanted to go to shore and didn’t have your own. Either that, or someone left without their dinghy.)

By 6pm there were five more boats in here, but it still didn't feel crowded, and everyone is very friendly. Kevin went out and dropped our crab traps out in the sea of commercial crab traps with little expectation.

We went on a nice hike among the old cannery buildings and deserted cabins:

Totally good horror movie set:

There’s a forest service cabin and a nice waterfront fire pit if you head to the right after you get to shore, and a ways past that, the trail opens into a clearing in the woods with a giant rope swing. Fun!!

Picnic table and fire pit in front of the cabin:

Rope swing!

New trees growing on old trees:

Another fish boat in the harbor putting out a TON of traps. Now there’s really no hope for more crab for us. We went out on a dinghy excursion around the shore looking for bears (there are both brown bears and black bears here, but we haven’t seen any yet.)

We decided to check our traps before coming in from our dinghy ride because it’d been two hours already and why not? We had 6 large male Dungeness and one female (she went back in). Six large keepers! We left the traps down (since, if we’re cooking and freezing a bunch of crab, why not go big?)

Think there are enough crab pots out here?? (All of those on the back of that boat went down here after I took this photo.)

Our haul after 2 hours in Taku Harbor:

One of the boats put down a couple crab pots right by the dock in maybe 5 feet of water. After a short time, most of the boaters were gathered over there watching Dungeness after Dungeness make its way into the pot. Crazy! (And probably in a few weeks there will be no crab at all in this bay by the looks of how many crab pots there are here now at the very start of the commercial season.) We lucked out!

We were still really psyched about how good last nights crab enchiladas were, so I made them again! This time I added a little bit of light cream cheese along with some light sour cream and milk, and they were EVEN BETTER.

Today’s track (55.5 nautical miles, 7 hours 14 minutes):

Tomorrow: Juneau!

The PowerStove™

Laura Domela — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:31:45 +0000

New addition to Airship's crab cooking capabilities (to go with our new large stock pot): The PowerStove.

The PowerStove folds up pretty small and has a nice sturdy bag to hold everything (and it all fits inside the large stock pot):

The PowerStove comes highly recommended by other boaters and crab cookers (it's made in Woodinville, WA!), and I think it'll be great for the Airstream as well! We'll let you know what we think after we get it in use!

(We got ours here at Fisheries Supply in Seattle, WA.)

We are in full-on provisioning mode right now for our multi-month trip to Alaska. Kevin's got two briskets on the Traeger, and we've got 8 one-pound servings of pulled pork already frozen and ready for the deck-top freezer. We did a Costco run and stocked up on organic frozen vegetables, and I froze a bunch of fresh pesto in small serving sizes. We'll head up to Airship in the next day or so to do a bunch of packing and stock-taking.

So! Excited!