Ensconced

Alisa says that it counted as full-on field mode.

We wanted to go beach seining on the afternoon tide. But first she had to fix the self tailer on the main halyard winch, which we also use for hoisting the dinghy and seine on and off the boat. And the field computer had to be jollied into working again. And she had lunch and dinner to make. And meanwhile I was working on a paper and then diving on the boat in my tropical-weight wetsuit (!) to change out some zincs that were rattling around on their studs when we were under way.

Do seiner captains on the east side of Kodiak dive on their vessels? Somehow I think not.

We did all that before noon, and then got in our seven seines. The juvenile cod that we found appear to be skinny and few, at least in that one place, Shearwater Bay.

The barky was ensconsed in a wonderful little anchorage, with land on three sides and a deep, narrow entrance on the fourth, and enough room inside for eight or ten boats to swing at anchor. Elias caught us a meal of saffron cod from off the side of the boat. And we saw not a soul during our two days in the place, just a fox on the beach, and a few deer on the hill, and the bear that we missed taking a dump below the high tide line some time during the day we arrived. Kodiak isn't capital-W Wilderness - there are cabins in many of the bays, and seiners are out on the water this time of year. But this is a place where you are unsurprised to have a gem of an anchorage all to yourself.

By the end of the day, the wind was starting to come up from the south. We got up at 0400 this morning and motored into mist and wind to get through Sitkalidik Pass, where we saw a deer swimming bravely for the other side, and all the way to Kaiugnak Bay. The weather appears to be closing in for a long spell of strong southwesterlies, so we may have to get used to the idea of being around here for a while.
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This post was sent via our high-frequency radio as we're far from internet range. Pictures to follow when we reach internet again. We can't respond to comments for now, though we do see them all!

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