Heading To Gulf of Alaska

Hello All,
After making it through the Northern Gulf I was watching the weather and it was calling for south east 30 knots, so before the wind hit us we ducked into Prince William Sound to let it pass. My fishing friend Daren and his wife Robin were in Main Bay in the western sound so I thought I would look him up. We arrived there at 5 pm and got there just in time as the wind started to pick up. We found a good anchorage in the bay and Daren came over to tie up to us. We had an awesome Salmon dinner and a few beers and did a lot of visiting. Our mutual friend Jason also joined us, I had fishing boats tied to both sides, I looked like a salmon tender. Funny thing is it was my tender, they topped me off with water and gave us some fresh red salmon filets.

This morning the wind had come down and turned out to be a beautiful morning. Robin fixed breakfast of pancakes, bacon and toast that was very tasty. Daren put his gillnet behind us to let it fish while we ate. He said I never get fish in this little bay, but to his surprise he did very well when he picked it back up. Jon was enjoying himself watching Daren work. He was only 10 feet away from us so we saw the whole process up close. Daren talked to his fishing tender that he has been selling fish to and asked if they could sell me fuel and they said no problem come on over and we were topped off with diesel. That was very handy indeed.

We are now heading out the Eastern Entrance of Prince William Sound continuing our trip south. We are supposed to have a few days of light winds so we will see how far we can get before the next weather system comes.

PEACE

P.S. We sailed for about 6 hours today crossing the sound, it was a good day.

Freestyle Sailing again

Hello All,
I know it has been a very long time since I wrote anything on my blog so I will get you all caught up in a nut shell as to what I have been up to. 3 months ago I took a job at a marina in East Bay San Francisco as a maintenance man. I got the job through some cruising friends I met while sailing the Pacific. We have kept in touch over the last few years and my cruising friend is the Harbor Master of the marina. He called me last winter and asked if I wanted to go to work for him. The job sounded to good to pass up so in April I packed a bag and flew out to go to work. They put me up on a loaner boat that was abandon so I could stay at the marina with the agreement that I could take some time off in July to bring my boat down to live on.

So all that being said, here I am in the gulf of Alaska on Freestyle once again. My crew is Jon from Basque. He was my crew for 6 months from Tahiti to New Zealand so I am happy to have him along. We flew to Anchorage a week ago and have been running a marathon (meaning very busy) to get my boat ready to go and also have Jon see some of our Alaskan sights. He has never been to the United States so he has been awe struck as to how Americans live.

This cruise is going to be a fairly quick one as to I have to get back to work as soon as I get into the Bay.

We have been on the water about 24 hours and the weather has treated us well so far.

I will be keeping everyone up dated as we move south so stay tuned, Freestyle is on the move once again.

PEACE

Winter Boat Refit

Hello All,
Here I am again way behind on what I have been up to. The Salmon tendering season ended for me on the 20th of September. After the somewhat slow year we still managed to get 108 paid days in which was a few more than last year so the season ended with a bang with lots of coho"s caught. Right after I got home Mom and I went to the Alaska Pioneers Convention on Kodiak Island. The Alaska Pioneers is an organization where if you live here more than 30 years you can join. Members come from all over the state to meet once a year and share stories and visit for 3 days. Every year they choose a different city to host the event. Next year it will be held in Palmer, north of Anchorage.

After we returned I went to Homer where I have my boat and started working on a tent shop to cover it up for the winter. It has been in the boat yard for a year and a half and it was time to do something with it. After my return from the Pacific it needed some attention. I just finished covering the boat with a 40 foot tent shop, I put down a rough plywood floor and insulated the inside to contain heat produced by a 100,000 BTU diesel heater.I had a similar set up when I originally fixed up the boat in my drive way in Kenai. Fortunately the boat doesn't need all that much work so I hope to have it finished in April.

The repairs consist of refinishing all the teak on the boat, repaint decks and replace all vital mast rigging connections. I brought home the rudder and the smaller wood pieces so part of it will be refurbished here at Moms in the garage.

For the last 2 weeks I have been working on the boat and have been making good progress and so far there have been no surprises, most everything I did 8 years ago is still in really good shape.

It has been a lot of sanding and scraping so not to much fun but will look nice when finished.

I have been staying on the boat as I work on it so makes a little bit of a challenge to keep the work, sleep and eat all separated and to keep some kind of order.

Well thats what I have been up to in a nut shell, I will post pictures on here below.

Talk to you soon and I will do my best to keep you guys all up dated.

PEACE

Salmon tendering Prince William Sound take two

Hello All,
It has been a very long time since I have wrote a blog so I thought I would let everyone know what I have been up to this spring and summer. After staying with mom all winter I thought I would go Salmon tendering this summer once again. The boat owner offered me the job in February and I thought I would try it for another summer season. The job offers me the winter off so this coming winter I will be working on Freestyle in Homer Alaska. I bought a tent shop that I am going to cover the boat with so I can work out of the weather. I plan to have the boat ready to relaunch the summer of 2015. I am looking forward to having my sailboat all ship shape and ready for a cruise around at some point.

I am in Cordova Alaska at the moment, we have had a week off from work waiting for the Pink Salmon run to open on our fishing grounds. We hope to be going back to work on Thursday. The season up to date has been as a whole poor for most of the fishermen. The Chum and Red runs in our area of the sound have been hit and miss. We haven't been effected to much by the weak runs just because so long as their out fishing we have to be there for tender support.

I was promoted to engineer / relief captain this year so I got a raise which is better for the bank account. We hired an extra person for deck work this year so with four of us it makes everyones job easier. There was only 3 of us last year with record runs so we were worn pretty thin by the end of the season.

The weather has treated us pretty well over the summer with many nice days in a row. With August right around the corner we will only hope it continues.

Thats about all I know for now in a nutshell. I posted 2 pics above. the second one is a black bear going for a swim.

PEACE

Been a long time

Hello All,
Wow it has been a long time since I've been here writing. My tender season came to an end on the 12th of September after a banner year of Commercial fishing We brought in 3 million pounds of all salmon species for the season. It was record poundage for a gill net salmon tender for the company. When I returned home my mom and I went to the state capital of Juneau Alaska to attend the Pioneers of Alaska Convention where all the members from all over the state gathered for the event. It was a really great time had by all that attended. When I returned home I rebuilt a wood deck on the house that was in major disrepair and finished the pole barn that I had started last fall.

My best friend Daren and his family left Hawaii on their sailboat in August and landed in Kodiak in mid September after getting there butt kicked a few times due to fall gales popular this time of year. They managed to get the boat to Homer and just last week I helped him get it to his home in Cordova. It was no small feat to be in the Gulf of Alaska in November but with patience and a good weather forecast we got there with no issues. It took us 52 hours to make the trip going day and night while the weather was good. I just returned from Cordova a few days ago after spending some time with him and his family.

Now that I am back I have a few personal things I need to deal with like selling some of my audio gear that I had at my house before I left. Some of these things I will never use again so I need to get them out of moms basement. Outside of that , all is well here and my family is doing great. I am planning a trip to Washington in a few weeks to see my cousins. I haven't seen them since i was there on the boat in 2009 so will be nice to visit and catch up.

So far I don't have any plans for the winter but I do have some irons in the fire so I will keep in touch and let you know what I am up to.

P.S I attached a a few pics below of my moms projects

PEACE

Silver Salmon Season is here

Hello All,
We are still out here taking care of our fishermen even though a few of them have called it a season. The pink salmon run is all but about finished and I understand it was a record year, beating out the summer of 2005. The silver salmon have been filling in the gaps and we have been getting more and more of them every day. They are worth more money but are not as plentiful as the other species. Everyone is hopeful for a good return this year. I guess it has been about 4 years since there was a good run so the fisherman are hoping this year will be better.

Last night we got a little taste of late season weather with a low pressure that is moving through making the water rough and the wind gusting to 30 knots. It should pass by tonight but this will happen more frequently now with fall around the corner. We are hoping to get another 10 days of work out of the season before they call us back to the cannery. So long as there is fisherman here catching fish we will get to stay but if their nets come up short of salmon the cannery will call us back due to lack of revenue. The fishing right now is a little slow right now with the weather so we are at anchor reading books and getting some rest. This next week will be the test to see what the silver season holds.

I will talk to you later.


PEACE

Pink Salmon Run Begins

Hello All,
I found some time to write once again. Since I last talk to you we were sent to Cordova for a little break between salmon runs. We expected it to be a 7 day break but as it turned out it was 2 days before we were sent back out to the fishing grounds for the Pink salmon run. It started with a bang last week with everyone getting heaps of fish but as of 4 days ago it has slowed down. Some think it's still a little early yet to get to excited about it being a fair to poor fishing year. Time will tell but if it doesn't pick up here in another week it looks like it will be an average year.

The fishing is open 7 days a week 14 hours a day so fish or not we are busy on the boat. I just got all of the oils changed in our generator and our main engine so there is always boat work to do. There are 3 tenders covering our fishing grounds so every 3 days we get a day off as long as fishing stays the same. We spent our day off in Whittier fueling up the boat and taking a walk around.

The weather has been overcast and raining from time to time but as a whole hasn't been to bad. It has been one of the sunniest summers on record. Of course, I am out here.

That's all I have for now so I will talk to you guys later.


PEACE