Whale Songs, Wild Waves and We (Nearly) All Fall Down

"Never a ship sails out of a bay, but carries my heart as a stowaway."
-Roselle Mercier Montgomery

Coordinates: 5808.010 13528.269

Crashes and bangs echoed from the cabin, the tomato juice sliding crazily into the sink while fish hooks and fishing weights went soaring through space, flying from the cockpit into the salon. The hook snagged Lyssa in the shoe, and the really amazing thing is, not any of us were surprised or unduly alarmed that the contents of the Star were playing dodgeball belowdecks as we soared up the swells and crashed into the troughs. Gravity became a practical joke, and it seemed to hardly hold the Star to earth at all.

Because this was what she was built for, and yesterday, she proved it.

All for sake of some fish.

Because, beneath the adventure and the new horizons, the entire crew just, really, really loves fish—and fishing. And when we left Hoonah Harbor two days ago, we weren’t sure we’d be able to catch the halibut, rockfish and whatever else grabs a hook up here. We know (nearly) all the great fishing spots around Angoon. Where the shelves of sandy earth 200 feet down were sure to sport a few big, beautiful halibut.

Here we’ve made new friends that have leaned over the charts and marked some spots for us. A captain named Faggan, born in Hoonah and with saltwater in his veins, is one of the really wonderful people you meet here in Alaska, with an innate friendliness behind his silver spectacles and an no-nonsense knowledge of  where the fish are biting, the bears are denning, and the crab are scuttling. By an accident of fate—or perhaps an act of Providence—we actually found ourselves anchored across from Faggan in Whitestone Bay—one of the most wonderful places we’ve found since we’ve come to Alaska, bar none.

Of course, we didn’t know that when we left Hoonah Harbor on a blazing, sunny day, and Whitestone Bay was only an x on the map. This was our second sailing trip this year—the first to Neka Bay, a breathtaking yet fishless wonderland where we spun in the ship and listened to the birds in the trees, sipping hot chocolate. Now we were ready to go Outside, into Icy Strait, in search of the fish we knew were swimming somewhere around beneath the cobalt waves.

But fishing on the Star is not like fishing on a powerboat, like our old Hewescraft. It’s a little like fishing on stilts, four feet off the water. So we had to get a little…creative. Setting lawn chairs out on the deck we soaked in the almost hot sun and the limitless Alaskan vistas, wondering if life really got much better than this. Whenever we got peckish, you just went belowdecks and grabbed a snack. Lunch was lifted up through the haste, interspersed with cries, “I got a nibble! I got one on! It’s bouncing, almost here, SOMEONE GRAB THE NET!”

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your view) we didn’t catch anything the first day that wouldn’t fit in a net big enough to kidnap a toddler in. We knew we weren’t in quite the right spot at first, since we only caught one halibut.

We pulled into Whitestone Bay was wonderful. I’ll let the pictures tell you what these sheltered cove is all about.

Laying out a tarp, Dad and I filleted our fish on the Star’s deck, like cutting up fish on the roof of your house. Then, we put the dinghy into the water and dropped crab pots hopefully, not really sure we’d catch anything at all, but grateful just to be there.

The sun had nearly set—or set as much as it ever does up North—when something especially extraordinary happened.

Lying in bed in the V-Berth, Alyssa and I heard a high, rhythmic whine.

“That’s animal,” Alyssa said, looking up from her book. But what animal? We’d heard mink and raven scuttle on top of the Star when we were at dock, but this was something new. We emerged from the V-Berth to see Mom cocking her head too, the sound bringing her up from the galley. Together we emerged into the cockpit, glanced around, and realized something amazing.

A lone whale was coming into the bay, and we had heard its singing! It only took a few minutes to realize why it was singing so oddly, too. In the stillness of the bay, weheard the faint sound of popping

bubbles just before the whale reared out of the water, bubble-feeding all alone.

For twenty minutes we were eaten alive be bugs while we watched the spectacular show nature was putting on just for our boat. Every time we heard the rhythmic whine vibrating up through the Star’s hull we knew the whale was about to break out of the water again, and was using its sound to help corral the fish.

It wasn’t long before the lone whale headed back out to sea, disappearing into the twilight of Alaskan summer. We descended below, covered in bug  bites but super excited. The next morning, we saw sea otters climb down the beach and into the water, bears break out of the trees and chase each other, and a deer come out of the long grass to scratch its rear in full view of the bay.

So it was with regret that we left Whitestone, planning to fish another day and return to Hoonah. Going out to our special spot, we prayed for fish and dropped down hoochie (plastic squids with a hook through them) and line.

God rather spectacularly answered our prayers, with a forty pound halibut followed in four hours by two thirty pound halibut and more small ones. The bigger the halibut, however, the harder time we found getting it onto the Star! The screeching and hollering when the forty pounder was jumping from the water and thrashing on the end of the hook would have earned a 911 call on land. As it was, the Captain bravely jumped down on the swim step and hooked a shark hook (one of our odder purchases, but endlessly useful) through the fish’s gills.Not long after, a sea lion got very interested in the big fish hanging over the side, but we managed to get things squared away before it had a chance to snag the catch.

By late afternoon, we had our limit, and the wind was picking up. It was time to go home.

As we turned our bow into the waves and headed back to Hoonah, slowly the weather changed. The wind heightened, the swells swelled and the waves sent gushing spouts of spray over the deck and into the sky, sparkling in the bright sun.

Climbing into the V-Berth, it was like lying in bed on a roller coaster. We laughed and screamed as the bow dipped into the cavernous trough and we lifted off the blankets, O-Gs with our stomachs soaring into our throats. It was like nothing I’ve ever felt before, like being on the moon.

The crests were taller than a full-grown man and the Star behaved beautifully, hardly losing speed. Once, her bow cut through the wave itself, not even climbing the crest. Yet despite waves that might have had us calling the Coast Guard in years past, Mom went to sleep downstairs. I climbed out on the deck to feel the rise and fall of the Star beneath my feet, and face into the wind. All of us loved it,

and never did the Star tilt or falter.

As we coasted back into Hoonah Harbor feeling years wiser, with big fish to cut up and a deck to swab, we found the old saying to be true that as tired as we were, we were already wishing we could be back on the water again, back in Whitestone Bay.

I imagine the whale is back, and can say hello to the sea otters for us.

Skipper Krystal

Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place

"Never in my life before have I experienced such beauty, and fear at the same time"

— llen MacArthur, Sailor

Coordinates: 57°10′36″N 133°54′23″W

Splayed out like a seagull straddling two buoys, my legs trembled as I spanned two rocks,  the freezing Alaskan ocean yawning beneath me. I giggled helplessly at my own stupidity, even though just giggling threatened to wreck my delicate, if highly ungraceful, balancing act and tip me heels over head into the water. I was completely, irrevocably and quite ridiculously stuck.

At times like this, its funny how you never think about just  how you got into this sort of a problem. I certainly didn’t think back to that morning, when we climbed in our Jurassic Park Jeep and headed out for False Bay.

We’ve had quite a few adventures in that Jeep by now, but its hard to write them all—so I figured, in retrospect (now dry) that our trip to False Bay two days back is a perfect example of our forays into the jungle that is Chichagof Island—and which could have ended with a very big, Skipper-shaped splash.

It started, of course, rumbling out of Hoonah, past abandoned quarries wreathed in ferns and hemlocks, bumping over the one-lane road and passing dusty tourist buses. Every time we passed them, we or the bus had to dive hood-first into the greenery at the side of the road, if there wasn’t a dirt turnout handy. The Jurassic Park Jeep handled this splendidly, and it wouldn’t take long driving through this forest to figure out why the Jeep earned its name. You really do expect a T-Rex to come roaring out of the huge ferns and thick trees. Instead, there’s grizzly bears, which I suppose is preferable—but not by much.

We usually slow down when we drive past meadows, since the meadows is where you find the monsters munching on grass—or their prey, the black-tailed deer stepping delicately through the trees, eyeing the Jeep with misgiving. Heck, I wouldn’t take a breath without anxiety if I was a few rungs too low on the food chain in bear country. Which I could be, but that isn’t something we like to think about too often.

Inside the Jeep, Alyssa is usually the keeper of the snacks (cheese sticks and gala apples), Dad, still our wise Captain, at the wheel and Mom on lookout in the front for anything exciting—hairy or otherwise—that we might stumble across.

You never know who or what you’ll find in the wilderness roads of Chichagof. We’ve met compactors on the road and passed backhoes, empty and silent in the rainforest. Since logging is the reason we have these roads to begin with, we don’t resent the presence of the heavy equipment, especially because the fight between Man and Nature is generally a losing one on Man’s side. Built bridges are slowly eroded by green moss, creeping plants and mushrooms (we know—one road was closed when the bridge was out). Traveling through the ancient forest, it felt as if we were hundreds of miles deep into the wilderness, not half a day’s ambling ride on thin roads. As we rumble past, I stick my hand out the window and let the trees and bushes slap against it--like getting a high five from Nature.

Yet thanks to these roads we’ve curved around the bases of mighty mountains, tall, craggy and intimidating, only to break into a lane of alder trees, their white trunk speckled with sage moss and clinging mushrooms cream and brown. Often we get out to take pictures and soak in the splendor. Today was no different, except the road to False Bay was the prettiest so far, with the government-issued name: road 8530. It was obvious as we went that visitors to False Bay were rare; the well-maintained road 8530 turned virtually to a dirt track by the time we broke out of the hundred-foot, old forest giants and broke out into the open, seeing False Bay for the first time.

The water was as clear as crystal, yet the light shimmered and sparkled like stained glass in motion. The mountains of Glacier Bay were visible across Icy Strait, and the black-sand beach was covered with white shells and dried out crabs dried out.

That rock in the middle? Well, I wanted to climb on top of it, and there were a few smallish rocks placed in what seemed like perfectly manageable distances.

Seemed like, anyway.

I jumped on the first two no problem, but when I reached out my right leg to scoot to the furthest rock, well, I sunk into a desperate and ungainly crouch. Luckily, the Captain used a highly advanced rescuing maneuver (He climbed out after me and hauled up on my hood) and managed to drag me clear, laughing himself the entire time.

I did not emerge entirely unscathed, but didn’t mind walking soggily up such a beautiful beach. I leave it to the pictures to describe the Bay.

With a pouchful of shells and a bagful of black sand, we drove away, promising to return. Its not always a promise we can keep in Alaska, but this time, I think we’re sure. On the way back, as the sun began to set (and never really finishes setting, if we’re telling the truth) we climbed over a hill for one more surprise.

I wonder if bears ever get stuck?

I’m afraid to ask.

Perhaps next time.

Skipper Krystal

Stars, Popcorn, and Too Many Bears!

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky.
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.
-  John Masefield

Coordinates: 58°06.351 135°26.818

I’d forgotten what the stars looked like. Until tonight.

In some ways, it’s a metaphor for the whole experience; Alaska is about the unexpected problems—and the unforeseen delights.

Only in Alaska would we all crowd into the cockpit, gazing through the sunroof and exclaiming over five tiny yet brilliant pinpricks of light shining in the dusky sky, a nearly-full moon like a floodlamp in comparison over the darkened western mountains. Five little feeble stars, but the first ones I’ve seen since we reached Alaskan shores. It was 1 AM, yet the sky to the west was periwinkle blue, outlining the islands and casting a glimmer over the ocean and the ships floating in the water like seabirds in a row.

Where can you go that you forget what the stars look like? Which makes we wonder, like L.M. Montgomery, “If we only saw the stars every thousand years, what a marvel we would think them!”

Sometimes its hard to remember the things we’ve done are once in a lifetime, because the days up here have begun to blur together. Its easier now for me to understand how people on a ship could forget the week or the month, or miss Christmas or Easter. Because a lot of the things that usually matter don’t, and the things that usually don’t matter, do. Like stars.

And like stars, certain instances, encounters, and experiences shine out of the dusk and blur of the rest. We’ve been in Hoonah more than a week, and had our first voyage in the Star and in the Jurassic Park Jeep (My name for it—I’m hoping it catches on), yet it’s the moments along the way that shine. In no particular order, I’ll start to share a few of the stars so far.

First of all, there’s the Star, which when we arrived had aged a year and smelled of disesel, with rainbows of mold in the toilets but NOWHERE else. Those in Alaska or wet climates will cheer with
me that there was no mold, the silent destroyer of vacations, hopes and sometimes lives. Those in the dry, just know, not having mold on any of our stuff was considered a joyous blessing from heaven—quite literally.

The Star’s magic hasn’t dimmed with time, and her peace is ours again. The Captain swabbed her decks, the First Mate fired up her tiny propane stove, and life filled her hull once more, a flag flying on her stern again. The mast thrusts up through the salon beside the table and into the deck above, and when I wrapped my arms around the mast, it felt like embracing a friend, a shining moment in itself.

Shining moments quickly followed, and in no particular order, here are a few.

First off, two words: STOVETOP POPCORN. We’ve recently and joyfully discovered a secret, burnproof method which I MAY tell you at the bottom 😉. Mom tells me everyone burned it in the 70s, but this was my first encounter without a plug-in air popper and I am NEVER going back. Hearing it pop away in the pan, the flavor and taste of the olive oil is just—well, cosmic. Of course, I recently got treated and am over my allergy to popcorn, making this my first popcorn in about a decade, so I am admittedly biased.  

Then of course, in the sky of our vacation, shines the bears.

We thought we knew bears. I’ve been charged by one, huffed at, our pickup chased with us in the back. We thought we were pretty well introduced to bears, and 1 per square mile was a lot on Admiralty Island.

Our first explorations of Hoonah have proven there are many, many more bears in this world than I am entirely comfortable with. And this is their turf.

Nine. Nine hulking grizzly bears in two days. And we were only driving for about five hours combined. And that was in the wild, not the dump (not that we’re knocking the dump—hours of free
entertainment). We saw a huge boar munching away at the grass, a sow grouchily hogging the road with her year-old cub ahead of us—and refusing to budge for ten minutes while we crawled along behind on the Forest Service backroads I hinted about in earlier posts.

Because we did it. We climbed in our land-ship, the Jurassic Park Jeep, and we started to explore the backwoods roads and views of Chichagof Island. The bears were part of what we’ve discovered but the views?

Spectacular.

Only this log is long, and it is, after all, 2 AM. So I’m gonna shell out one more hard-earned bit of advice from the high seas:

Sailing Tip #5 Wait. Wait for the tides to change, the wind to pick up, the day to dawn. Wait.

Therefore, I’m afraid I’ll have to take my own advice, and wait to tell the rest.

Until tomorrow, love to you all, and know we’re with you when you look up at the stars. Maybe its been too long for us all.

Skipper Krystal

P.S. The key to burn-free, perfect popcorn I found on Google and will totally give credit in the blog as soon as I have reliable service again—but here’s what you do. Cover the bottom of your saucepan in olive oil and drop three or four kernels in. These are your “test” kernels. Once two of the three pop, take the pan off the stove, pour in 1/3 cup of kernels and cover your pan. Count to 30 out loud (this gives the kernels time to all get to the same hot temperature while off the heat). Then put the pan back on the heat and wait for delicious fluffy goodness to come.

Mom assures me doing this last step without a lid is quite excitingly disastrous (and she’s right), but I still want to try it someday—just to have the experience.

I hope I’m not the only one.