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