Salmon!

July 20th (Saturday)

Although we did not want to get out of bed in the morning, as we were still tired from our long day yesterday, we got up just after 06:00 and headed out salmon fishing. 

It was a beautiful morning, and as the high fog quickly burned off, the sun came out in full strength. Jason was using a hoochie, which the guy on the powerboat had given him last evening, and I was using a lure that we already had that looked very similar. These were slightly different looking from what we had been using in the past, although not that different. We were filled once again with optimism, and this time we were not disappointed.  

Jason put his line out first with the fishing rod, and then I started to let mine out with our hand line. I had not even had time to let mine out all the way when Jason had caught one. He got it to the boat, and we got it in. Yay, our first Salmon. It was a Coho, and 24" long. Yippee. Finally! 

We reset our lines out behind us, and it did not take long to get another bite, but it got away, then another bite, and it got away too. Then I got one, and it stayed on, and I pull it in with the hand line, and to my surprise I actually managed to keep it on. We got our second Coho Salmon into the boat. Yay! This one was 29" and boy can they fight. They put up a very different fight than ground fish like cod, and I can see why people enjoy salmon fishing. They fight like a really big trout, they jump, zip one way, then hard over the other way. It is amazing to watch them as they get near the boat and you can see them underwater. 

We decided to try for one more fish, and it did not take us long to catch one more. Jason brought aboard our third Coho, and it was 27.5". Yay!! Amazing. 

Back inside Codville Lagoon we were heading to clean the fish and saw a family that we had seen yesterday leaving on their sailboat. They had three kids and seemed really nice, so we zipped over and gave them our smaller fish. They were very happy, and so were we. 

As Jason worked on the fish, I worked on cleaning out our tender. I could not believe how the scales got everywhere. Whenever I have dealt with salmon in the past they have already been dead, and then I kind of expect the scales to get everywhere, but it seems that it happens when they are still alive as well. I don't know if it has something to do with being out of the water, or maybe because they are stressed, or maybe they shed scales and grow new ones like we do skin. Either way, as soon as they are flopping about out of the water, even in mid air, it is like a glistening shower of scales flying everywhere. So needless to say it took me a while to clean up.

The meat of the salmon was absolutely beautiful. The colour was so vibrant, and it tasted delicious. When we got back home we put a lot of salmon in our freezer! It is amazing how quickly you can go from having a less than half full freezer to having a nearly full freezer when luck is with you fishing. 

We lightly fried up some of the "scrappy bits" of salmon for lunch and, oh my goodness. It was the most amazing tasting salmon I have ever had! It was so succulent and juicy, so sweet and flavourful!  It almost tasted candied it was so sweet. This is one of those times I wish a picture could be a scratch and lick for you guys to have a taste! 

In the afternoon Jason used our snuba system. It is basically a DC powered air compressor with an airline running to a mouthpiece like a scuba diver uses. It allows us to breathe under water as though we had air tanks. Jason went down swimming in about 30' of water under our boat. He did not wear his wet suit because it is a lot to dry out, but he did end up putting on his neoprene hood after going down the first time and having his head almost freeze.  He said it was very cold, but you would not have known it from watching him. 

Unfortunately the visibility was terrible, which we knew it would be, but he still had fun seeing what was below us. We were curious what the bottom was like here. He saw lots of starfish and Sea Cucumbers and gathered us six to have with dinner. 

We had an awesome dinner of Coho salmon, sea cucumbers, potatoes, and fresh bread. Yummy!!!  

Since the very first evening that we have been in this anchorage, every evening we start hearing some very odd noises. 

The first evening it was not until after we had gone to bed that we became aware of them, and whenever you hear an odd noise on a boat, especially in a new spot, you always kind of wonder. So I got up and went out on deck, I listened and didn't hear anything, looked around and didn't see anything, I moved Kiki around to see if somehow she was bumping weird, but Jason said nope that wasn't the noise. With no more clarity than before, I went back to bed. Jason said he had still been hearing the noises while I was out there, although I could hear nothing. 

It sounded as though the noise was coming in through the hull from the aft, and this of course made our minds wander to the worst-case scenario of wondering if maybe there was a random higher rock under us, and our rudder was bumping it. Because we were stern tied it meant that our aft end was the closest part to shore, and our depth transducer was more mid-ship, so we did not know the exact depth under our rudder. 

This time Jason got up, looked around, listened outside, and in the back cabin, nothing. He pulled out the lead line and checked the depth right at our rudder, and we were pleased that there was lots of water under us. Reassured, but still puzzled, he came back to bed, and we went to sleep. 

The next evening we started to hear the noise again, but this time it was earlier and we were still up. As we listened and looked we finally came to the conclusion that it was a seal. What it was doing that made those noises we still don't know, but it was pretty funny. 

Now that we have been here several days we have figured out that there is a resident seal to this bay, or so it seems. Each afternoon we start to see it, and sometimes it makes some very large splashes. One time we saw it leaping from the water, breaching really, practicing to be a ballerina perhaps. It hurtled its self straight up into the air spinning, and then flopped on its side, back into the water. Seeing this once would have been impressive enough, but it repeated the performance five or more times. Enough times that I said, “I should have my camera.” But of course as things like that always go, as soon as I got my camera, it stopped. Camera shy. 

So now every evening when we hear the grunting and groaning noises we chuckle, wondering what our seal friend is up to under our boat.