The R-J is in the water!

June 15th, 2011 – Jenn arrived in Naknek today and she brought the sunshine with her.  High 50s or low 60s today.  We put the boat in the water yesterday to test everything out.  We have some last minute refrigeration details to work out, a few supplies to pick up, and then we may possibly head south to the Egegik River which has a 24 hour fishing opening tomorrow.  There are not too many fish at this point but it would be a great way to get all the winter kinks out.  We’ll be keeping our eye on the numbers from Alaska’s Fish and Game department to see how many fish are predicted and where, before we make any final decisions on where we would like to do the majority of our fishing for the season.  Our fishing license allows us to fish within 5 different river systems within Bristol Bay.

Boat work continues…

June 9th, 2011 - Today we lost our internet connection, it is real touch-and-go up here.  It is amazing at that we can be in remote western Alaska and get the internet at all.  The weather is more of the same, low 50′s and rain on an off.  We would welcome a day of sun because we have to fiber glass some new hatch covers that we built.  The welder is working on re-fabricating our rudder.  It was put together quickly a few years ago when a weld broke and we lost our rudder, causing us to rebuild one that we found in a junk pile.  It wasn’t aligned and it wore out the rudder post block at the end of last season.  We started taking on water fast then the bilge pump would pump the water back over.  We had to use our deck hose to suck the water out of the laze and that brought the season to an end.
 
Today we found a leak in the coolant system.   Since this required us to drain 6 gallons of antifreeze out of the motor I figured it was a good time to replace all of the hoses in the system.  I just finished that project at 9:30 pm.  Dinner is ready, Cabot cooked up some PA deer steaks and noodles with pesto sauce on them.  It smells good!   I had to laugh as Cabot said “this doesn’t look like the same as when Jenn makes it” as he picked the pack out of the trash and re-read the directions.
 
No talk of any salmon showing up in the set nets yet.  The locals are allowed to set out small nets to catch their winter supply.  They are the first one to spread the word that salmon are starting to show up.  Hopefully around the 16th or 17th.  Shouldn’t be too much longer.
 
Dinner time!

Steve Arrives in Naknek!

June 6th, 2011 – Yesterday we landed in King Salmon, AK in heavy fog, light rain and the temp in the high 40′s.  With me are deckhands Cabot and John.  After hitching a ride with a friend we found the RJ in good shape.  It took a few minutes to get settled in, then we got busy on house cleaning, or ‘boat’ cleaning if you’d like to be technical.   This year there was a lot of mold inside and we needed to run a few loads of wash.   It must have been a wet winter!  Our diesel stove that heats the cabin of the boat started to act up so I worked on that until late last night, making sure I had warm place to sleep.  After some venison and rice we crawled into our sleeping bags.
 
This morning we woke up to a light rain and by noon the sun came out and the temp warmed up into the high 50′s.  We got a lot of work done today.  We have made a to-do list and we hard at it.  I spent most of the day spending money, wow is stuff expensive here.  You can just double or triple the cost of anything in back home.  I guess that’s the price we have to pay to be in this beautiful area.  To my surprise gas is only $5.31 a gallon.  Our little gray ’84 Subaru started right up, even after sitting all winter.  The best $1000 bucks I’ve ever spent on a car.   Now off for groceries, supplies, and some odds n ends so we can cross some more things off of our to-do list, then back to the boat for dinner!