Part 2 of Mayday

"I'll Keep coming your way until I know you are safe," he replies back.
  "Thanks so much," I quickly reply.
  My second engine roars to life!
  I throttle it forward and it causes the boat to jump forward.
  We are under both engine power!
  "Mike, I'm going to try and get on step. Keep a close look in the fish holds to see if we start taking on water," I shout to Mike.
  The boat jumps out of the water just like normal and we are on plane!
  "Looks good back here," Mike yells above the noise of the outboards, especially the one without the cover.
  "Juneau Coast Guard, Samantha," I say into the radio.
  "Go ahead Samantha."
  "We are now running on both motors and are on plane. We can see no water coming on board, so we will attempt to run back to Sitka."
  "Roger that Samantha."
  I call the crabber and let him know we are leaving the area and thank him again for his willingness to help out.
  "Good luck," he says.
  Another boat has now pulled along side of us and informs us he is running back to town right now and will follow us all the way to make sure we make it alright. Coast Guard Juneau affirms that they also heard the offer.
  "Slow down a bit and let the bow come up," he asks over the radio, "I"ll make a circle around you and have one of my guys look the bottom of your boat over with binoculars."
  I slow so the bow of the boat is lifted high. The Samaritan boat cruises in a slow circle around us. I can see a couple of his guys looking us over with binoculars.
  "Looks good, Samantha," he says. "Lots of gouges, scrapes, and scratches, but we see no holes."
  About an hour and a half later Mike and I wave goodbye to our escort boat and idle into our home harbor.
  We tie the boat to the dock. I call the Coast guard and inform them that we have made it back and are in good shape.
  I race to the truck, race through town, hook up my trailer and then back to the harbor. I breath a huge sigh of relief when the boat slides onto the trailer. We have officially made it.
  We haul the boat out and examine the bottom. It is roughed up quite a bit. There are some deep gouges in some areas but I am very impressed with the fact that no rock penetrated through the hull. I whisper a prayer of thanks to the boat manufacture for building a very sturdy boat.
  To stop that many tons of boat, traveling 20 plus knots on a pile of rocks, have it thrash around in waves and wind for quite some time, and not puncture the hull is incredible.
  Mike and I also are amazed that the engines were both able to run. At the dock I could not get one of the engines to shift once it stopped. It would not restart or shift again.
  We are so thankful for all those involved in helping us. Even just voices over the radio. All helped us in more ways than they will ever know.
  Now we have to pick up the pieces and see about a rebuild. Not in the plans this winter, but something that will have to be handled. 
  The above was written the day after the crash. It is now April. After a long winter of rebuilding, the boat is once again in top shape. The local fiberglass repair man did an incredible job.
  The fuel tank had to be removed and the bottom of the boat cut out. He had to replace stringers as well as just bottom repair.
  Right now the boat is sitting in the outboard motor shop getting a brand new pair of Yamaha motors.
  It has been a long stressful winter, but spring is here and the fishing season upon me.
  We will survive, we are thankful for the fact that no one was injured in the crash.  There was just enough water to bring the boat to a sliding (Ok, maybe a crunching, bumping, grinding stop) but just an hour more of tide and we would have cleared the rock completely.
  It has been an eye opener for me as I share my story around town, to learn how many people have also crashed boats into rocks. The resounding words I hear is, "If you run a boat long enough up here... You WILL hit a rock!"
  I hope and pray that I have gotten all of my misadventures out of my system.  I'm ready to just work hard, earn money, and buy beans for the rest of my working life!
  Hey, this is Wild Alaska so you just don't know...
  I'll keep you posted.

                                          repairing the bottom of the boat

                                          the motor damage.. just the skaggs.

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday

  I know many of you follow my cucumber diving adventures and this year they suddenly stopped after our first dive. Well... here is the reason. Not that I'm proud to even share this with you, but it certainly is why I call this blog Living Wild Alaska. There is nothing in this state that comes easy, and this land and water will devour you if you relax for even a moment.  I have omitted the names of the vessels who assisted us that day for their privacy, especially the commercial crabber (We never like to give away our secret fishing areas).


"Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!"
  I never thought I'd hear my own voice over a radio calling Mayday to all boats around.
  Mike and I started our day early, texting about our up coming cruise.
  "Let's get the shrimp gear on the boat about nine and then see what the weather is doing, and leave from there," I texed Mike.
  "Sounds good," he immediately shot back.
  We drove to the harbor and spent almost an hour packing shrimp gear and our hunting supplies to the boat. I had to run back home for outboard oil, kissed my wife goodbye, waved off her words, "Please be careful,"  and raced back to the boat.
  "Untie, and we're out of here!" I shouted out the door, while firing up the computer and the navigation gear.
  Mike and I were going to make a combination trip. We would take the weekend for shrimping, crabing, and deer hunting, and then roll right into the next dive opening at the bottom end of Peril Strait. That is the way to have a commercial opening pay for our play time. Fuel in Alaska is so expensive that one can not afford to just go on an only play weekend.
  We chatted and poured coffee as we traveled down  the quiet water channels. We had decided to make the shrimp and deer trip up to Hoonah Sound. Mike and I had not been there since last year when we filled our freezers with beautiful, great tasting shrimp.
  I steered the boat past Poison Cove, and headed down Deadman's reach, realizing that I was not heading to our dive area of Peril Strait, but rather, Hoonah sound, I corrected hard to the port and laid out a new course.
  Mike had been out on the deck baiting our shrimp pots. He must have felt me turn and came in the door. I zoomed the chart out and asked if we needed to cut inside Emmons Island or go around the end of it.
  Mike zoomed out the chart to where we needed to go set our pots.
  "Looks like we can cut inside the island," he said.
  He went back out on deck and continued getting the pots ready for setting.
  Mike finished up and came back inside.
  "Coffee?" I asked, as I handed Mike the thermos of steaming hot coffee.
  "You bet," he said and poured himself a cup.
  We settled in for a nice smooth ride.
  I started hitting some tide and wind chop and backed the throttle a bit. A South wind was pushing against a North tide and was stacking about a two foot chop on the strait.
  I was in a big wide open stretch of water, land a good mile away on each side.
  Crash! The boat lurched hard as the back of the boat smashed hard into something.
  "Log!" I shouted as I backed the throttles into neutral.
  Crash, bang, smash! The big boat smashed to a halt.
  "Rock! We've hit a rock!" Mike shouted. He raced outside and was looking over the side of the boat.
  I looked out the back window while trimming the outboards up out of the water. I could see an engine cowling floating quite a ways from the boat. I thought it was one of our engines.
  "I've knocked an engine off the boat!" I shouted, racing to the back deck to look. Both engines were attached to the boat, but the starboard engine was missing the cowling. We watched as it floated away and later as it sunk.
  We are both stunned.
  The wind is blowing the two foot chop and the boat is bouncing up and down and rolling sideways, crunching and grinding on the rocks.
  "We've got to get off the rocks!" Mike shouts. "Should we get out and push? How about we both go to the bow and see if we can float the stern off the rocks?"
  "Mike, this a a huge boat, weighs tons. We are not going to move it or float it with just us two," I said to him, but did not have a better plan.
  "We have the kicker motor to give us power if we can get off this rock pile," I said to Mike.
  The boat was rolling and crashing constantly as the wind pushed the waves against us.
  "Mike this boat might crumble out from under us," I said. "should I give out a Mayday call to the Coast Guard?"
  "Yeah, I think we'd better," mike quickly answered back.
  I grabbed the radio mic and gave out a mayday call. Nothing.
  "You're using the wrong mic, Mike informed me." I look up to see that I'm using a back up radio  that is not on the hailing channel.
   I grab the mic on my other radio and calm my nerves.
  "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! I calmly say. "Juneau Com center, this is the vessel Samantha we are at position 57 33.39 north 135 32.80 west. We have hit a rock and and are in need of assistance. Do you copy Coast Guard?"
  "Samantha, Juneau Coast Guard. How many persons are on board?" I hear a broken voice on my radio. I crank up the volume to hear better.
  "Two persons on board," I say back. Juneau, I see a crabber working across the way in Deadman Reach, if we could get him to help."
  "Roger that," Juneau says back, "Break, break. Pan (pronounced pawn), pan calling the crab vessel in deadman reach, do you copy?"
  "Yeah Juneau," comes a new voice over the radio. " this is the crabber ( he gives his name, but I'll call him "Assurance") I have stopped working and am on my way. I see the Samantha from here."
  "Samantha, did you copy that?" Juneau Coast Guard asks me.
  Mike is shouting things on the back deck and I'm running in and out trying to access our damages.
  "Mike!" I shout out the door. "Open the hatches and see if we are taking on water. No wait, Get our survival suites out and on the back deck first, then check for water!"
  Mike is scrambling to get things done.
  "Juneau I copy I can see the crabber headed our way. I am not seeing any water coming aboard but the boat is really taking a pounding from the rocks with the waves smashing us about."
  "Copy that, Samantha. What is your on scene weather, the color of your vessel and your life saving gear on board?" Juneau Com Center radios back.
  I fill the coast guard in on our status, "We are a 25 foot light brown vessel we have survival suits ready and also an inflatable skiff ready to deploy should we need them."
  "Good copy,Samantha," the coast guard calls back.
  Two other boats are on the radio letting us know they are also in route to help us.
  Mike yells in the door, "It looks like deep water on this side of the boat. I think we are floating off the rock!"
  We are still pounding, crunching and grinding with sounds you hope you will never have to hear again in your life. It is hard to describe the sounds of a fiberglass boat being pounded to pieces beneath your feet.
  The grinding stops. It is eerie quiet.
  "We are off the rock!" Mike shouts to me.
  I race outside and look into deep water, not a rock in sight. I race back inside and grab the radio mic again.
  "Juneau Coast Guard Samantha," I say, "we have just floated off the rock. I am trimming down my engines to see if they will run and go into gear."
  "Good copy on that, Samantha," the young man says back.
  I fire up my starboard engine and it roars to life sounding like it is in bad trouble. I look back to realize that without the cowling to quiet it down, it is running good, but just very noisy without the cover on it. I throttle forward and it seems to go into gear.
  I try and try to fire the other engine. It turns over but will not start.
  "Juneau Com," I say, "I have one engine running and it seems to be in gear. I'm going to idle to point Marie in case we need to beach the boat."
  Good copy on the Samantha, Assurance, did you copy that?"
  "Yes Juneau," Assurance comes back on the radio, "I can see him idling towards the point."
  "Thanks Assurance," I say on the radio, "It looks like I have power on one motor and we still see no water coming on board."

  To be continued...

                                 Some of the damage on the bottom of the boat

                                    The damage on the bow where the initial impact was

Snow Goose from Russia

  One last Snow Goose story.
  I had been getting some good snow goose action and was sending texts to my hunting buddy, Larell. One that really made the guys drool was me holding a banded snow goose.
 That night Larell text'd me wanting to hunt the next morning.
  "You bet. I'll see you at O dark thirty," I replied back.
  Larell was already at the blind and had the decoys hauled out. I could tell he was excited.
  We made shooting hours with minutes to spare and then began the long day of waiting.
 The Snows were being typical snow geese with most of them flying over squawking at us but totally ignoring our decoy spread.
  It was nearly mid day when we had our first real flock decoy in. They started in the stratosphere and slowly circled their way into gun range.
  "Let's let them make one more circle," I whispered to Larell. His dog, Charlie was shivering with excitement waiting for the shots to signal her burst from the blind.
  The big flock slowly drifted around the spinning decoys and straight at the blind.
  "Ok, when they get close... let's get them... remember to shoot your side of the flock, I'll shoot mine," I whispered. I think I was quivering as bad as Charlie.
  "Now! Take 'em!" I shouted, rising out of the blind to shoot.
  The flock was right in our face low.  I picked a bird on my side and fired, to my surprise, it dropped. I picked another one and it also fell.
  I could hear Larell blasting away on his side, but being on my nearly blind side I could not see if birds were dropping.
  The flock quickly back peddled out of range and Larell and I were left high fiving and congratulating each other on a job well done.
  Larell had a couple on his side and I had my two. We strolled out to help Charlie retrieve them.
  I picked up my second bird and there on its leg was a metal band. My second banded bird of the season.
  When Larell was back in the blind I showed him my treasure.
  "No way!" he exclaimed, " The second one in two days for you! You lucky guy!"
 "You can have it if you want it,'' I told him.
  "No it was on your side of the flock, you got it," he gracefully replied.
  I tried a couple more time during the day to have him take it home for his treasure chest, but he stuck to his guns and insisted I have it.
  We had a good snow goose shoot that day and made it home late that night.
  I raced for the computer to enter my goose band into the national band data base.
  I filled out all the forms and gave the harvest information, location harvested condition of the bird, and condition of the band. some of that information is not asked, but I like to let the banding persons know the condition of the band to reward their hard work.
  I clicked the mouse on "enter information" and sat back waiting for the results.
  In minutes I was staring at a form I could hardly believe... it said:
  "Lesser Snow Goose, hatched in 2011, female, banded on Wrangel Island Russia, Russia!"
  I sat back stunned. I had no idea the Snow Geese migrated into Russia, let alone any banding program going on there.
  I looked it up on Google Earth and learned it was above the Bering sea. A little island sitting in the Chukchi Sea hundreds of miles west of the coast of Alaska and our known place of Point Barrow Alaska
  I crunched some numbers to see how far this bird had flown to make it to my hunting area.
  If the goose flew from Wrangel Isand to Mexico, where a lot of geese winter it would have made a trip of about 4,300 miles, from Mexico City to Boise Idaho is about 1,900 miles.
  Now, if I do my math correctly the goose hatched in 2011, meaning it made round trips from Russia to Mexico four times. A round trip from Russia to Mexico is about 8,600 miles, times four... a crazy 34,400 miles.
  Watching the snow geese fly on a daily basis is also crazy. They lift from their night roosting ponds and spiral up into the high clouds then fly 30 to 50 miles out to the fields to feed. At about noon the birds come flying back at the super high elevations and back into the ponds to rest until about three in the evening where they repeat the same flights.
  This back and forth flying happens every day of their lives.
  No wonder these birds are so tough. If an athlete accomplished such a feat  now days he would be on every news page in the country.
  My respect for the little Snow Goose went right to the top!
  Larell text'd me that night to say that he had reconsidered my offer of the band and would like it for a mount... but then he saw where it came from... "I guess you won't be giving that band up, will you," He text'd me.
  "Not for a million bucks!"  Well... maybe for a cool million!