Yesterday, we overheard the Coast Guard putting a call out for an overdue fishing boat called the “Big Johnson”. It was 27’ Hughescraft, which is an aluminum fishing vessel, and apparently the owner’s son called the Coast Guard because he was concerned that his dad and the crew aboard didn’t have enough fuel to make it all the way into Whittier.
The CG did get ahold of the vessel and the the skipper said they were aiming for a hunting lodge in a small bay near Knight’s Island Passage, which is where we’ve been driving around in circle for the past few days. They were planning to get some fuel there and continue on with their voyage up to Whittier this morning. So, it seemed that everything was good to go.
This morning, the Coast Guard tried multiple times to contact the Big Johnson on Ch 16, but no luck. The Coast Guard knew that we were in the vicinity and asked if we could get closer to where the lodge is reported to be and see if we could see a vessel or any activity. We re-routed from our “busy”, scratch that “extremely boring” day of round turns and went to investigate. We couldn’t get into the bay because of the shallow depths, but could make out a few things via binocular that appeared to be where a lodge might be hidden, yet no boat. The visibility was good, but we were still sitting about 3-4 Nm’s off the beach and couldn’t be exactly sure. Finally, after repeated attempts of the CG calling “Big Johnson” on the radio, we offered to give it a try, thinking that maybe that the boat couldn’t hear the CG, and to our surprise, they answered. Apparently, they stayed the night, found some fuel at the empty lodge, and were just about to get underway towards Whittier.
So, all said and done, we got to play SAR for an hour or so and it certainly gave us a break in the mundane vicious circle of round turns. The best part of the whole ordeal, was hearing the female CG watch officer put the call out for the “Big Johnson” repeatedly for quite a few hours. I think we’ve been stuck here too long, because it sparked many inappropriate jokes about boat names and CG calls. Sometimes you just have to laugh and be silly.
The weather might be offering us a slight break in the next 48 hours, so we might poke our heads out into the Gulf and make run for it. It’s going to be nasty and we’ll get beat up quite a bit, but it shouldn’t last for more than a few days and then we’ll be back on the inside of Southeast Alaska where hopefully it’ll provide some shelter.
If all goes well, I’ll be feet dry before Saturday 11/15 and I can take the rest of my GMDSS class before shipping off on the Hawaii run, 11/21. Looking forward to getting all this stuff done so I can tone it down a little and actually see my family a little more often. I “should” be home for Christmas and a few weeks following before we take our last class session at PMI in the 2nd week of January. ALMOST DONE!
It’s 17:07 and I’m 7 minutes late for dinner.. gotta run!
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