Wow, a blink of the eye and three weeks has passed. We have been loving our time in Unalaska.
Upon arrival there was one other sailing boat. The next morning there was two not including us. Later that afternoon another boat arrived. Lol. Boats kept arriving until there were seven sailboats at one time in Dutch Harbor. It was so much fun meeting other cruisers again. We traded information, talked story, and shared laughter. As the boats provisioned and fueled up one by one they peeled off the dock and headed east.
We also peeled off the dock to get fuel and moved from the city dock to Carl Moses marina, where all of the Deadliest Catch boats tie up. For us it’s easier to be moored in Carl Moses because we are closer to our crab and shrimp pots.
On the trip over to Carl Moses we saw the most whales either of us have ever seen in our lives. Hundreds of whales. We learned each year pods of whales feed here the last couple of weeks in July, which after being here around the same time in 2017 we can say this time of the year has to be one of the best times to visit Dutch Harbor.
These last three weeks, the weather has been so beautiful for hiking, fishing, and salmonberry picking without worrying about bears because there are no bears or snakes or poisonous spiders. At one point the temperature rose to 80 degrees. Blueberries are starting to ripen but we are waiting a few more weeks to start picking. In between picking we are busy canning up jelly.
Fun fact: The tree line moves west about one mile a year and is currently located around Kodiak. Unalaska has a few trees but not really anything to cut down and use for fire wood. We obtained permission by the US Forestry services and Department of Agriculture to plant 23 Kodiak Spruce Trees.
We deployed our subsistence gill net again and caught 12 pink and one red salmon. It seems we must have missed the red salmon run. The pink salmon have not started to get weird hook noises and they taste wonderful canned. We even tried out a friends smoked salmon recipe and it turned out amazing.
Cheers,
Sara and Wade
Current Position Carl Moses Marina 53° 52.217’N, 166° 33.15W
Great VHF Weather Signal, Great SSB Signal, No Data Iridium Go connection
To find where are Wade, Sara, and SV Just Drifting were at noon, type these coordinates 53.870267875799,-166.55254424903 into Google Maps!
