Beats working.....

[Marin]

No girls in bikinis, sorry.....

But we took advantage of the oh-so-brief letup in our usual 24-7-365 downpour with dense fog, volcanic ash, and scattered thunderstorms this past weekend to run down through the tons of logs, deadheads, and drifting containers to where we have property in the San Juans to get in a bit of ling cod fishing* before the season closes next week.* Ling cod is one of the best tasting fish around.* Unfortunately they don't look near as fearsome out of water as they do in it with their huge dorsal and ventral fins extended and their giant mouths full of teeth.* In their natural habitat they look like something out of the Star Wars bar if you remember that scene.....

The color in the sky in the first photo is not a pretty sunset but just the reflection on the clouds from the gas flares at the Anacortes, Ferndale, and Cherry Point refineries.

Those of us in the PNW keep talking about the tide range and the resulting currents.* The second pair of photos is a visual illustration of a typical tidal range in the San Juan Islands.* As you go north the tidal range gets a lot greater than this.* When you figure the area of the inside waters between Washington and SE Alaska and the volume of water this tidal range represents, and then you figure that all this water either goes away or comes back in the six hours that elapsed between the taking of these pictures, you can understand why we get the currents, rapids, and trawler-destroying whirlpools that we get four times a day up here.* And why people don't moor to pilings.......




-- Edited by Marin on Wednesday 10th of June 2009 12:49:10 AM

 

[Marin]

I use the Livingston for fishing. We have a 17' Arima (photo attached)*that's all rigged for salmon and halibut fishing but it's too heavy of a boat to tow with the GB on a regular basis, to say nothing of the logistics of trailering it up to Bellingham, launching it, taking it around to the GB, hooking it up, and then doing it all in reverse when we come back. We take the Arima to the north end of Vancouver Island for halibut fishing, but locally I use the Livingston.

I use the same rig for ling cod that I use for halibut, only on a slightly smaller scale. So a small*halibut spreader, 8 oz weight, and a tandem-hooked herring.


-- Edited by Marin on Wednesday 10th of June 2009 11:08:53 AM

 

[Forkliftt]

Marin,Nice looking fish. What a tidal range! Twice a day too. I guess you get use to it and dock accordingly. Great pics!
Steve

 

[Marin]

Docking's not an issue really since the docks here are all floating so the relationship between your boat and the dock never changes. The currents can make things a bit challenging in some places, however. We normally get two high tides and two low tides a day here, although one cycle generally has less of a range than the other one.

You can get quite a benefit from the current, or quite a penalty. The run from our marina in Bellingham to our island property is about 30 miles give or take. Regardless of whether the current is ebbing or flooding, the twisting courses we usually have to run through the islands almost always means we have to go with the current on some legs and against it on others. But our island run is pretty well lined up in the direction followed by the current. If we can go with it, the run can take us as little as three hours. If we end up bucking the current to or from, it can take as long as four and a half hours. Same distance each way, same boat speed through the water--- the difference is all the current.

 

[Baker]

Thanks for sharing!!! Great pics.