Kalinin Bay Part 2

Let’s see, where was I? Oh Yeah, we were in that pickle. My boat had just flipped over.

I started gathering floating stuff up to take to the beach. I couldn’t find the 50 Cal ammo can that I had my emergency stuff in. It had my hand held VHF radio, flares, a nice Colt Python .357 mag, and fire starting stuff. I would have thought it would float but I couldn’t see it so I dove under water looking. Without a mask you can’t see very far and after searching for several minutes I gave up. I was tired so I was floating on my back heading to the beach paddling with my swim fins when another wave broke just wrong right at my feet. It broke unexpectedly in just such a way that it sprained my right ankle. I had sprained that ankle before and usually could make out but this time it was pretty bad. I couldn’t step on it.

Skip gathered up the stuff on the beach and we started to set up a camp just behind the beach. I opened up my dry suit to get my lighter out of my pocket but it wasn’t there! In those days I smoked a pipe and always carried a lighter with me. I filled it with lighter fluid just before leaving but I over filled it so I set it on the cup holder right beside the stairs going into the fo’c’s’le where the wood stove was heating the front half of the boat. I didn’t want it leaking lighter fluid on my leg inside that dry suit. Well it didn’t leak on my leg, but I did forget it.

So by now we had some wood gathered up, thanks Skip, and about 8 gallons of gas but nothing to light it with. I used an oar as a crutch so I could get around a bit. There was snow on the ground and I knew that shortly after we stopped moving around we were going to get cold in those dry suits. They were much better than most clothing but still were only ¼ inch think. The days are pretty short that time of year there and I could see that we only had about another hour of daylight left.

I knew that it was only about a 2 mile hike over the mountain to Kalinin Bay. I had hiked it a couple times before and wasn’t too bad so I decided that we should go as far as we could to get back to the boat. One thing that kept us both going was that I had taken 2 moose steaks out of the freezer for dinner.

We started out and Skip left the net on the ground. I said that net was worth more than the boat we had just lost and 10% of it was his. So he went back and got it. Those dry suits only had thin rubber feet on them to go inside swim fins and we could feel every rock and stick. At least the snow was soft and there was pretty good insulation against the cold.

We hadn’t gotten very far into the timber when it started getting pretty dark. As it was getting darker we were getting into thinner timber and more snow so we could see a bit. There was a bright moon out and the moon lit up the snow enough so we could keep going. I never had any trouble know where Skip was because about every other step he took that wad of net would hang up on something and he came up with all sorts of different exclamations some of them were pretty unique.

We got back to Kalinin Bay at about 11 PM and walked about a half mile along the side the bay to about where the Taku, my fishing boat, was anchored. But about then we had a bit of cloud cover and I couldn’t see the gray boat. We had to wait about 20 minutes before enough moonlight came through to see it. When I knew where it was for sure we swam out to it. Boy those steaks were good that night!

That was a Friday and that government office, I still can’t remember their name, would not be open until Monday so we went fishing the next day. I went across Salisbury Sound and in behind Klokachef Island. Sometimes there are fish in there and it is pretty calm water. As we were trolling through I noticed another big wad of net on the beach on the back side of the island. We pulled the fishing gear and I anchored in front of the net.

Skip didn’t like the idea of swimming ashore to get it. He was afraid on not being able to get back to the boat with the net. I had a 100 fathom hank of 5/8” polly rope on board and he tied one end around his waist and I fed out rope as he went. He gathered up the net and tied it on the rope as well as himself and I pulled him back. Now we had about 40 pounds of net and it was only Saturday. That gave us all day Sunday to think up how we could get more of it. I have a pilot’s license and decided that I could go buy a Champ or something with the money we got from the net we already had. Then I could fly those beaches and find lots of it and then go get it. There are several thousand miles of outside shoreline and the airplane would be perfect.

Sunday afternoon we headed to town with our 2 or 3 fish and 40# of net. Monday morning I still felt uncomfortable about just hauling all that net into that government office so I went armed with the ATA bulletin. When I got there I got some mighty funny looks and when I showed them the bulletin the guy read it a couple times and then took it in the back room. Pretty soon he came back out and said that these were just proposals and were not in effect. We were sure disappointed but not terribly surprised. I promised Skip that if it did ever become effective I would send him his share. I hauled that stuff around on the roof of my boat for a couple years before finally putting it in a dumpster.

Skip wasn’t making enough money for his obligations so he quit then. Can you imagine anyone quitting such an adventurous job??? As I remember he flew south from Sitka. Maybe I took him back to Wrangell because I remember that I had my 17 foot Boston Whaler and I am pretty sure I wasn’t towing them both. Because after Skip left I went back out to Kalinin Bay and with the 17 footer and that long hank of 5/8 polly rope. The 13 footer that had flipped was now way up the sand beach still upside down.

I anchored the 17 well outside the breakers (I may be a slow learner but I am not stupid and I was alone now) and swam in with the end of that rope. I thought I could just pick up the side of the boat and tip it back over but that little 13 footer is still HEAVY. I couldn’t even start it up. I found a log about 4” in diameter and 15 or 20 feet long and some other smaller drift stuff that I could use as a fulcrum. With that and some of those new words I learned from Skip I was able to get it turned over. Now I tied the end of that 5/8 rope to the towing eye and swam back out to the 17 footer.

The 13 was about 50 yards up the sand from the water and when I pulled on it with the 90 HP on the 17 footer it didn’t move. So I backed up and got a run at it. That didn’t do it so I backed up some more and really hit it. This time it broke free and by the time it hit the water’s edge it was going fast enough to be planning. I kept on going and was back to Kalinin Bay in no time.