Kalinin Bay

I received some very sad news last night. My long time friend, Don Schirmer, has been struggling with cancer for several years. As he put it, and this sounds so much like him, he asks for prayers for comfort, not healing. He feels his expiration date is coming up and is ready to make the ultimate journey.

I have never been much for public prayers but God does say he wants them so please bear with me. If you know Jesus please pray with me.

Lord, You know Don Schirmer better than any man and I know Don better than most men. I have know him to be a man that has loved You for the 35 years that I have know him and I am sure much longer than that. You know that he is a good man, not perfect as none of us are, but with Your grace and the sacrifice Jesus made for us all Don is made perfect. He is ready to make the transition from the life we have known to being with you. I ask you to make him comfortable during this transition and let him know that many of us love him and are sorry to see him go. Harriet is going to have a huge empty place when Don goes. I ask you to somehow fill that emptiness in her with joy. Thank you Jesus.

Wow, I didn’t even short out the keyboard. As those of you that know me know my eyes get running much easier than I would like. But hay, that is just how God made me.

Well, Harriet mentioned the time with Skip. That was a good tale on me and should lighten up this post.

This story also took place in the BS days. (Before Sue days more than 25 years ago) Dean, my second wife, had left and left an emptiness in me. I was not willing to sit around all winter so I hired Skip, the son of a friend of mine, to go out winter king salmon fishing. He wasn’t busy so it sounded good to him. As I remember he was to get 10% of the gross of our catch. We headed to the Sitka area because I had heard that they sometimes have very good winter fishing. There are no buying scows on the fishing grounds in the winter so it is necessary to ice our fish. Then we go in about once a week to sell in town.

We had been fishing out of Salisbury Sound which is just northwest of Sitka. Kalinin Bay has been a favorite anchorage of mine for some time and that is where we had been anchoring at night. Our first two trips did little more than pay for the diesel fuel we used. When checking the mail in Sitka there was a bulletin from Alaska Troller’s Association. There had been lots of griping about the huge sections of gillnet from offshore fisherman getting away and drifting up on our shores. As long as those nets are floating in the water they continue to catch fish and birds. This bulletin was telling us that the government agency, the name slips me at the moment, was charging the foreign and domestic fisherman that fished the high seas a huge sum for all lost gillnet. They were paying anyone who found the net drifting or on our beaches $500 a pound for the clean net when it was brought in.

I read and re-read that several times and then handed it to Skip to read. He read it and said, “So.” Just a couple days before we had been fishing in front of Sealion Cove beach and I saw a huge wad of this netting on the beach. I said that if there were 20 pounds of that stuff that was $10,000! We both re-read that bulletin a couple times more and headed out after that netting.

We anchored in Kalinin Bay shortly before dark and first thing in the morning we put on the dry suits that I had from abalone diving and got in my 13’ Boston Whaler. We went out Salisbury Sound and around Cape Georgiana to Sealion Cove, a total of about 7 miles of which half is the outside ocean. The beach is about a mile wide and at the south end are some rocks that give a little protection from the ocean swell. We anchored outside where the waves were breaking and swam to the beach. The net was stuck on the rocks at the north end of the bay so we had to walk the full width of the beach. It was a beautiful day though and we were in no hurry. However, on out way back with the big wad of net I noticed that the waves were breaking much closer to the skiff. I gave the net to Skip and told him to take it out on the rocks and I would swim out to the skiff and then pick him and the net up from the rocks.

I ran down the last quarter mile of beach and swam out to the skiff. Just as I took hold of the transom a wave broke over the bow and washed everything out. The gas tank went right by me and I grabbed it and put it back in the boat. I was still in the water. I started to push the boat into deeper water when the next wave came over the bow. This time the gas tank went out the other side and when it came to the end of the hose it pulled off. I had pulled the plug out of the bottom to let the water out. Boston Whalers are unsinkable and when the plug is out the floor is higher than the water level so they drain. I needed that gas tank so I turned loose of the boat and swam after the tank. Just as I got to it I saw the boat, still walering in the water, turn sideways and the next wave flipped it upside down.

Now we are in a pickle! It was about the first of February and there was no one else around or knew where we were. That outboard was under water and would not run without much more help than we were going to be able to give it there.

Well, that is probably enough for today. You will just have to read again tomorrow to see if we lived or died!