Day 21 – Ketchikan to Vixen Inlet

We are slowly making our way up to Wrangell set to arrive next Thursday the 7^th, so this week will be somewhat leisurely. Left the dock this morning around 9am and were headed for a place called Meyer’s Chuck but once we arrived we were a little disenchanted. The bay is surrounded by homes so we felt as though we were in someone’s front yard, and we prefer the isolated bays for anchoring. We decided to keep going to the next safe harbor which is Vixen Inlet, completely devoid of boats, nice beaches all around us. Perfect bear country. I keep saying that I know, and we have yet to see one. We did have three sightings of humpbacks today and were treated to the full fluke as he headed down deep, and we waited….and waited….and waited and were eventually rewarded with a leap straight up in the air as they scooped up their catch. We set the shrimp and crab pots today and when we went out to check on them a few hours later, two more humpbacks were circling the bay feeding. We heard them before we saw them as we were pulling pots, a big whoosh and gulp as they surfaced and went back under. We kept our distance but trailed them a little bit to watch them, it was so cool! Our shrimping was a bust again, but we also knew we were taking a chance on this spot as most of it isn’t deep enough, or it’s too deep, but we found a 300’ hole to drop them in and caught a handful, not enough for a meal. The crabbing was a different story. This bay is LOADED with crab. We put the pots down for just 3 hours and netted 14 keepers and just as many if not more females and smaller crab so the pots were packed! I had some leftover grilled salmon from last night’s dinner so whipped up some salmon spread for appetizers (recipe below). It was a beautiful evening so we sat outside and cooked crab on the crab cooker burner on the back deck, poured ourselves a glass of wine, and enjoyed the warm sunshine. Dinner was beef tenderloin steaks, baked potatoes with all the fixings, mixed greens with feta, craisins, green onion, and chopped candied pecans tossed in a champagne vinaigrette. And.…of course, some cracked crab with drawn butter.

RECIPE: Salmon Spread: 4 oz . cooked salmon, 4 oz. cream cheese (softened), 2T minced green onions, 2T minced capers, ¼ tsp dill weed, couple dashes of cayenne and ½ tsp of liquid smoke. Mash it all together and spread on crackers of your choice.