Day 52 – Anchored in Samsing Bay

It’s a beautiful day here on anchor, not a cloud in the sky, warm temps, glassy water. Set out for some late morning fishing at the 11am slack but the big swells on the outside caught up to me and I had to bail and go back to the boat. After an extremely lazy early afternoon (lunch, reading, naps, cards) we just couldn’t be inside anymore (the only reason we were inside was because of the predatory horse flies outside that will bite you through your clothing.) So…we started out just going for a putt around the outer harbor where (thankfully) the swells had died down to nothing, and it was so warm that just a tank top was enough – even on the water. Eventually, the fishing poles went down and we slowly trolled the bay for salmon. Instead we continually picked up shakers (baby salmon) or very small rockfish that don’t break away from the downrigger clip so we don’t realize that anything is really on the hook. Suffice it to say, you will not get a salmon to bite if there is already a small fish on the hook. Sigh. Defeated again. But no! We did get some unexpected entertainment! The first rockfish we snagged was almost big enough to keep, a two person meal, but we decided to let him go. Because he was brought up from 130 feet, his pressurized insides swelled up and out of his mouth, and he had to sit on the surface for a while to re-acclimate so he could swim back down to the depths. However, it is most precarious for the fish when the surrounding islands are loaded with (starving) Eagles just waiting for this sort of situation. John threw the rockfish back behind the boat thinking that no eagle could possibly see this fish from where we were in the middle of the bay, at least 200+ yards from shore. Sure enough, with “eagle eye” vision, 3 eagles made a beeline for us and we gleefully watched as the winner dove down and snagged the fish. We were actually surprised that he could carry that size of fish, but I guess they are capable of picking up small dogs. Anyway, we soon had another small fish hooked and as John was reeling him in the Eagle couldn’t wait and was trying to grab the fish off the line before we could get it to the boat! John jerked the line so the Eagle wouldn’t catch it and risk getting hooked and once the fish was off this time I had my iPhone camera poised to get the video. We did that a couple more times and had such fun watching them dive and grab right next to the boat. We have two rules when we leave the boat in the whaler for an excursion – never forget to bring the camera and never forget to bring the binoculars (ok 3 rules, don’t forget the life jackets too). Every time I forget my good camera, something like this happens! Was bummed to miss the opportunity to get a good shot but see my iPhone pics below. I will try to post a video to Facebook when I get decent connectivity. Dinner tonight was kind of a disaster. I decided to see if I could use leftover spaghetti sauce as a base for our homemade pizza. I had Trader Joe’s pizza dough as a base and good mozzarella on top so that part was good. In the end, the pizza tasted exactly like it was….spaghetti on top of pizza crust and not like pizza. Would not recommend this shortcut. Lesson learned.