Never Give Up!

Wednesday, July 15. Day 11.

I was still pissed off that I lost a crab pot yesterday. All night I thought and thought how could I possibly recover it. My idea was to tie a heavily weighted gaff hook to the end of a line and troll the bottom for it. So just after breakfast I began constructing my recovery tool. We motored over to Bessborough Bay and I started "trolling" for the crab pot. I used the GPS with the tracking feature on to set up grid pattern so I could see where I trolled. It was a long-shot but I had to try. Well after an hour of trolling I finally gave up. The sea kept the crab pot.

Next I noticed that where we set one of our shrimp pots was no longer there - it had moved or drifted. Bessborough Bay gets a lot of current since it is just down from Whirlpool Rapids. We finally found it about 1/2 mile away. I was concerned because it was foggy out and I didn't want to lose a shrimp pot. We pulled it up and found 12 very large Spot prawns. I wanted more, but these prawns were big. So there were prawns in Bessborough Bay. I had never prawned here before. After re-setting the prawn traps we returned to the boat. I had to stop though, it was beautiful - there were a pair of Bald Eagles flying around, and the fog and water made some beautiful views.

I then returned to my original project the generator. Again, I worked tirelessly to almost no avail. My solution was not to use the generator fuel tank but the portable outboard tank. I would keep the generator fuel tank with the generator since it was part of the case, but would plumb it so it got fuel from a portable tank. I cut off the end of the outboard fuel tank and directly connected it to the generator carburetor. Unfortunately it would not start. I rebuilt the carburetor again and again, each time to no avail. It would run for a moment or two then stop. I took a break and wracked my brains on what might be the problem. Finally I got it to start and ran the generator for about 3 hours. It ran pretty good and gave the batteries a good charge so we could run the boat refrigerator.

We fished off of Althorp Pt but caught nothing. I was getting disappointed - generator, crab pots, and now no fish. So we thought we would take a side trip over to Murray Island. It is reported that there is a decent anchorage behind Murray Island. The wind blowing down Sunderland Channel from Johnstone Strait was fierce - over 25 kts. The wind made for 3-4' waves and a rough ride in the Zipper over to Murray Island. I was getting tired of the wind and the waves and my mood was turning sour - generator, lost crab pot, no fish, and now wind and waves. When getting off the Zipper my sunglasses went overboard. WTF! Fortunately we were able to fish them out from the sea. By now I was totally exasperated. The dog enjoyed Murray Is. by taking a big dump and then running around happily barking. This started to lighten my mood. Yup, Murray Island would be a nice anchorage - good protection, good bottom, not too deep, and scenic. We set a couple of crab pots out from the island - no crab. We returned to the the Independence and had a nice evening. I enjoyed a very stiff drink and tried to relax.