Since David is Beryl’s favorite person, she likes for him to stay close to her when we’re underway and this can be a problem. When watchstander David is inside the charthouse, no problem, but when he gets ready to go outside, lifejacket on and ready to go, Beryl clings to his leg and says in no uncertain terms “No! Don’t go outside, stay here with ME!” This leaves the watchstander in a quandary — it’s so nice and comfy inside with Beryl, do those sails really need to be adjusted? Maybe not.
Boat cat Beryl spends a lot of time snoozing both on and off watch. She prefers to sit on the throwing cushion and getting fur all over David’s rain jacket.
While we do manage to catch enough to make us happy, we don’t claim to be great crabbers, shrimpers, or to have an ounce of real talent or luck when it comes to fishing. That is a good thing because we seem to haul up an awful lot of things that are not the intended targets. Trolling for salmon? Pull up some kelp. Trying for rockfish? How about some encrusted metal debris instead? The crab pots find us staring at starfish and sunflower sea stars or teeny little baby fish. The deep-set shrimp pots set for spotted prawns in the cold waters of Alaska have been our only consistent “good catch” methods aboard. Kinda far from where we are now though. When we set out for some hunter/gatherer time, we always wonder if we’ll be hungry unless we pull out the provisions we’ve packed onboard for the trip. Beryl is happy if she’s got her kitty kibble though. She doesn’t eat fresh meat, only highly processed dry stuff.
A Sunflower Sea Star
There are online prepper forums and sailing groups where a bunch of armchair sailors seem to be constantly chatting it up about how long various members could theoretically survive off the provisions they carry and the fish they catch. Months, years! by God, that’s their storyline. More power to ’em, they have more confidence in their hunter/gatherer skills than we do ours. David and I will just stick close to the supply chains and pray for world peace, thank you very much!
I enjoy fishing from the boat at anchor. Of course, I have yet to catch anything doing this, but ever hopeful…
While we were supposed to be catching rockfish, we were doing some environmental cleanup of the bottom here:
When trolling, it takes us no time at all to capture enough kelp and sea grass to avoid the risk of ever getting a fish on the hook:
If we do manage to lure something into our crab trap, it is sometimes a baby fish that manages to expire there, terrified of the sunflower sea stars who gravitate towards the bait pot. Of course, this is one way we do manage to get bait!
It only takes a few spot prawn to make for a good dinner for the two of us:
All cooked up:
And that which is left over makes for good bait in the crab trap too:
