Sablefish - Part 3

 Tuesday -
Ugh, early start, on the water by 6 am.  It was really and rained hard all day long.  My best guess is that the air temperature was in the low 40s.  We measured the water temperature - only 38.5 degrees.  Brrrrrr.  I think that is the most miserable and cold I've ever been. We didn't get back in until about 5 or 5:30 pm...it was a looooong day.

We didn't catch many fish, and no sablefish again today.  Last year's trips caught 300-500 fish during the sampling week, it doesn't look like we'll be doing that this week.  Thankfully we had a waterproof radio on board so we had some music.  We passed the time by telling stories and getting to know each other.

staghorn sculpin

fish with creepy parasites in it's eye

When we went to pull the boat out of the water, the winch on the trailer broke.  We spent a good 45 minutes in the pouring rain trying to figure out what to do so that we could at least get the boat back into town to repair the winch.  With the help of a borrowed hammer and some good whacking, we were able to get the boat fully on the trailer and went home to figure out a plan to fix it.  We were cold, wet, and exhausted.  We decided to wait until morning to see if we could find a replacement part (ideally) or a replacement winch (more expensive).  Sitka's a fishing town, so we where hoping someone would have what we needed.