Bear Island

Bear Island

Bear Island is the 60 acre island shown in the map above designated with the letter A. This is the location of the commercial salmon fishing camp I will be working at. You get to Bear Island by taking a float plane from Kodiak to Larsen Bay and then travel 8 miles by boat to Bear Island. You can also take a boat from Kodiak to Bear Island which I think is about a 12 hour trip. The island to the right of Bear Island is Harvester Island. Duncan Fields and his family live on Harvester Island. If you zoom in on the map, you can see gravel bars which connect the island to the mainland. These are only visible during low tide.

Bear Island is located on the Shelikof Strait which is a body of water 150 miles long and 25-30 miles wide separating Alaska from Kodiak Island. The difference between high tide and low tide in this body of water is very large with the difference between low tide and high tide at the northern part of Shelikof Strait measuring up to 40 feet!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Thursday, May 5

Since returning from herring fishing on Larsen Bay, I have been cleaning the boat which is covered in fish scales. The hold of the boat, where the fish are stored while we are fishing is divided into 8 compartments.  Each compartment is separate from every other compartment which allows us to fill one with fish before starting on the next one.  We clean these compartments in two steps.  In the first step, I use a pressure washer to clean all the scales of the inside of the compartment.  After all the compartments are pressure washed, I then wash each department with bleach and water.  You better like cold water if you are going to do this job.  Finished cleaning the boat.  Now working on the Cowboy which is the boat I normally live on while in Kodiak.  It is used for ice making while during salmon fishing season.  I am scraping paint and painting the boat to get it ready for the salmon fishing season.

Plans for now are to work the rest of the week in Kodiak and then fly out to Larsen Bay on a small plane.  The plane trip to Larsen Bay costs around $500 which is divided up between the number of people on the plane.  The number of people on the plane is determined by weight of the people and the weight of the gear.

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