Christening, First Crab Catch, and Orca Whales!

What an epic day! It was quite an eventful Halloween I had, and it was only scary for the crabs! This morning I held a small boat christening ceremony with a couple of friends Kari and Oliver, my dad, and his wife Mona. Every boat needs to be properly christened. I then gave people rides.

I have named my boat Double Nickel. I am now in my 55th year. It’s a time in my life when I no longer have domestic responsibilities, yet I’m still young enough to have fun adventures. It’s close enough to old age that it makes me realize that if there’s anything I’ve ever wanted to do with my life, I’d better do it now. Plus, it’s the age when I can finally afford to buy a boat.

Unfortunately I made my first newbie crabbing mistake today, and a bad one. On YouTube all the people just throw their pots and ropes in. I threw my first one in, and noticed a minute later that the cork never came to the surface. I looked at the second pot and noticed that the rope was horribly tangled. So badly, in fact, that it took me 20 minutes to untangle it. So that’s a lost pot that I need to report to Fish and Wildlife. Unfortunately lost pots can kill crabs for a long time. I feel pretty bad about my mistake. The rope was new and tightly rolled up when I bought it.

The second pot I lowered very carefully and let the rope run out along a cleat so that I could watch it. I was determined not to screw up the second one, and dropped it very carefully. Then I had time to kill. My little boat really bobs around when it’s not moving; in fact I think I’m going to be bobbing around in my sleep tonight. So I decided to zip out to Hat Island just to see it up close. As I got close to it, though, my navigation system started giving me all kinds of warnings that I was in less than three feet of water, when the chart said it was 100 feet. I was panicking a little at first, but finally decided that I had some kind of malfunction and headed back. It was working again by the time I got back to my pot, so it must have been something gunking up the sensor.

When I got back from Hat Island I found a group of what I thought were Dall’s porpoises breaching repeatedly right next to my pot. I idled the motor and just watched them for a while until they left. If you’ve never seen Dall’s porpoises, they look just like small orca whales and are often mistaken as such. Then I retrieved my bounty from the sea. Although I feel guilty and stupid about the lost pot, I have to say that it was still really exciting the first time I pulled the other pot up to see what I caught. I was honestly shocked to see that it actually worked, and I was able to successfully fish for my own food in nature.

After catching that first crab I dropped my one remaining pot again somewhere else. I only let it soak for half an hour, but pulled up one “almost legal” and a “big boy” keeper that must have been well over seven inches across (the legal minimum is 6-1/4″ across the carapice). So, I came home with two total, one from each drop. It was a good day on the water, with good friends and a good catch.

When I shared my video footage of “Dall’s Porpoises” with my friends, they told me what a dope I am. Those were really orca whales! I had always heard that they lived up in the San Juan Islands, and I never guessed that they came this far south. However, I learned that there are really two species of orcas in Puget Sound: the Southern Resident Killer Whales that we hear about all the time, which eat salmon and primarily live up in the islands. Then there are the transient or “Biggs” whales, which eat mammals like seals and sea lions. The whales I saw were most likely the latter.

Not realizing they were whales and not understanding the rules, I was actually a bit closer to them than I was legally allowed to be. However, I was at idle speed and they were swimming towards me. Plus, I didn’t even realize what they were. You can see in the video where I throw it into reverse a couple of times to slowly back away from them. I can’t believe that I had been that close to real orcas. I took it as a sign of very good luck, especially since it happened on the very day that I christened my boat.