2013 Prince William Sound Salmon Research Cruise 7.1.13

We just completed the first leg of this season’s salmon research cruise with the Cathy G and Bayhawk. During this year’s study, we will be visiting many streams throughout Prince William Sound. Just recently we visited Simpson bay, Port Fidalgo, Jack bay, Perry Island, Cochrane Bay, Paddy Bay, Eshamy Bay, Ewan Bay, Louis Bay, Hogan Bay, Stockdale Harbor, Rocky Bay and then we headed back to Cordova. Everyone enjoyed the record breaking high temperatures (we departed Cordova at 90 degrees F!) and calm seas. The next cruise will cover much more of the sound and will last around two and a half months. At this time we are relaxing at Glacier Island where we have some Alaskans using the Boaters Base Camp with their out of state guests. Glacier Island is a great place to get away from the 4th July crowds and there is a lot to see in the area. Columbia Glacier is just north of the island and has been releasing lots of ice bergs over the last few days. We have been watching humpback whales feeding along the south shore and many bait balls being worked over by the birds. Seals and otters (and hummingbirds!) frequent Jackson Cove where we are anchored up. We have been working the shrimp pots in the area with the number of shrimp being caught less then what we get in other areas but they are much bigger – some take three bites to eat! Lingcod opens today and there is a red salmon run North West of the island. It has been great cruising weather with lots of sun and flat seas - we just now got some much needed rain. Cordova is a great town. It reminds me of the small coastal towns we used to have before industrial tourism. Cordova has lots to offer: plenty of grocery stores and the best selection of marine supplies in the State. The locals are very helpful and friendly and the town’s economy is booming in the summer. Parking at the harbor is only $20 a month. I asked the folks in the Harbor Masters office why so cheap? They told me the town tries to keep the cost down of doing business in Cordova, to promote business. Wow, what a concept! Towns like Seward and Whittier could learn a lot from Cordova! Seward and Whittier have been running small businesses out of their towns for decades. Cordova is bustling with small businesses which in turn make the town a nice place to live in and do business. The anti-industrial tourism stance Cordova has taken shows the town supports its citizens, not the cruise ship industry. Way to go Cordova!

Matt

78 Day Prince William Sound Science Center Hatchery Wild Salmon Research Project 10.6.13

This summer we circumnavigated Prince William Sound 8 times with the Cathy G and Bayhawk, visiting Pink and Chum salmon spawning streams. The researchers onboard from the Prince William Sound Science Center were collecting otolith and DNA samples for straying research as well as mapping the spawning areas in the streams for the next phase of the project. For most of the cruise we had warm, sunny weather in the form of an old fashioned summer like what we used to get. The crew went swimming several times. It was a black fly year in a few locations which required head nets and gloves. Blue berries were much better this year than the last few years, with the largest ones we found being on Montague Island. Cordova was our home port for this project. Every 15 days we resupplied with produce in Cordova which has plenty of stores. The AC store in the harbor is right across the street from the dock and you can wheel your shopping cart from the store right to the boat. There is an Asian store near the harbor too that has the best fresh produce by far. They also have a large selection of gourmet cheese, chocolate and old style salami. Uptown there is the front door and back door store. The front door store has the best selection of bread in town and also has meat, fruit and vegetables. The back door store carries bulk supplies similar to Costco and Sam’s Club. Overall, Cordova has been a great town to work out of with plenty of well stocked boat supply stores and the harbor staff is great to work with. The harbor and town is very busy in the summer with the extensive fishing fleet of mostly gill netters, seiners and tenders and several fish processing plants. Driving out on the Copper River Delta during breaks was great with lots of wildlife to be seen and great hiking trails. While sampling the salmon streams we ran into plenty of bears, both black and brown. At one stream we saw 9 bears in 4 hours. We anchored in a different location almost every day sometimes clocking as much as 14.5 hours a day cruising time between the two of us. Many of our friends were following the progress of the cruise on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Aquetec-LLC-Prince-William-Sound-Lodging-and-Whittier-Water-Taxi/257237827657802

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Matt