The visibility was down to about 150 feet. I had to slow down. Miles to go, guests who have to catch seaplanes... I mentally did the calculations: if the fog would let up a bit, I could pick up the speed and get them to the humpbacks. But, we're going to have that same fog on the way back.
These folks came to see whales - I pushed on. It took an hour an 40 minutes to get to the humpbacks... on a 3 hour trip. I had the naturalist check with the guests to see what time everyone had to be back. 5:15 was the absolute latest.
There were two humpbacks, and they were pretty regular: 3 or 4 surfaces, then one deep dive; 7 or 8 minutes between the deep dives. I stayed for 3 cycles of that, then it was time to head back. It was decent visibility where the humpbacks were, but I could see the wall of fog to the north.
As we ran north, we saw a Minke surface... to stop or not to stop, that is the question? We stopped briefly, then pushed on. If wanting an Orca to appear would make it happen, we would have had another trifecta. Didn't happen.
I continued to work the radios, hoping to hear of a sighting. Nope. We ran into the fog bank, and it was down to 100 feet visibility...
I passed a sailboat that had a wooden mast, that barely registered a target on radar. A much smaller powerboat painted a bigger target. The closer we got to Cattle Pass, the thicker the fog. I called our other boat who was about a half hour ahead of us... we should drive out of the fog and be able to pick up speed. I told the guests we'd be back around 5:15, and that was working out. Close for those who needed to catch a seaplane or the inter-island ferry.
In fact, the ferry rolled in just ahead of us. Instead of waiting for the wake from the ferry to subside, we landed at Spring Street Pier and unloaded our guests there. Then, a chance to catch our breath and put the boat in our slip.
Only one trip today, but it was a long one.
No comments:
Post a Comment