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Ideal Cove
After spending 10 days getting Idyll Time up and running for the season, it is time to push away from the docks. Working down our departure procedures, we double check each step. Being away for six months, we are a little rusty. As we ease out into Frederick Sound, we soon see the familiar Stellar Sea Lions perched on the entrance buoy to Petersburg. They seem to be enjoying this nice sunny day.
We have a short 17 mile trip to Ideal Cove, one of our favorite anchorages. With stunning views of the entrance to the Le Conte Glacier this is truly an ideal anchorage.
We find the anchorage empty and soon have the hook set. This is popular and productive crabbing bay. In just a few days commercial crabbing season opens and this bay will be full of brightly colored commercial trap floats. A crabber has already offloaded 100 or so pots on the beach. We quickly have our two pots deployed with visions of a crab dinner tonight. For now our two are the only ones out in the anchorage.
The local crabber arrives this afternoon with more pots. He spends several hours unloading them on the beach . After six hours, we check our two pots. We are pleased to find three big keeper males in each pot. There is one female which we throw back. Only males are legal to keep.
Two nights are spent in Ideal Cove stocking the freezer with crabs. Being nonresidents, we are allowed only 3 crabs each per day. Residents can catch 25 crabs per day. Our six a day limit is plenty for us. Taking a break from our crab pulling, steaming, and picking we enjoy several nice paddles around the bay.
We are entertained our second evening by two black bears eating sedge grass at the head of the anchorage. We have anchored here several times but this is the first time we have spotted bears here.
Feeling confident that all of Idyll Time’s systems are working well, we pull anchor and head 33 miles west on Frederick Sound to Thomas Bay. We stop briefly at Coney Island for some halibut fishing but they are not biting today. Thomas is a convenient stop for the night. We are again the only boat in the anchorage. With the Canadian border closed, there will be very few pleasure boats visiting Alaska this year. Jeff braves the rain to deploy our two crab traps using the paddle board instead of launching the dinghy. The efforts are rewarded with six more juicy crabs. We will push on tomorrow to Pybus Bay in search of halibut and whales. Thanks for following along.
