June 16, 2008 ~ Monday
Sunny

We awoke to clear sunny skies. I (John) immediately took off to check the crab pots I had dropped off in Mirror harbor the night before. I pulled them up and there was nothing but a single starfish. Back at the boat Shanna was taking full advantage of the sun to dry the boat by removing all the carpet, cushions and rugs for drying in the sun. We all cleaned but there was stuff everywhere and we were all bumping into each other so Jeff and I got into our new inflatable kayak and went for a run. The directional control wasn’t very stable even with the two of us. Craig is going to have a challenge on his hands with this kayak on the North Slope, I commented that he was going to wrap it around a rock this August on our Caribou hunting trip. We put the boat all back together and polished off some breakfast tacos. Because the winds were calm we took off into the open waters of the Gulf of Alaska on our way to our next destination.

Along the way John found a large rock pile and since we were short on fish decided to take the opportunity to catch some. We anchored and dropped lines and got instant hits. John caught a monster Ling Cod which had to be at least 36” in length. We took photos of it and quickly released it to fight another day. We also caught several black bass which wouldn’t be so lucky and a couple beautiful yelloweye.

We headed into Kimshan Cove to explore the ruins of an old gold mine. An old cabin on stilts was still in very good shape. We walked up the steps and entered the unlocked door. A handwritten note inside explained that this was a private cabin, left over from the mining days, but all were welcome to explore it. After a tour of the cabin we headed up an overgrown trail where we found all kinds of abandoned equipment.

As we continued we found the entrance to the gold mine, took photos and continued on the various paths. While on the expedition we stumbled across the remains of a maintenance shop and old rail cars used to move ore out the mine. As we walked back to the dingy on the beach we came across huge bear paw prints in the sand.

Anchored in Kimshan Cove.
N 57 41.273 W 136 07.002
Trip odometer 327.8
Miles traveled 28.7