Labor day weekend 2016!

Been a few to many weeks since we got out on the water. Regarding the fishing; this report is definitely a 1 but to be fair after sleeping in 3 mornings in a row (we had an agreement), we made only one or two passes at some of the stock San Juan Islands spots and moved on. Over the three day holiday weekend we fished a bit Saturday and Sunday and then just explored on the way back to the trailer Monday. Late Sunday morning we ran offshore off the west side of San Juan Island and watched the whales for an hour or so. We spent time tracking the orcas and saw them jump clear of the water numerous times. Way cool! We considered fishing after that but wanted to hit the end of season “Drain the Keg” festival at Blakely Island Marina so we decided to call it a day.

The weekend was more of a test run and relax in the islands on our project boat event. We reserved a slip at the Blakely Island Marina for the weekend and explored from there. We fished here and there but no fish. In my haste to wrap up Fridays work gunk and get all the weekend the boat stuff ready I forgot a bunch of key fishing gear. I have not installed upgraded electronics on the boat yet but even so we saw very little bait and no salmon on the meter. Pulling flashers and either spoons or hoochies we fished Tide Point and Eagle Bluff at Cypress, Indian Village at Guemes, Humphrey Head off of Lopez and Eagle Point off the west side of San Juan Island. We did have a couple solid takedowns but nothing made it to the net.

In the three nights that we spent on the boat, with the exception of a persistent steering issue we didn’t have any major problems. We still have a couple issues to iron out but the boat handled very well and fishes nicely. The new to us kicker and set-up worked perfectly. Although the boat will do 50 mph, our cruise speed is around 23 mph at 2600 rpm. The boat will stay on plane down to about 18/19 mph. tentatively we are burning 6-7 gallons per hour at cruise. Our project boat is a 1989 Starfire. In their day Starfire manufactured the Cadillac of smaller and midsized power boats and some yachts. They were a smaller family owned boat builder based in Salt Lake City. Starfires are hard to find and usually a mess when you do find one. We bought this thing knowing that it would be a project but...

Yet to go:
• New Canvas
• More Mechanical Repairs
• New Electronics
• Re-do all the Teak
• Install Rod Storage and Rod holders

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