Slow

It has been tough sledding here this past week. The weather has been brutal so far this year, and this week was no exception. I took the neighbor, and Caleb out on Tuesday right after school. On Monday a whole bunch of caribou crossed and a couple boats caught 10 caribou each. It was raining steadily, and the wind was whipping out of the south. There are decent sized waves on the river when it is whistling out of the south. Made for a rough ride. We braved the elements and went anyway. I was only planning on going maybe as far as Sugar, but we ended up going up to Evelynn's. About an hour and a half at full throttle. There were a couple of other boats watching the far bank so we pulled up to them. They said they hadn't seen anything. We waited there for about a half hour and headed back down, idling with the current. I should have just cruised back. We idled back down to Sugar which put us at 8:30 and and hour of cruising to go with daylight fading quickly. Needless to say I abused my prop on the way back, because its hard to read the river when its dark out. We got back to the pit at about 9:45 with very little light left in the sky. I had to make a run at riffle below the pit twice because I missed the first time. I could barely see where I needed to go and I turned a little early into the channel. I bumped bottom which knocked Caleb off balance and into me. I sat down hard while still trying to steer into the channel. We didn't make it. Instead we ended up on the beach. I was able to get off the throttle, and kill the motor before I did any serious damage. It worked out well because Kyle and Caleb got out there and I drifted back down to make another run at it. Caleb held a flashlight, so that I follow the channel. I made it the second try without touching bottom. It was a very interesting night! Two lessons learned. Going out on a south wind is going to be a rough, miserable ride, and unless there is no reason to be back after dark unless there are animals on the ground.