June 10, 2017

Slept in a bit this morning but got underway by 9:00am. Not a breath of wind inside Fury Cove but it was blowing a bit once we got into Fitz Hugh Sound. We purposely went slow so that we could make some water and charge up the batteries.

We arrived in front of the Hakai Institute and anchored. We felt a little close to another boat so we re-anchored in a better place. It was blowing quite a bit still even though the Bay is protected. The Hakai Institute offers free WiFi to boaters that come to visit, using their satellite internet system. Which I think is mighty generous. They limit the data but that's fine and understandable. So we downloaded the weather and looked at a couple of emails from the boat after lunch. They also offer a place to tie up dingy's on their dock, and a path through to the marine park. So we ventured off to take Bella for a walk.

The big wide sand beach is a nice place for a blind dog to take a walk, so we enjoy taking her there. It still takes forever for her to get anywhere, but at least she can do it eventually. We walked to the north end where it was protected from the wind and sat and took in the view. Some other folks from Victoria came back from their walk to North Beach and we had a nice chat.

Back to the boat to make salsa and check the wind status. Still gusting a lot in the protected bay.

June 9, 2017

Ugh. Meh. Long day. We left at 5:30am and got to Fury Cove around 1:00pm. Everything went well really, but we spent quite a few hours with a following sea and doing the whole corkscrew thing. We had the wind and the sea behind us coming up Queen Charlotte Straight, crossed through the Walker Group (calm) to the other side, and then had the large swell coming towards us, but the Ebb and wind behind us for awhile. Coming around Cape Caution was the same thing - it certainly qualified as big ocean water. And it all lasts until the entrance into Fury Cove. The wind was down pretty much the whole day which was nice. Greg thought it was our best crossing conditions so far. I thought they were good, but the swell's were the biggest so far, but as you want them to be, spread far apart.

With only about half an hour to go, we spotted a "log" that seemed to have all these birds sitting on it that I needed to steer around. Greg commented that it was nice that there were all those birds on it because otherwise we probably wouldn't see the log as it was partly submerged. As we got closer, it wasn't a log, but a raft of otters!!! Our first sea otters ever! So unbelievably cool. Even though it was lumpy out, we stopped to get photos of course.





I turned the boat around to get more photos, but they just dove and disappeared. They didn't want to play. So turned around again and continued on. Greg had a really large lens on his camera and these are heavily cropped - but hey! You got otters!

We anchored in the cove and then had lunch and then Greg had a short nap while I looked at guide books. It got sunny so we went to shore in the dinghy. The shore is a white shell pieces and Bella was not interested in walking on it at all. We cruised over to the tidal pool, and to look around and ending up trying to get photos of the marmots that live there! So cute!



It started to drizzle so we headed back to the boat in the rain, and then stayed inside while we had a complete downpour for about 30mins. Then the sun came out again and it was warm, so it was most certainly "oh-beer-thirty" on the flybridge. Spaghetti dinner and a TV show and to bed early!

June 8, 2017 - Byron's Birthday

The temperature has dropped about 10 degrees (F), it's raining, and the furnace is running. Now it feels like the Broughtons.

We spent the morning on the computers as it was quite wet out and we had some catching up to do on work etc. After lunch, we headed out and went and did a load of laundry, (because we could, not because we needed to), and then also went up to the IGA to stock up on a few groceries. Still pouring rain as we came back to the boat, so laundry was wrapped up in garbage bags. Oh, and the wind is up too.

We had been watching friends of ours come south from Alaska on their boat Aquila. We had planned to meet up somewhere in northern BC. We saw him on MarineTraffic earlier today and assumed they would stop in Fury Cove for the night. But then we got a text from him saying that they would be in Port McNeill at 5:30. And they were! They rounded Cape Caution in the afternoon and wind. Go figure. Alan came over and we chatted for awhile, but Linda stayed on the boat. They had some issues they needed to attend to in civilization, so they were (and are) on a mission south.

Then it was dinner, fill the water tanks again, take the garbage out. And generally get ready to "go around the corner" tomorrow. Last time we did this, we went part way and "staged" in Clam Cove on Nigei Island. We had planned to do the same thing on this trip, but it looks like we only have a 1 day weather window, and so we're planning to go from here to Fury Cove in one shot. It's about a 68 mile journey and will take more than 8 hours. ETD - 5:30am 😂

Sure hope we have good conditions. This evening has turned rather lovely with the wind coming down and some blue sky has come out, so it looks good!

June 7, 2017

A reasonably slow morning this morning as we read email and then walked the docks to say "see you later" to John and Judy on Stella Maris. We left around 9:15 and had a lovely ride down Clio Channel, and had just a bit of swirly water in Baronet Passage. But as we approached Johnstone Straight, we could see white caps. We gave a lot of distance to the point as we entered, but it was still really lumpy. As we started up the Straight, we couldn't help but complain - the forecast for both Johnstone Straight and Queen Charlotte Straight was winds light, with it coming up to NW 15 in the late afternoon. So here we are in the Straight with 22 kts of wind coming from the South East behind us! AND, it was supposed to be Ebbing and going with us the whole way, but No, we were going into about a 1-2 kt flood. Are we the only ones that read these things!

It calmed down after we passed Alert Bay, and of course it was less than 5 when we tied up at the dock, so we survived. But it really pisses me off Steve Jackman was there to take our lines and have a chat, and we met Luc as well. We had some lunch and then filled up with fuel so that it was done. We filled up to the tippy top so that we were nice and heavy for going around the corner. Then we took Bella for a walk into town but she was not that excited about walking. So instead Greg had ice cream and I had a coffee at "Mugz" on the patio. From there over to the Sporting Goods store to buy some last minute fish killing things just in case we catch a fish someday.

Dinner on the boat and a generally early evening.

June 6, 2017 - Our 30th wedding anniversary

Greg thought enough in advance to get me an anniversary card and gave it to me in the morning - what a guy! I was not so prepared and so he got nothing We left shortly after 8:00am in order to catch slack in Chatham Channel. We ordered some of Port Harvey's famous cinnamon buns "for the road" and ate those a long the way - a good hearty breakfast! Seas were flat calm and even though we were slightly late, Chatham Channel was no problem. I remembered that other people had seen bears in the channel in the past, and so I mentioned this to Greg. No too long later, Greg said he saw a rock bear. (Rocks look a lot like bears when you're looking for them). Turns out in this case, it wasn't a rock bear but a real bear! That never happens



So I maneuvered the boat closer to the shore so that Greg could get some nice photos.

Then it was through the Blow Hole (no, not a real one) and into Lagoon Cove. Stella Maris was ahead of us and already tied up, and Port McNeill Explorer arrived about the same time as us. Bruce wanted to meet the new owners and manager and so there were introductions all round. The new owner is Jim, and he is there along with his daughter Kelly and son-in-law Dan who are also living there and helping to run it. Turns out they also have some managers there too, but it was their day off today.

We wanted to do some crabbing and pawning while at Lagoon Cove. It's a "famous" pawning place and they serve spot prawns to all their guests during their daily Happy Hour at 5:00pm. And we've been successful there in the past. So we all hop in the dingy with all the gear and go to a "special spot" that a friend of ours told us about. Unfortunately the current is really running and so after we put the pot down, we decide that it's running to much and so decide to pull it up again and place it somewhere else. But "no can do" pulling it up. It must be hung up on something under water because no matter what Greg tries with the pot puller and hauling by hand, it just won't budge with about 200' of line still in the water. And because of the current, we can't pull it the other way. So we throw it all back in the water and head back to the marina for lunch! Not much else you can do.

We took Bella for a walk around the property, and then headed back out at around slack at 3:30. This time, we pulled it along the bottom for a long way in the other direction. And then we pulled it up without issue. Of course they were completely empty. Not only no prawns, but no squat lobsters or anything else either. I guess there was so much current, that none of the critters ventured out. But now of course it's too late to put the pots somewhere else But as Greg says, a good McLaughlin fishing day is one in which you get your gear back.

Happy Hour was at 5:00 and we got a chance to meet some more people and got some more good advice on cruising in Alaska. There were so many prawns provided by Lagoon Cove that there were prawns *leftover*! So we took even more back to the boat and had prawn dinner after all!

June 5, 2017

We left at 7:00am so that we could get up Johnstone Straight before the wind came up. It wasn't supposed to come up until "late afternoon", but everyone has fallen for that old joke before!

Leaving Owen Bay was a bit squirrelly but not too bad. But arriving in Johnstone Straight shortly afterwards, we found it "like glass". I've never seen it like that and we were amazed and excited.





We started out with '0' knots of wind and ended up with only about 5kts for most of the way. The forecast called for 5-15kts from the NorthWest, but all the wind we got was from the SouthEast. Which was good for us as we rode the Ebb all the way up and made great time. If it *had* been from the NW, we would have had a small amount of wind over tide which would have made it rougher. When we were about an hour away from the Havannah Channel turnoff, the wind picked up a bit to maybe 15kts, and it got choppy with some small white caps, but it wasn't bad at all.

Interestingly, these past few days in Johnstone Straight were ones where there was no flood tide, only ebbing. The floods are so weak, that they don't counteract the natural permanent ebb and so the tide charts don't refer to "slack", it's just a "negligible" ebb.

We thought about going directly to Lagoon Cove, but decided to stop in and have pizza at Port Harvey. There was no one else there when we arrived, and it was just Gail on her own. George was back in Alberta for his mothers's 85th birthday celebration. While we were standing on the dock catching up though, the Port McNeill Explorer arrived unexpectedly. Bruce and Nancy Jackman were bringing their boat back north, and decided to go around and visit the neighbors before returning to Port McNeill.

We all got a tour of the new digs which are not quite ready for prime time, but very close. It was an unbelievably warm and sunny afternoon even with the occasional large gusts. And then around 4:00pm, the wind came in and made it much cooler. About that time, John and Judy, friends of the Jackman's arrived on their Kadey-Krogen, the Stella Maris.

Everyone ordered pizza for dinner and so we all had dinner together out on the deck, and Gail joined us too for a short while. It was pretty cool eventually, but we managed to finish dinner and exchange all of our life histories before too long. Lots of interesting people out on the water. We went back to Port McNeill Explorer for a glass of wine after dinner to take a look at the boat and chat with Bruce and Nancy.

June 4, 2017

Up early to catch slack at Beasley Passage at 7:52. Although the wind died down in Drew Harbour last night, and was quiet this morning, when we got out into open water it was more windy. Just a short jaunt though and we were back in protected waters, however that meant we lost internet - it's a tradeoff. No one else around as we easily transited Beasley Passage and then went up into Waiatt Bay where the Octopus Islands Marine Park is. We anchored in "Osprey Cove" to wait until slack at Upper Rapids at 14:10 (or later). We had some breakfast and then went out for a dinghy ride to look around. Two different boats actually left and headed out which we thought was pretty weird given that it was "max" flood in both rapids at the time - weird.

At around 2:00 we headed down "Tentacle Passage" which takes you basically directly into Upper Rapids. It wasn't completely slack but it was slack enough to get through easily and we then pulled into the entrance of Owen Bay which is directly afterwards. We put 2 crab traps down on our way in as we had good luck catching crab here 2 years ago. Off to anchor at the end of the Bay with a couple of other sailboats. Our plan was to catch crab for dinner ….. Yeah, no crab. So we improvised with sausages and salad.

Miss not having internet 😆