Tuesday August 29, 2017

It was bright and sunny this morning with no fog - a great day to be out on the water. It did get cold the night before though as the furnace came on sometime in the middle of the night - still cool nights up here. We headed out past Farewell Harbor and into Blackfish Sound. It was an incredibly beautiful day - sunny and warm, and the Sound was like glass. It was so nice, we moved up to the flybridge to drive the boat - our first time this trip we've had weather good enough to do so! As soon as we got out into the sound, we saw other boats sitting there doing some whale watching. That was our plan too, so as soon as we saw the whales, we just shut off the engines to drift in the sound and watch the goings and coming of the humpbacks. There were many of them around and they were doing a bit of feeding so it was quite the show. At one point, while Greg was on the flybridge with camera in hand, a humpy came and logged about 50 feet in front of the boat. He very slowly cruised past and then decided to do a dive - full frontal flukes!

Eventually we started motoring north. Greg decided to put a fishing pole in and try his luck again. Within a few minutes, we got some kind of strike on the line, but the pole broke and the reel came away from the pole, and the diving duck thingy tripped. So he brought it in and changed back to the other original pole. Within a few minutes, the diving duck thingy tripped again. So then he brought it in again and tightened it down. Then a few minutes after that, it tripped again and he said "not a good day for fishing". So we headed north again up to Screen Island to take a look at the seal lion rookery. We drifted around there for awhile and took some photos and just watched them splash around and make noises. Eventually we threaded our way through the islands and into Fife Sound. There were many squeaky passages to go through, and although there are very few boats around this time of year, we of course met one at the squeakiest spot. We pulled over to a small bay and let them past and then continued on our way. The whole way was sunny and hot - yay!




Upon entering Laura Bay, there was already one boat there - "Popeye", who we had met at Kwatsi the 2nd day we were there. It's a small "pocket trawler" that has been fixed up to look like a fire engine, the owner being a former fire chief. We eventually got the 2 boats anchored up and didn't have to stern tie as was recommended by some. After conferring with EG as to whether it was "oh-beer-thirty" or "dingy touring time", we all agreed it was oh-beer-thirty on EG. It was still quite warm without a breath of wind so it was nice to be outside. Eventually it was time for the radio call and then we headed over to SB after doing a little tour around. Turkey burgers for dinner on SB followed by some television shows.