Wednesday September 27, 2017

Well? Today's the day. We left Roche around 10:00am and looked forward to the predicted "Winds Light" sunny cruise back to Bham. Weather Junkie had winds 5kts-8kts in Bham bay. And, technically that was true! It was the 20kt winds between Roche and Bham Bay that was the problem! Jeez Louise!! Weather is just weird.

San Juan channel was lumpy, Rosario was lumpy, and of course Bellingham Channel was really lumpy. The wind had a definite "West" slant. And, Bellingham Bay was fine. We pulled into our borrowed slip from NWE (our slip was rented out until Sept 30th) and we had Bob, Karen, and Emmo there to take lines which was so great. Scott was also on the finger next door and Byron came by shortly afterwards and we all had a big chitty chat and catchup right there. So lovely to be back among our peeps.

Bob and Karen brought over our car. We unloaded breakfast food (tea and oatmeal), clean underwear, and Bella's food and headed home to see what awaits. Linnea was off visiting her Dad in Seattle so we had the house to ourselves.

We're Home.

Tuesday September 26, 2017

We left around 10:00 after watching a little bit of fog and low cloud move in and out of the harbor. It was quite lovely inside. We watched the NWE boat, Inception, do docking practice using the linear mooring. And watched the teeny yellow sailboat on the dock in front of us do their morning preparations and then go for a morning kayak. Although the weather report said it wouldn't be sunny until the afternoon, they were apparently wrong in the right direction for a change. It was an incredibly beautiful morning out on the water and we cruised slowly over to Roche. Inception called us to report some humpback whales near us, but they had apparently dove and we never did see them.

We pulled into whatever slip we wanted at Roche and chose the high docks. We put our walking shoes on and headed over to the Marina office to register. We met the "moorage girl" at the door and forgot that in "high season", they'll come to you to take your money! Then off to the Lime Kiln for a slightly early lunch. They've changed their menu now and have mostly burgers for lunch which is a bit of a disappointment. But they still have the BLAT's

We continued walking around the property and enjoying the warm weather. We headed up to the marine store where Greg found another of the old style (shower) bilge pumps to add to our spares. Unfortunately, the Sportswear store has a big sale on of 50% off everything in the store. So you have to check that out right? Greg did not find anything, but surprisingly I did. How can I say no to "orange shoes" at 50% off?

Back to the boat to try and download some stuff, catch up on the Blog, and things like that. Then we sat on the flybridge and enjoyed the view and the goings on in the harbor. It seemed like a good time to go for another walk to the other side of the property. So we walked up the "road" and took a look at all the new "cottages" (OK, houses) that have been built and are currently being built. There were at least 4 that we still in construction and being finished off. And it seems like it's been awhile since we walked up there as there were quite a few more finished ones than we remembered. Then we went over to the park and pool area. Turns out the pool is still open too! I checked the temperature and the attendant told me it was 80 or 81 degrees! It was lovely! We are so used to being here in the "off" season, we forgot all about it. It would have been a lovely day to take a dip but ….. next summer I guess. I took lots of pictures of the marina.



Back to the boat and then it was time for dinner. We had 6:30 reservations at McMillins. As we walked down the dock, there was an announcement that it would be "10 minutes to colors". Oh shit. We had thought they wouldn't do that either this late in the season, but we were wrong. The cannon shot made me jump 10 feet so we can only imagine what it did to poor Miss B on the boat. Oh well.

Dinner was stupendous. Even had Key Lime Pie for dessert. A great evening.

Monday September 25, 2017

Yes, it did rain last night. Quite hard. It continued to rain and then sprinkle all morning. So this morning called for fresh baked scones. Thanks to our borrowed cell phone amplifier, we had a pretty good Telus signal in here and so we did a bunch of computer stuff and had way too many scones. At one point, "Carol" from Akeeva can to the dock in the dinghy. We went to say Hello to her as we had met them at Taku Harbor in Alaska as part of the Slowboat convoy. It was good to talk to her and find out how the rest of their trip went, and what they thought of Alaska overall as well.

By 1:00 it was dry with just a bit of overcast clouds and some blue sky peeking through here and there. So we took off for our big walk to Turn Point. This walk is a bit of an "event". When we got back to the boat, my Apple Watch said we had walked 6 miles. Bella had walked much less than that.



Right as we closed up the door on Spellbound to take off, a dingy showed up at the dock. It was Tim from NWE with some of his charterers. They were also on their way to Turn Point. They ended up going to Prevost first and went a different way, so we didn't actually see them until we were leaving Turn Point. We walked the "long" way via the park and then onto the county road. There are a lot of steps in the park.





It was flat and calm off the point and not much going on out there. We didn't see any wildlife at all, and only 1 freighter out in the distance just as we were leaving. It was around 5:30 by the time we got back and we decided that we deserved some beer and cheese on the picnic bench before having dinner. It was not sunny but was pretty mild and generally pleasant out.

Eventually we had some dinner and watched a movie - La La Land. Meh.

Sunday September 24, 2017

We still needed to decide where to go today. Spent some time looking at the boats and trying to decide where we wanted to go given the conditions *tomorrow*. After a lot of hemming and hawing, we decided to just cross over the border and go to Reid. We went by the grocery store first though to pick up a couple of things, including some more ice.

We left the dock and it turns out we left just before 11:00 and at the exact time that the "Work Boat Rendezvous" did their sail past. And so we sat idling at the end of our own dock for about 20 mins for all the boats to leave the public dock and head out. When we realized that most of them were turning around and coming back and doing the circle a 2nd time, we just nosed our way into the parade and left.

The forecast for today was Winds Light. Which would of course explain the 15kt winds and the heavy chop! All the way down Ganges Harbor and into Captains Passage. How weird! We checked the wind at Saturna, and it was blowing 2 kts. Was? But, by the time we got close to Boundary Pass, it was down to next to nothing wind wise and Boundary Pass was like glass. Easy crossing and no trouble with the Nexus call. Easy Peasy.

We had lunch along the way (pasta salad finally!) and pulled into Reid around 2:00. There was no one on the dock and so we took it. There was going to be a pretty low tide that night, but we still had a couple of feet underneath us. We went for a short walk to Prevost and up the path a short while, but then came back to enjoy a bit of sunshine. When we got back to the dock, we saw "Tom", a friend from Bellingham who used to work at NWE. He was there with friends on his sailboat. They were away for the weekend and needed to get back to Blaine tonight.

I had brought the supplies to make chili when we left Bellingham, but had still not made it. So today was the day. I made a large batch of chili to have for dinner and to freeze for later. We had chili dinner and fresh baked bread.

Saturday September 23, 2017

Got going relatively early so that we could be at the Farmers Market in good time, and to try and catch up with OceanFlyer as well. No dogs allowed in the Farmers Market. (Stupid). So Greg ended up just hanging around the periphery. I went through quite quickly but would have loved to linger more. The problem was that we were going to be crossing back into the USA shortly and it's just easier to not have any fruits or veggies on the boat when that happens. So there was no point in loading up as unless it was "approved", we'd have to eat it right away or throw it away. So I bought Garden Art and preserves instead.

We had some coffee and "brunch" at TJ's coffee and ended up meeting another Grand Banks owner from San Juan Island. We walked around a bit and found the "Work Boat Rendezvous" camped out on the public dock there above. It was filled with re-built Tugs and Fishing Boats. There was a lot of gleaming wood on that dock! And it explained the number of "old time" boats we had seen cruising around. Then back to the boat where we did some chores in the bright sunlight. I made a pasta salad as well as an Apple Crumble to use up the apples before crossing the border.

While we were at TJ's having coffee, we saw a poster for a "ghost / night" walk through Ganges giving the local history of the island and area. It was pretty inexpensive so we signed up for it. We had an early dinner next to the marina at Taco Loco and had the most hugest burrito's I've seen since California. And I ate the whole thing. Then we had some time to kill before meeting the organizers at 7:00 at Peace Park. It ended up being a local couple, and they were slightly dressed up in historical costume. There were 7 of us total on the walk. It ended up being not quite as good as we hoped, but it was still fine. And we got some exercise at the same time and learned a thing or two about island history. One un-obvious thing I learned was that the first settlers (after the First Nations people) were African Americans. They were escaping persecution in the south and moved up north - to Saltspring Island evidently.

Back to the boat to rescue Miss B. Still too full so no Apple Crumble.

Friday September 22, 2017

We left just after 10:00 to arrive at the dock around noon. It was a nice day and an easy cruise. We arrived and checked in and took Miss B to find some lunch. We ended up at the "Tree House" after not being allow to have her on the outside deck at the Oystercatcher. (And unfortunately, had to "out" another little dog who was already there!). Continued to cruise around the area and went over to Barb's Bun's for a little dessert.

Came back to the boat and did some stuff that I can't remember right now! Greg did a load of laundry so we had some clean jeans that weren't able to walk on their own. We walked over to OceanFlyer to say hello to Bill and Cindy Douglas. Ended up waking Bill up from his nap and Cindy wasn't there. But we talked with him and "Jack" for awhile. Just as we were about to leave, Cindy and Cindy came back to the boat so we chatted some more. It was after 7:00 by the time we made it back to the boat to feed the dog! Dinner on board.

Thursday September 21, 2017

It was a beautiful sunny morning, but still a little chilly. Around 10:00 we headed out into Trincomali. It was lovely and flat and calm with little wind. There were 2 boats leaving the cove as we neared which was a good sign. There were still 3 boats in there when we arrived, one of which was anchored right at the entrance swinging, the other 2 were stern tied. We stern tied to the chain closest to the dinghy dock without much issue.

We had some lunch and then made the quick trip to the dinghy dock to go for a walk. The one thing about Princess is that you lose the sun early because you are closest to the western shore. In the sun it was very warm, but in the shade it was decidedly not! Even Bella walked over to Conover Cove. It was interesting to note the increased quantity of bird life there compared to most other places we had been. We passed the truck above on our walk and then arrived in Conover and just sat in the sun for awhile to warm up and bake.





Conover was much nicer than we remembered and there are also rings there too. Next time I think we'll try there!

Back to the boat for some computer time and trip planning. The weather for the next several days looks great. Then dinner and a movie after that.

Wednesday September 20, 2017

I lazed about in bed until really late - it was wonderful. We headed over to EG around 10:00 to say "see you later". They were heading to Port Browning today and then back to BHam the next. We left with some more apples, a Sonicare Toothbrush Charger, and their cell phone amp. A tidy haul.

Back to Spellbound for a pancake brunch and then we headed to the marina area to go for a walk. We walked up to the Pilgrim Restaurant there, even though we knew it was closed. It looked deserted. Back down to the marina store for ice cream and / or a cinnamon bun. We found out from the gal behind the counter that the marina was closing for the season on Sept 30th too. It seems odd because we were pretty sure it used to be open all year round. Then we went back over to the park area and paid for another night on the mooring ball, and then went for another short walk. We also ended up talking to some folks who had chartered Grand Adventure, another Grand Banks boat in the NWE fleet.

It warmed up a bit so we just hung out in the available sun on SB for an hour or so and then started putting dinner together. Seemed like a good movie night too.

Tuesday September 19, 2017

We waited until shortly after the 7:35 ferry left and headed out. The wind was supposed to be light and was, but there was a little bit of swell, not bad. Not a bad crossing of Georgia Straight at all, until we got closer to Porlier Pass. The it started to just get messy like it is want to do. So we sped up and we were out of it in about 3/4 hour. So mostly fine, but then a small amount of 3.5 on the Bella Meter.

Once in Trincomali, it was very nice. We tied up to the mooring balls around noon, and then the Giglette came and picked us up and we headed for "The Crane & Robin" restaurant at the marina. We left Miss B behind so that we could eat inside and stay warm. Well it turns out that all there tables were outside, but it also started to warm up and they also had blankets! The restaurant there was very nice and had a bunch of different kinds of taco's as well as the same stuff on a burger bun. And good corn chowder too!

Back to the boats for a few minutes to pick up Miss B etc, and then the Giglette came back to get us to go over to the dock in the park and go for a nice walk. It did start to warm up a bit and the sky got a bit nicer. Then about half way through the walk it started to rain. Hard enough. We kept doing the circle walk more quickly and then stopped at the "Group Camp Shelter" for a little while until the rain stopped. And it did!



Back to the boats for a "regroup", and then we headed over to EG for a great Thai curry dinner - our last dinner together for awhile. We did some evening screen entertainment but not too late. It was pretty dark and cloudy heading back to SB - good thing we were moored close and had left a light on.

Monday September 18, 2017

Back on the 8:35 ferry this morning! We went over to Horseshoe Bay and Greg went to drop stuff in the car while the rest of us went to Starbucks for a pick-me-up. It was pretty grey and rainy when we first arrived, but then the wind picked up and some blue sky came out after we had coffee. We walked around for a few minutes so Byron and Sue could "see" Horseshoe Bay. And we could see the new building going on there and the old Boathouse restaurant sitting there. Don't know what's going to happen to it.

In the car and off on the "famous" Sea to Sky Highway. Byron and Sue have never been on the highway and so have also not ever been to Whistler as well. They had heard so much about it so they wanted to see it. Greg hasn't been to Whistler in many many years either, so it was another day of being a tourist for everyone. The weather on the ride up was great and so the views of Howe Sound were lovely. We were reminded of the other stuff that you normally forget about on the way up too.

We parked when we got there and just wandered around the village. Stopped at the Visitor Centre and got a map so we looked the proper tourist. It took us a while to get settled after hitting the restrooms and getting slightly turned around. And it was *much* colder than we expected up there too so there was some required additional clothes layers. (I could have used even more than I brought! - it was like a winter day up there!). We went to the Village Centre first and watched all the bikers for awhile. If you've never seen it before, seeing bikers on a ski hill is a little odd. Seeing bikes on a chair lift is even odder. It was also interesting to just look around and see all the different non-skiing activities that are available.

We walked back to the middle and then dropped Bella off at the car. It had started to rain quite hard and so we needed to go inside to get something to eat. We went to the rings and the North Village and then ate at "Gnarlyroots" where they had some really great soup and salad. We left there and wandered for a short while, and some tried out some goods at the Bakery next door. Then back to the car and got Miss B out of jail.

My friend Sherry lives at Whistler part time and I had texted her on the drive up to see where she was today. Turns out she was at Whistler and so we drove to her place for another visit! She put the fire on especially for me and also made tea which was so wonderful!

Drove back to the ferry where Greg dropped us all off and we took the next ferry back to Snug Cove. He went and dropped the car off at the rental place and then took the bus to the ferry and caught the next one. Fortunately, we were able to catch Michael, and even though he had "closed out" for the day, he opened up again so we could pay and not have to wait for someone to open the next morning. A quick dinner and a quiet evening as we had had a long day and were getting going pretty early the morning.

Sunday September 17, 2017

You don't need an alarm clock at Snug Cove, especially when you're on E dock. You know what time it is because the ferry comes in starting at 6:30am. And when the ferry comes in, you can hear the prop sound all the way through the aft cabin. The trick is, can you go back to sleep?

We caught the 8:35 ferry over to Horseshoe Bay. We piled Bella into the dog carrier (*not* a popular idea) and hopped on the Express Bus to Park Royal South. Greg transferred to the Marine Drive us and headed to National to pick up the rental car. B&S and Bella and I headed over to Cafe Artigiano to have breakfast and coffee and wait for Greg. No use in putting Bella through another bus. It only took him about half and hour and he was back to the Cafe to have his own coffee and breakfast - so really pretty good! We also decided this morning that we would keep the car for a 2nd day since we knew were weren't leaving Snug Cove tomorrow either. (Tuesday weather is looking best).

It was supposed to rain today, but so far it hadn't. We decided to go for a walk at Ambelside since it was still relatively nice out. Down near the water is was quite windy and cool, but it was still OK. Turns out they have a Farmers Market there on Sunday too! Who knew?! So we did a little shopping there too, not that we needed any provisions. We walked down and watched the Harbour Police chase all these boats away from the traffic lane where the freighters were going in and out under the Lions Gate Bridge. It was a Sunday and there were boats all *over* the place. And the salmon are running so there were a ton of little fish boats everywhere too, but they were generally closer to shore. It was really quite entertaining to watch all the goings on.

Byron and Sue ended up getting the "Janice Historical Tour" of North Van. We drove up to Grouse Mountain, but Sue declined a Gondola ride to the top. Back down to Lonsdale Quay to walk around and see the sights. Grabbed some lunch at Cheshire Cheese! The old stomping ground.



We headed down to the Cove and drove by the old house on McCartney Close. It has been kept up and looks OK really which is nice. Funny to see all the old houses in the neighbourhood. Then back along Dollarton Highway and stopped at Dollarton Shopping Centre to pick up some wine. I had been texting with Cathy a couple of times throughout the day and she found out we were "in the area", so she invited us all to an impromptu dinner! How thoughtful. From there we went down to Deep Cove to look around. It started to rain pretty hard as soon as we got there, but we braved it for a short while. We did make it down to the water and looked around at the kayak rental place. Since it was a Sunday, even though the weather was pretty crappy, there were still a handful of people kayaking in the water and purposely "dunking" as practice. We were still full from our constant eating all day so we couldn't even take advantage of any coffee shops or Deep Cove Pizza!

From there we drove up to the Parkgate area, and then drove to the top of Mount Seymour. It was still pouring rain so there was no point in stopping anywhere or going outside. It was foggy once we neared the top so nothing really to see. Not sure what the point was other than to say that we went. Back down the mountain and then headed over to Cathy and Steve's. We had a great dinner and a great visit. Interesting to have two different set's of friends meet each other for the first time.

We were worried about ferry stuff so we ran out of there pretty early and pretty quickly. We went into the wrong parking lot at the ferry terminal initially, but then found the right one. The former is the "parking lot" and the latter is the "parkade" for anyone needing to know. But we'd left lots and lots of time, so we still got to wait awhile for the ferry. Back to the Union Steamship company and everyone crashed, especially Bella.

Saturday September 16, 2017

Today was the really nice day of weather - the calm before the storm. We went up for breakfast to the Snug Cafe again. Since we could. Then it was back to the boat to organize. We called a few car rental companies and it was not looking good. No cars, no pets, no open Sundays. We called National and not only did they have regular business hours on a Sunday, they had no problems with pets! Amazing that there can be such a difference. Anyway, we book the car for the next day Sunday.

As we were heading back to the boat early, Greg had talked to Michael and he said that they had a van that we could use to tour around the island. So we did! They leave the car unlocked and often the key is in it so that people can just take it. We "checked it out" until 4:00pm. So we packed up our stuff and the dog and tootled around Bowen. Down to "Seymour Shores" and sat on the logs and strolled the beach looking for beach glass and enjoying the view of Point Atkinson and Vancouver.



Also enjoyed the warmth! Then we drove over to Cape Roger Curtis and did exactly the same thing. There was a small lighthouse there and some great rock formations and a little trail. Back into the van and up to "Artists Corner" where there was a small "mall" of artist shops, but most importantly, a great little cafe. It was beautiful and warm and sunny as we sat outside eating far too much fatty food. Sue and I perused the shops, but nothing really stood out.

Back down to the marina and rolled into the parking lot around 4:00. Greg still had a migraine so he had a nap, and I worked on the computer for a bit and then went up and did a load of laundry. It was Saturday night and the marina was "hopping". Lots of boats coming in and many people looking for a shower! They were also located in the "Boaters Lounge" and they also had the BC Lions football game on the TV too. So lots of people coming and going there.

Back to EG for a late quickie dinner of sausages, german potatoes, and zucchini on the BBQ.

Friday September 15, 2017

We left at low tide this morning. We targeted leaving at 8:00 but it was closer to 8:30 by the time we left as Byron scouted out the squeaky channel to get back into the outer bay. We didn't have too much water under the keel, but certainly enough.

We got out there and it was OK, but not great. We went around the backside of Bowen into Howe Sound and it got a bit better. We saw Steve and Cathy's family cabin going around Hood Point. We got to the other side and it was really crappy. Had to wait for a ferry to go ahead of us before going in. Called the marina and he told us we were on "E Hammerhead" but we had no idea what that meant. Turns out that "hammerhead" is the perpendicular dock at the end of a finger. So we were both on the inside of the "hammerhead". Of course we passed it coming in, but he was there on the dock to direct us back. Lot's of small fishing boats coming in in a hurry behind EG. Didn't really care that they had to wait for us. Michael was the person running the place and he was great.

Got everything set and then went up to check in and go for lunch in town. Since we weren't sure when we were going to leave, Michael said to just leave it for now, and come back whenever we knew what we were doing. Went to "The Snug Cafe" again for a coffee and a sandwich and is was again great as we could take Miss B. It was quite warm and sunny outside too. Greg really wanted ice cream so back down to get some. Then back to the boats for some cleaning and vacuuming! Sue and I also walked up to the Ruddy Potato to get a few groceries. We had a team meeting and decided that we would stay for a few days and wait out the storm coming in. We would try and rent a car and spend some time on the mainland instead of leaving right away and waiting out the storm somewhere else.

Steve and Cathy came over on the 4:45 ferry and they got another Spellbound tour and then we had some drinks and appy's on EG. Cathy had made dinner reservations at Tuscany for 7:00. They had the reservation, but they hadn't actually assigned us a table so it was a little squishy. Good restaurant and we had a great dinner. Back to the boats for a short time, and then it was time for them to catch the ferry back. The docks were quite dark given that they were …. docks, so we needed flashlights to navigate them.

Thursday September 14, 2017

We didn't leave until just after 10:00am and it was supposed to be "winds light" and in theory good conditions. But, no one told Malaspina Straight that and so we had white caps and a following sea down to Smugglers, even thought the wind wasn't that strong. Fortunately, it wasn't far.

The entrance to Smugglers is really squeaky. It's good to keep re-reading the description that says it's 50' wide because looking at it doesn't give you warm fuzzies. EG pulled in first and said that there was only 1 sailboat in the outer bay and no one in the inner bay, so we went into the inner to find a spot. We went back into the furthest reaches and found that with the current tide it was just fine, but tomorrow leaving it would be a low tide and therefore even squeakier.

We both stern tied again, so it was a bit of an ordeal. Just a minor ordeal of course We each had some lunch and then the Giglette came and picked us up and we went to shore to do the walk. There was an interpretive trail and it was a great walk with lovely views, and a little breeze. When you got out of the breeze, it was nice and warm!



We got dropped off back on Spellbound for a quick recovery period, fed the dog, and then headed over to EG for beer on the flybridge and some appetizers, and then a lovely dinner. Several more sailboats showed up in the outer bay, but then one "home made" sailboat ventured into the inner bay with us so we did have some entertainment. Back to Spellbound in the dark.

Wednesday September 13, 2017

It was another sunny day today, but still quite cool. We had a quiet morning on the boat, catching up on email, Blog's etc. We had planned previously to have lunch with David and Jennifer, the previous owners of Fishermans Resort in Pender Harbour, at their house. So we dinghied over to Whiskey Slough and the public dock where Dave picked us all up in his truck. They had graciously said that it was no problem bringing Bella over to the house too. When we arrived at the top of the ramp, there was a small beat up van there with this logo on the front hood. Nice!

We had a fantastic lunch with Dave and Jennifer. They have a beautiful home with stunning views of Malaspina Straight. (Now we know who to call when we need a weather report!). They have had an abundance of company lately, and so apparently they have an abundance of really good cheese for entertaining! So we helped them out.



After lunch, we we made the short walk down to their local beach and just took in the ambience. It warmed up considerably and was a wonderful warm and sunny day. Afterwards, we went back to the house and toured the garden a bit and then had some dessert and did some more visiting. It was quite late by the time Dave took us back to the dock.

After such a decadent day, we decided that we really didn't want to cook and wanted something light for dinner. So we called Lavernes to make sure that they would be open. And then she surprised us by saying she was fully booked up and couldn't take anyone else! How's that? We thought it was the Squim Yacht Club who was also on the docks, but it wasn't and they had gone up there for dinner at 4:45pm. John Henry's restaurant is now closed on Tuesday's and Wednesday's, so that wasn't an option either. I guess we were feeling a bit lazy and didn't want to go to Garden Bay, so we just did a quick pasta and prawn meal on Spellbound. It was a nice warm evening and the end of a great day.

Tuesday September 12, 2017

The wind came up last night again and it was blowing a little bit in the harbor as we left at 7:00am. We wanted to leave early as the wind was supposed to come up even more later. It was pretty lumpy out there will lots and lots of whitecaps, but at least we had the wind and waves behind us so not terrible. Probably a 3.5 on the Bella meter.

We arrived in Pended Harbor around 11:15 or so, moved down to the north end of the dock, and checked in. We decided it was a "lox and bagel" day so we had lunch on Spellbound. It was sunny and warm, but still pretty breezy inside the harbour. So we ended up staying in side the boat. Greg had a migraine and so he napped for the afternoon, while I did some work on the computer. Byron and Sue went for a walk and up to Laverne's. Dinner on Spellbound and an early evening.

Monday September 11, 2017

It was mighty windy last night and continued on this morning. Greg had a pretty bad migraine still so he was not all that interested in doing too much. I took the opportunity to do some work in the morning.

Since it was so crappy and the boats were rockin', we decided that we should get off them and go back to Nancy's for lunch. It was our reward. We walked a little bit and went over to the store to rent a DVD for the evening. Greg and Byron went back to the boats and Sue and I went up to Pollen Sweaters just to "take a look". Oh, OK, I purchased too. They're nice sweaters and it's going to be a long cold winter after not having had much of a summer! My reward.

Had dinner on EG and then watched "Men in Black 3". An early evening as we were going to have an early morning.

Sunday September 10, 2017

Engines on at 9:00 and we extricated ourselves from all our ties. It was a nice ride down initially, but of course by the time we got around Sarah Point, it got windy. Not the light that was in the forecast, but, yeah, whatever. There were quite a few boats heading south and we had to squish around a bit in the Copelands, especially because there were 2 humpbacks there just hanging around and causing the boats to go here and there.

We managed to get the last 2 spots on the docks, and actually a sailboat that we passed in the Copelands had to hang out for 45 minutes to get a spot on the dock. We were on either side of 'A' dock and Spellbound had to squeeze into a spot behind Grey Malkin II who we had seen in Kwatsi Bay. They arrived *just* ahead of us.

Once settled, we decided that today was a good day for lunch at Nancy's Bakery. I think we pigged out also having cinnamon buns and coffee's too, as well as panini's. Then it was time to walk it off by going on the Lund Loop - it's a whopping 1km walk! But Bella did walk most of it. We were very surprised to see some ripe and delicious blackberries still on the side of the road. Back down the road to get to Mile 0 of Highway 101 that runs over 15,000 km down to Chilie. (There's a monument that says so). And then to the hotel to check out the Gift Shop. (Oh my, very cute seal statues and some cool "art" rocks with starfish on them). Nice Stuff.

Before we went on the walk, we decided that tonight was the night to go to the Laughing Oyster for dinner. (It was buffet night! You know us old people always enjoy a buffet!! ). So we also called for Martin in the "Big Yellow Taxi" to drive us over there.



He picked us up at 5:45 and drove us over to the Laughlin Oyster restaurant. Technically, he doesn't charge for the service because he doesn't actually have a license to drive a taxi. But he does take a donation for the local humane society, so how can you argue with that really? It's a really cool car but you can tell that the seats haven't had any new stuffing in them since 1947!

The 4 of us were absolute pigs at the buffet, everything was really good. They had chicken, pork, beef, pasta and a lovely salmon as well as lots of other stuff. You really did need to try it all! And if that wasn't bad enough, we even ordered dessert which I knew was a bad idea. But you don't see Tiramisu all that often and it was done *right* so, really, we had to have some. Martin picked us up and took us back to the marina again and we waddled back onto the boats. The wind picked up at the end of the evening, and the boats were a rocking pretty well at the dock.

Saturday September 9, 2017

Are we back in Alaska? It rained quite hard last night. And the wind was up a little bit in the bay. Not too much, just a steady 5 or 6 knots, but then it would gust up to 10 to 12 knots. Bella got us up and so Greg got up around 6:30 and thought we were a little too close to the rocks. So we loosened our stern tie and brought the anchor line it a bit to pull us away. We had tons of water underneath the stern, we were just really close to the rock wall behind, or to the side, of us.

Back to bed, but not really back to sleep. As it was still grey and pouring rain, it was a lazy morning and we had the furnace going to try and dry it out a bit. Spent the whole day on the boat and didn't even get off once. The wind died to basically nothing sometime before noon. Greg made a nice breakfast for lunch. At some point in the afternoon it stopped raining, so we moved the boat forward a bit and re-anchored and re-did the stern tie so we were further from the wall. Felt better. We invited Byron and Sue over for early beer and appetizers and then we had a nice salmon dinner. Not the kind of day we were looking for in Desolation Sound at all. The water was pretty warm, around 65F, but certainly not a sunning / swimming kind of day.

Friday September 8, 2017

(Day 100!) We were originally planning on spending 3 nights in Campbell River, and had in fact already paid for 3 nights. But looking at the forecast, this afternoon is nice, but tomorrow, the wind is up. We'd like to get across over to Desolation on a calm day, so we decided to leave here a day early. Slack is at 1:30, and the wind comes down in the afternoon, so we decided to leave at slack.

Of course we still had some things to do here. First, up to the recycling center to get rid of a boat load of recycling, and then over to Starbuck's for a coffee. For Bella. Then over to the grocery store to stock up on fresh veggies and anything else we missed. Then to the private liquor store. This place was great! The BC LCB store was out of a couple things we were looking for, and they have never had a great selection. But man this private one had a fantastic beer selection! So we picked up some big bottles and we headed back to Miss B and the boats. It started getting a bit sunnier as the day progressed.

When we got to the marina, a fellow on the dock pointed out a black beer sleeping on the breakwater. No one is quite sure how he got there, other than he "probably swam". We were able to see him from the flybridge of the boats. He lifted his head at one point, and then put it back down on the rocks for more sleeping. The theory was that he was tired from swimming.

We eventually had a bite, checked out of the marina (where they gave us a refund for the extra day and also for the WiFi), and Byron returned the rental car. We took off at 1:30 with camera's ready to take photos of the bear. Unfortunately, we couldn't get a look at him and I took some photos of a bear rock! He was gone by the time we went by

It was nice and sunny and calm heading over as you can see in the photo above. We took a peek in Galley Bay and there didn't appear to be anyone in there, so we continued on to check out Tenedos Bay. There were 4 boats in there already and we found a nice little nook in the back that we waited in. EG tried to anchor and just found rocks, so wanted to go check out another part of the Bay. That looked a little too open to the weather that was coming in, so we decided to head over to Prideax Haven. We went through there and into Melanie Cove. It had quite a few boats in there already with only a couple using a stern tie. There was a big spot in the back that we left for EG to use and just waited to make sure they got settled. Once they were done, we chose a spot to stern tie next to another sailboat that was stern tied. Unfortunately, there was a small sailboat anchored in the middle who was drifting around all over the place. At first it looked like we had enough room to be where we were, but then as he drifted around more, it looked a little tight. The couple and their dog ended up coming back in their dingy, and they thought we were too close to them. They politely declined our offer of helping them stern tie, and said that they would prefer to swing and that we should move. Fine. They *were* there ahead of us. Fortunately, as we were pulling up our anchor at dusk, another boat that was using the stern tie 2 over from us left, and so we popped around the sailboat on our starboard so that it was now on our port. We ended up anchoring and stern tying again in a bit of a hurry this time. And then headed over to EG for a late dinner. Long day, so an early evening.

Thursday September 7, 2017

Laundry Day. We left the marina at 8:00am in order to get there early enough so that we weren't doing laundry all day. There were already a few people there when we arrived! But there were just enough machines for each of us. The washing machines were the smallest I've ever seen! I think we had 5 loads? Made an event of it though and brought Miss B and Greg and Byron did a Starbucks run after we got everything in the washers.

While Sue was finishing up with her laundry, we walked Bella over to a pet store to ask about getting her toe nails clipped somewhere. She said that we would need to go to a professional groomers to get them done, and when we asked for a local recommendation, she said we were actually in a bit of a "dead zone" of groomers. Then she asked if Bella was good when she got her nails done and offered to do them herself! She was a groomer previously for 10 years, but just didn't do it anymore. So she grabbed some clippers off the rack and just snip snipped while Greg held onto Bella. And then she said we couldn't give her any money for doing it. Nice! So we bought Bella more treats. Cause she really needed more treats.

Back to the boats to put laundry away, and then try to get the marina WiFi working again. We had paid for marina WiFi and also bought the upgrade package so we could stream stuff. Didn't work worth poop. At all. Shortly after noon, we headed out in the car to drive to Cumberland to see Byron and Sue's friend Darren. His wife Michelle was back east visiting her Mom, so it was just Darren. They somewhat recently opened the Cumberland Brewing Company and we all wanted to visit there (duh!) and so we went for lunch.

Darren has the perfect personality to be a "host" / "owner" of a public establishment that does craft beer. They just started it around Xmas of 2015 after previous careers doing something completely different. We got the full run down on each of the 5 standard beers they have on tap all the time. He was quite sheepish about the fact that they did not have anymore on tap - they like to have at least 8, but they were "tapped out" (pun intended) after the labour day long weekend and didn't have anything else ready to go. Byron and Greg had the Stout which got 2 thumbs up, Sue had the cider on tap, and I of course couldn't choose and wanted to try everything, so had the flight. Their food menu was really interesting and our lunches were fabulous.



Shortly after starting the brewery, they had the "opportunity" to purchase the building across the street. So they did and moved the pizza place over there. It's called "Riders" and is a community fixture. Now they had more room for more vat's of beer. We went over to take a look at it because Byron and Sue had been there previously right after the sale when it was an abandoned Chinese Restaurant. It looks a little different now and Darren and partners have just finished installing outdoor gas heaters on the patio so they can have "3 season" outdoor dining. Byron and Sue had 2 growlers that they have been carrying around on the boat, so we got those filled with more Stout for the arduous boat trip coming up. (Not.).



Before we left Darren, we had to meet Barley, his 7 month old relative new Pug / Cavalier Spaniel cross named … "Barley". Because he has every colour of barley in his coat Apparently this is a new cross breed that the vet's are likely because it rids each of the source breeds of their known genetic over breeding defects. So you get a healthy dog out of the deal. Sounds good.

We wandered a block or two in the town and found the Island's oldest credit union and got some cash, and then also found the chocolate shop. It's a lovely little hipster town these days and of course everyone there wants to help and support the local community which is great. Then we drove back to Campbell River and the marina and did some vegetating after all that eating and drinking. We still fought with the internet and told the marina folks that their support people never returned our call, but there was nothing they could do about that. They said they would come out and unplug/plug the WiFi on our dock (which they did), but it didn't make a difference.

Greg walked up and got a roast chicken and some salads for dinner on SB. Finished watching season 6 of Suits

Wednesday September 6, 2017

Engines on at 9:30 and out to hit slack at Seymour Narrows at 12:10. No wind at all but we had to push into a fairly good current the whole way. There was a fair amount of traffic with recreational boats and fish boats, a couple of tugs and tows to go around as well, but otherwise uneventful. We passed through the Narrows about 10 minutes early, and then continued on down to Discover Harbour. They had someone on H dock to grab our lines.

We got settled and checked into the marina and then walked Miss B up to Starbucks for a puppachino and some lunch. Then we walked over to Budget to pick up the rental car that Byron and Sue had reserved for our stay here. Then we drove over to the Thrifty and bought a *bunch* of groceries. We spent more money I think there than we did provisioning the boat in the first place! We didn't buy any fresh fruit or veggies though because we knew we wouldn't be eating on the boat much for a day or two, so we left the veggie buying until Friday.

Back to the boats and spent quite some time putting stuff away. Surprisingly, Byron and Sue and Greg were not excited about going to The White Spot for dinner, and instead suggested the Beach Fire Brewing Company. So we left the B *again* and went over there for a beer and dinner. It was a really neat spot and according to the waitress, they change the menu twice a day. So the only place they put it is on a chalk board in the middle of the restaurant, and the wait staff really doesn't know much about the meals at all! But the descriptions sounded fabulous and their beer was pretty good too! Stouts for us and apricot wheat beer for Sue for something different. All got a thumbs up from this crowd. Back to the boats to rescue the B and some evening entertainment.

Tuesday September 5, 2017

Slack wasn't until just after 11:00am this morning so we all thought it would be prudent to wait until then before leaving. Otherwise, you just end up in front of the marina going nowhere, or worse backwards, because the current is stronger than your boat speed as you wait for your engines to warm up. It was quite warm this morning and pretty much nothing wind wise which was nice.

Greg went up and did a load of laundry early in the morning so that we had clean undies and socks for the next couple of days. You know, just in case there is a problem later and we can do laundry There was some hanging out on the boat and some drama trying to get the WiFi to work this morning (it didn't). What can you do. We went up to pay our tab, and was reminded of how expensive Blind Channel really is. Woah. Amazing how much money you can spend in less than 24 hours.

The trip around Cordero Channel was lovely and uneventful. We had a tug and log tow initially, but not much other traffic. We went into the traditional harbour but it had 3 boats inside already, so we went down to Piddell Bay instead. Not a breath of wind and it was pretty humid and warm, but not sunny. The overcast and grey was a little depressing. Interestingly, we went in the furthest and had no issues anchoring, but EG was further out and ran into a bunch of rocks and had to re-try a few times in order to find good holding.

Greg went out into the channel and did a little fishing and no catching. I hung out on the boat enjoying the warmth, and then Byron mentioned that they had 3 bars of Telus on their boat. So I took my laptop and iPad over to try and get some internet to do some work stuff, but no joy. Greg showed up and we listed to the radio call, and then went out for a dingy ride around. Managed to watch a little mink do this long trek along the rocky shore along the mink highway. He would sometimes stop on a rock and take a look at us asking "do *you* have a treat?", and then when none was forthcoming, would just continue along.

BBQ chicken for dinner on Spellbound. My it's really dark after dinner.

Monday September 4, 2017

There were 7 boats on the dock at Port Harvey this morning, and we were all up pretty early to start heading south. Heading down Johnstone Straight is one of the big crossings that you need to plan. We all had a lot of discussion on the what's and where's of how to do this, and of course there were more opinions than people. Also, the calculated time of slack at Race and Current Passage (from the software) was 1 hour different than the time given by the Canadian Hydrographic Society (CHS). The former gave around 10:00am and the latter around 11:00am. We tend to follow what the CHS says, but it's hard to argue with software (!) and of course the truth is probably somewhere in between.

It was quite foggy in the morning but George said it was clear at Chatham Point already. (How did he know?) and that they had no fog at Dent (he looked at their webcam!). Sirena left first, then Beau-Dinky, Tahsis said they were going to follow us to Blind Channel, Emerald Star came slightly later, and CanTu went to Shoal Harbour but left at the same time as us. Once out in the Straight we could see more boats coming down from Port McNeill area, and a couple more coming down Chatham Channel. Busy day.

The water was flat flat flat, which was nice, and the 3 of us made a nice radar target so we were fine. Byron ended up fielding a bunch of radio calls as the leader of our pack (!) and we got several reports from CanTu on the way down.



Eventually the skies opened up and the sun beat down and the water stayed glassy. Probably our best trip down Johnstone ever. I took the opportunity to do some boat cleaning and had a shower.

We arrived into Blind Channel Resort just after 1:00pm. We had to wait a few minutes outside as they tied up another boat and then EG in front of us 1 by 1. Of course the current was running one way outside the resort, and the opposite way inside. Fortunately, there are always lots of hands on the dock. When EG arrived, the dock "young lady" said she was so exciting to finally have boats here again, she had been so bored! It was 1:10 when we finished tying up and the lunch patio was open until 1:30 so we headed up for their famous fish tacos. Unfortunately, they don't have fish taco's anymore But we had a lovely lunch in the sun anyway.



Did a bit of shopping in the store and picked up some essentials to get us a couple days before we go to Campbell River. Then back down to the boat for a bit of relaxing and sunshine. First, time to do some email though. Their WiFi is not the greatest but EG was able to pull a Telus signal in with their booster. I put on shorts and a T-shirt and sat on the flybridge again to do my sun worshipping and some knitting. Greg and Byron went for a walk up to the "Big Cedar" tree.

Soon, it was time for dinner. The restaurant did it usual good job, and was still slightly too expensive Rob and Sharon from Sirena joined us for dinner so we had some different company for a change. Our waitress Stacey was the only one in the place for most of the evening, but she managed to do just fine. Greg and I had a pasta dish with prawns, Sue had the halibut, and Byron had Goulash. It was dark by the time we headed back to the boats, somehow I'm still surprised that it's getting dark earlier and earlier.

Sunday September 3, 2017

It was a little bit foggy and cool this morning, but the fog lifted enough rather early. Left Lagoon Cove around 9:30 with a couple of other boats at the same time, and headed down Chancellor Channel. We looked for bears on the way down since we had seen our first one here on the way up, but no such luck. Very soon the sun burned off all the fog and we had a beautiful warm sunny day as we arrived in Port Harvey.

Both George and Gail were there this time, so it was good to be able to talk to them both. Sirena was already there as was Beau-Dinky III as they had both stayed for the better weather tomorrow. After we got there, then Tahsis joined us again, and then Emerald Star showed up from Kwatsi. And then CanTu came in behind us. So just like that, there were a bunch of boats in. George also got a visit from some neighbours. And then Emerald City and a sailboat both anchored out just off the dock. It seemed like there were quite a few boats positioning for the trip south.

After a bite to eat, we had a relaxing afternoon where I sat in the sun and rolled my shorts up to try and get a tan on my legs and pretend I had a summer. And did some knitting. And some dock kibitzing with everyone. The wind came up a fair amount in the afternoon at the dock as it can do in Port Harvey, so it was quite breezy. But as long as you kept out of the breeze, it was lovely. Some folks got together for some drinks on the dock while it was still sunny, and had a mini Happy Hour. We headed over with our plates etc and then George and Gail delivered the pizza's fresh from the wood pizza oven. EG, SB, Tahsis, Emerald Star, and CanTu all sat around and had the best pizza I've tasted in a long time. Couldn't believe how soft and fresh the crust was. So wonderful and melt in your mouth.

But this is the Broughton's so it didn't take long before it was cool again. Back for multiple fleeces, and then over to EG for some evening TV entertainment.

Saturday September 2, 2017

It was somewhat clearer skies this morning and a bit warmer too. The place cleared out it seemed with a lot of boats heading south so we were all alone at our end of the dock. Sue sent email and postponed our future reservations by one day.

Byron and Greg took off in the dinghy to conquer the fish again. Byron caught a pink, but ended up releasing it as it wasn't that big. They did pull in a bunch of more prawns though. We saved some for dinner this time! It was early afternoon before they got back so we had a quick bite. I worked on figuring out what to bring to Happy Hour since we were a little light on provisions. Ended up with a Crab Artichoke Dip that turned out pretty good!

Had more ice cream and did some dock visiting and bought the Lagoon Cove cookbook. (It does seem to have boat friendly recipes for when you run out of fresh veggies and just have canned stores). The day turned quite warm later one and I even put on a short sleeved shirt. (Sad when that is noteworthy).

At Happy Hour, we sat with another couple from Bellingham, Steve and Sherry on Tahsis, a North Pacific. They had added the "rolling chocks" to their boat earlier this year which Byron and Sue are thinking of adding, so we had a long talk about that. Then they mentioned that they were having trouble with their batteries, so of course we had a long talk about that. And then Sherry mentioned that her son was volunteering with a manta organization, so of course we had to have a long talk about that too! Lot's of talking ensued and continued even after Happy Hour as we headed over to EG for dinner. After pigging out on prawns for Happy Hour the last 2 days, we all went a little lighter at Happy Hour (sort of) and so we saved room for prawn taco's for dinner! Yummy.

Friday September 1, 2017

Haaaaaaaallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Another fish! So exciting. The day got a late-ish start as there was a bunch of people on the docks enjoying good free coffee. And just stuff going on. Byron and Greg headed out with a plan to put a line in the water on their way out to pick up the prawn traps, and maybe drag it around a little bit too. As Greg was about to turn the dingy around, he got a strike and pulled in this 13.5 lb Coho. Then they went over and pulled the prawn traps, and between the 4 traps managed to pull in 60 prawns! The hunter / gatherers were successful!!

On SB, Bella and I did some email and did some computer work, possibly abused their internet connection, and I actually picked up some knitting for the first time this trip! The sky was it's usual grey and although it rained last night, it only spit a bit this morning. It was past lunch when they got back, but it was time to process. We put the prawns in the freezer since we were going to have "free" prawns at Happy Hour tonight. And Greg filleted the fish using the "new" method he learned, and then also did it in the way the Canadian regulations require. A new skill. Fortunately, he could use the fish cleaning table here and didn't have to figure out how to do it on Spellbound's swim step.



Greg kept a nice big fillet for dinner tonight, and then we put the rest in the freezer. Now it was time for Byron to catch a fish. So after a quick bite, they headed out for a short fishing session and to recheck the prawn traps before the octopus had time to set up inside and start snacking again. No fish this afternoon, but they brought back 26 prawns so still a reasonable haul. It looks like we might actually bring *home* some prawns after all.

Back slightly late but on time enough for the Boaters net radio call. Then Happy Hour again at 5:00. The provisions on SB are mighty poor right now, but I had saved a jar of "3 pepper blast" for just such an occasion. Had to raid Greg's crackers though. There were about 30 people I'd say again at the Happy Hour and the docks were reasonably full again / still. We had a nice chat with John and Jean from Nordlys.

Greg BBQ'd the salmon on EG and we had some coconut rice and somehow Sue still has some fresh veggies so we had broccoli and cauliflower so it was a wonderfully tasty healthy meal. We talked about staying an extra day here since the "fish are biting" and Byron needs a fish and the weather on Johnstone Straight is looking even better Monday than Sunday.

Thursday August 31, 2017

Missed the internet "window" last night so caught up this morning. Greg went and picked up the crab traps. Our plan so far was to go to Port Harvey on Saturday, and then go down Johnstone to Blind Channel on Sunday. Well of course the morning forecast for Johnstone on Sunday has now changed completely from "light" to 15-25 knots. Pffft. We'll keep an eye on it.

It took us a while to leave the dock and it was close to 11:00 before we got out of there. Lot's of visiting and talking on the dock. We had a nice ride down and even Knight Inlet was not really too bad to cross. EG still had her tach's drop out so the fuse was not it. When we arrived, they had room for EG as they had made a reservation. We had not and so had to stand by while they decided where to put us. In the end it was fine, and they even had room for 2 other boats that came in behind us. They put a 60' Seline on the other side of the fuel dock. A bit of a Grand Banks convention with an old Alaskan, Peachy Keen (Mark and Billy), at one end, and Nordlys (John and Jean) out front.

They have ice cream treats in the freezer on the dock here, including some pints of Ben & Jerry's. We all grabbed the chocolate covered mint chocolate chip sandwiches instead. Byron and Greg went off and put the prawn traps out. A somewhat quiet afternoon on the boat as I got things ready for dinner, and also Happy Hour. Mark and Billy from Peachy Keen came down and introduced themselves and we talked about boat stuff.

At 5:00, we all headed up to Happy Hour up on the deck outside the Shop. It seemed like there were about 30 people there and Lagoon had put out a large bowl of prawns. We ended up talking to the folks from the Seline who were also "techy" people. The event broke up around 6:30 but we were all too full from snacking to think about dinner. So we went shopping at the emporium! Last time we were here they had not put anything in it yet, but now - wow! They had a fair amount of stuff. Wouldn't you know it that they had this cool jacket that looks great on me, and a really nice light sweatshirt that Greg liked. Wardrobe updated.

Greg, Bella, Sue and I all went for a short meander around the property while Byron tested some electrical connections related to his tach's. As part of the property sale, there had been some updates to the tank storage and to the generator area that Sue hadn't seen yet. We also continued on to the "exercise area" where Greg chopped some firewood, and also tried out the "bean toss". It always was, and still is, a beautiful piece of property.

Although no one was that hungry, we made Chicken Chili dinner on SB anyway so that we weren't hungry later. Watched some "Suits". Really really dark here at night too - need a flash light to walk the docks.

Wednesday August 30, 2017

It was a lovely morning in the Bay, no fog. When we started up Tribune Channel though, the wind steadily increased which was very surprising. Of course the forecast said 5 to 15 and we did see a solid 15 and a few spots that snuck up to 20. EG saw even more. It was a little bumpy but not too bad though and as always, as we turned the corner into Kwatsi Bay, it all disappeared.

We had not seen Anca at all this year and so we wanted to go back for one more day. When we arrived, Dwayne and Lynn on Emerald Star were there as well as the regulars from before, Ulf and Beau-Dinky III. Sue declared that it was a "Lox and Bagels" lunch day and so who were we to argue.

Greg and Byron spent some time in the engine room trying to diagnose why Byron's tachometers would be intermittently going out while he travels. It seems random and no amount of turning more things on seems to make a difference. On this particular trip, there were "off" for the longest time so far. Greg came up with several theories and they did some digging and investigation and all theories were discarded. They did find a suspect fuse and replaced it though.

There was an impromptu pre-happy hour happy hour which Bella and I joined. When we arrived, Max said he was expecting 1 more boat. Over the course of the afternoon, 3 more boats arrived (Cuckoo's Nest, Cur-Ric III, Rendezvous), and then during happy hour and a huge rain pour, another arrived (Santana), and then at the end of happy hour and another huge rain pour, 2 smaller boats arrived and had to raft. They were completely filled up with boats!

Provisions on Spellbound are getting mighty light. Greg had the brilliant idea of bringing popcorn to happy hour. We haven't seem popcorn at a happy hour yet and thought it would be unique. We have the hot air popper on board and have some special "Dakota Dark" black popcorn and also normal popcorn with us. So we did a bowl of "fancy" popcorn with Kelp Sea Salt, and another bowl of good old regular. We arrived at happy hour with our bowls, and wouldn't you know it, *2* more boats arrived with popcorn as their contribution! We met many of the people on the newly arrived boats and had a great evening snacking on a lot of popcorn while it rained outside. And watched Anca and Max move their boats around so that they could fit more in.

Dinner on EG where Sue made a great pasta salad. It's really dark at night here - we needed our flashlight to get back to our boat which was right next door.

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.

Monday August 28, 2017

It was foggy this morning in the area, so we waited a while until it was clear enough. EG had a nice view from the channel through the Fox Island Group so once they could see the individual trees, we left - around 10:00. It was a lovely ride down through the small islands that make up the Broughton Archipelago. When we arrived at the docks, we called the Harbour Master and she said that we could choose either the front or side of the dock, whatever we wished. We originally went behind EG along the "side", but soon found out that the only power available was a 20amp plug. This is when we found out that you need an adaptor for a 20amp plug. Of course EG had one, but Byron couldn't remember why! So we moved around to the front of the dock where it was also empty and had full 30amp service. (Although later when we had a bit of trouble, Greg checked and it only had a 15amp breaker!). There was a gate across the top of the ramp and there were 2 lovely looking "wolf dogs" standing on the other side of it, looking like they wanted to welcome Bella properly. One even howled.

Shortly after we arrived, two young women, Alex and Eleanor, arrived in a skiff and collected the dock fee's, and told us there would be a tour at around 2:30 or 3:00pm. A boat would be arriving from somewhere else with people coming specifically for the tour. She also came back and told us that they had had a bear in the area the night before, and that the dogs were a little worked up right now as they had chased it off, and that we might want to just stay in the front area of the village. Check.

We had some lunch and then decided to go out for a short dinghy tour. The clouds had cleared and it was a beautiful blue sky and warm. Byron and SB decided to go around to what is sometimes listed as "Monk's Wall", but is really the old "Galley Homestead". Apparently back in the day, they had a large homestead with home and trading post and fruit tree's etc. It took us a bit to find it, but we did eventually. You would never know anything was there now except for the tumbling rock walls - the tree's have taken over. And then just up the hill the whole area has been logged up to the edge so there is tree bit's and debris around.



We arrived back around 2:30 and not too long afterwards a boat showed up with a boatload of people. It turns out they were from Farewell Harbour Resort, not too far away. Alex was the main tour leader and Eleanor was there too. We started out at the top of the dock where she did some introduction and history of the village. It is a very recent one and appeared to exist due to the dedication of her Great Grandfather. The land was given to the family as a dowry for a marriage, and he came back and cleared the land and built the big house. We could take pictures outside, but she asked us to not take pictures inside. Once inside, we saw many other items that her Great-Grandfather and Grandfather had built. There were some beautiful totems, masks, and a large bowl for fish oil (can't spell the kind of fish). Historically, the family came from Kingcome Inlet, but had been almost wiped out by smallpox. So they moved down to the Village Island group, but could never really make a go of it there and the village was abandoned. Alex's Great Grandfather was groomed from a young age to be the chief and to bring the tribe "back", so he did by bringing it back to this new location. There are about 13 year round residents and about 20 in the summer. Alex herself went to school in Campbell River, but the other kids were home schooled there. Alex is leaving tomorrow to return to Campbell to start college. After the tour, we went to the gift shop where everyone else got T-shirts with a lovely design. It was at this point that we found out that the tour was $30 each too. Yeah, a little dear, but good thing the moorage was good!

When we got back, we decided to all pile into our dinghy and head to the "MSomething" village on Village Island, the original abandoned village. We landed on the midden beach, but it was quite intensely over grown and it was hard to tell how to get up to the village area. Once we did, it was also completely over grown and we could just walk these "deer" paths or narrow paths through the area. There was a wooden arch and some dilapidated houses, but that was about it.



We did see though the remnants of the blackberries and fruit trees that were planted, as well other other non-native trees. We saw the coolest butterfly ever and Greg even found a "Grouse" sitting in a tree and waiting for us to look at him. (Sue was particularly happy about that). Mother Nature has pretty much claimed everything that was ever there.

Back to the boats for dinner on EG - BBQ chicken burgers and yam fries. Yummy!!

Sunday August 27, 2017

Kwatsi was sunny again this morning! Greg and Byron had to go out and pick up and put away all the traps so that took quite a while. But they did get *3* more prawns! No crabs. Everything was wrapped up and washed off with fresh water from the dock which was a nice treat. "Bob" even got a bit of a bath (I said Spellbound was probably jealous). Internet on and working well again this morning so I continued to support this 1 chatty customer. Then I paid the bill and checked us out with Max.




Just as we were about to leave, Greg reported that the aft head just stopped working and it might be the duck bills. We weren't really in a hurry at this point so he wanted to investigate while the engine room was still cool which of course was fine. Fortunately when he looked into it, it didn't seem it was the duck bills, but instead just the switch. So we, just for now, turned it off while we were not using it - no messy fix needed.

The ride down Tribune was uneventful, but the wind was up a little bit here and there. We were originally going to go directly to "New Vancouver", but along the way Greg suggested that instead we overnight in Waddington and then head to the docks in the morning. This seemed like a great idea all round, as nothing was probably going to happen there on a Sunday anyway. It was glassy when we entered Waddington and anchored up. It was also still sunny and quite warm so there was more flybridge sunning. Shortly afterwards though, the wind did come up and was a bit breezy.

Greg did some "mooching" off the back of the boat for a while, but then decided to take the dingy out and do some fishing in the channel. We had seen fish on the fish finder as we came in. It got a little too breezy where EG was anchored so they moved to in front of the island and got in a nice calm spot. Greg came back after about an hour of buck tailing but had had no success. He did say he was closer though to catching a fish as he had lost his bait!

Dinner on EG tonight. Cracked Crab appetizer from the day before and Sue experimented with a fried rice dish and Greg BBQ'd the 16 prawns for the top. Really good. We watched some TV after dinner and dishes. It was *really* black out as we dingy'd back to SB! Good thing we'd left the light on!

Saturday August 26, 2017

We've been sleeping in a bit lately as Bella has gone back to her "up early" schedule. It was cool enough last night that the furnace came on on it's own this morning as Greg got up with her the first time. Kwatsi turns the internet on from 8am to 10am and so I got up and when running to the computer! But Max was a bit late this morning and it wasn't available until closer to 9am. But when it was, there were some support requests for me that I needed to answer, and a few emails that I wanted to send and reply to. So I had my head buried in the computer for the morning (Max never did turn it off really) and then I had a shower.

I was only vaguely able to see the excitement of the RIB with the fisheries officers arriving. They arrived just before Byron and Greg were off to pick up the traps, so they decided to stay on the dock. Apparently Max had reported a set of commercial crab traps that appeared to be "abandoned" at the head of Kwatsi Bay. The RIB left the dock and then the Coast Guard Cutter "M Charles MG" went and picked up the traps. I didn't even get to see the cutter as this all happened during my shower. The RIB reported back that the traps were empty and the rot cord had "tripped". But the ID tags on the traps were from 2015 so they were certainly no legal. Max said he saw the traps go in in February.

Today was a cooler grayer day here - a traditional Broughton's day. Eventually Byron and Greg did get the traps - no crab but we got 13 prawns. They also got a dogfish, a baby octopus, and a small school of 10 sablefish! Back to the boats and we had lunch on EG - soup and leftover pasta salad. Can't remember how the afternoon went, but it went quickly. It was "Happy Hour" with just appetizers at 5pm and I made "cream cheese stuffed peppers". Greg had gone out to check the crab traps again and came back with a Dungeness! So we also cooked that up and put in in the fridge for later. We also wanted to make Sue "Birthday Halibut Taco's" for dinner, so we got a start on that as well. Cookin' up a storm in the kitchen, but it's sure a tiny kitchen.

More boats had arrived today so we had a larger crowd. I ended up sitting next to Beau, normally quite the talker. But he had had the hiccups for almost 24 hours and was a little under the weather, including from lack of sleep. So I gave him the "Cranna Sure Fire Hiccup Removal Method" and he actually got rid of them! For about 15 minutes, until he had some of the stuffed peppers I made. As he put them in his mouth he said "these will probably give me the hiccups back" - and they did. Sigh. Turns out he went back to his boat later and tried it again and was able to get rid of them.

Back on Spellbound we made Halibut Taco's for dinner and had another Sue Bday celebration, including the last of the chocolate cake. It was a nice evening.

Friday August 25, 2017 - Happy Birthday Sue!

It got cold last night as the furnace came on in the middle of the night. But it was a lovely morning this morning, with blue sky! The nook was glassy and calm when we got up. We managed to squeeze a Telus signal out of the iPad and so I was able to do a little bit of email. It was very low tide this morning but no signs of any bears. We did see a group of 10 Merganzers cruising the area though.

We left around 10:30 to head up to Kwatsi. We went slow down Viner Sound so Greg put a rod out the back of Spellbound, but we saw nothing on the fish finder. Conditions were very calm and it was sunny and warm.

When we arrived at Kwatsi, Max was there but Anca was at a family gathering on the island and would not be back for a few days - we were sorry we were going to miss her. Rob and Sharon from Sirena had already arrived from Whatanna (sp?) Bay. We had something to eat upon arriving and then Byron and Greg put the prawn traps out. The afternoon was spent quite lazily enjoying the warm sun. I was even able to put on shorts and a T-shirt and did some sun worshipping on the flybridge.

Today is a potluck dinner at Kwatsi so we all bring a dish to share for dinner. I got started on making a greek pasta salad fairly early so it could "season". There were 3 other boats besides our 3 GB's - a converted fishboat called Ulf, GreyMalkin with Joel, Andy and Andy's mom Heather, and the regulars Beau and Deenaka on Beau-Dinky III. It started at 6pm and there was quite a lot of food and we ate well. Sue had made her famous corn casserole. People sat and talked until quite late which was nice. Once it was all over, we had the 6 of us on EG for birthday cake for Sue. I had bought a cake mix and pre-made icing at Sullivan and baked the cake in the morning on the way in. We had all had yummy brownies at the potluck, so this was "2nd dessert" and everyone was already pretty full, but hey, who can turn down chocolate cake.

Thursday August 24, 2017

Not too much going on in the morning. The marina WiFi was still working pretty well, but they still had the ability to *send* email turned off (using a true email application). So we grabbed all of our devices and headed up to the cell phone amps by the store to try and get a signal. It was weird, but we had 3 bars of Telus and 3 bars of Rogers, but still no joy - no connection to the internet. We all ended up in the store to buy a few more supplies and to checkout, and to chat with Tove. Sparky was checking out as well.

Back to Spellbound where we began to get ready, and Greg tried to answer 1 more support request. We headed out and made the short trip up to Viner Sound. Neither SB nor EG have been in here before, so it was a good day to check it out at least. We knew from talking to Rob and Sharon the night before that they had stayed here on the mooring balls more than once and had enjoyed it. There was 1 boat anchored in the middle of the sound when we came in. As we looked over to the south side "nook", the mooring ball was floating on it's side which didn't seem like a good sign. EG went into the north side "nook" first and took a look at the innermost ball and it seemed OK, really just an orange float with a hook on the top. We grabbed the outer one which was white with a hook. There were no markings on them at all. Being the dare devils that we are (!) we decided to try them out.

We all had some lunch and coffee etc and settled in. It turns out there was a small Telus signal here surprisingly, and so we were able to clear out some more email, but it wasn't a strong signal. Then we all went out for a dingy ride to explore the area.



There is a forest service campground with a picnic table and fire pit (and pit toilet?) just near where we were tied up. It's on a little island at high tide. Back at the end of the north nook, there is a small lagoon area with a reversing falls entrance. It was already too low for us to go in. We cruised around to the end of the sound and into the other nook. There were signs of old logging activity, but no signs of any animal life in or out of the water. This sound has in the past been the site of many land and water creatures for other folks.

Back to the boats. EG said they had a good strong signal with their cell phone amp, so we grabbed our devices and computers again and brought them over to EG. We put our iPad on their amp and were able to get a semi-decent signal so that I could upload the blog. I haven't wanted to "waste" the marina satellite WiFi on the data intensive Blog, but I'm perfectly happy to use up our own data. We sat and listened to the Ham Boaters Net and it only took 3 tries but I was able to get the Blog updated!

Dinner on SB tonight. We made BBQ salmon and asparagus and some fancy rice. And fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. Greg did a great job It was a lovely calm evening, but still no sign of bears.

Wednesday August 23, 2017

Overcast dull cool drizzly day. I tried to get on the internet in the AM, no joy. We picked up our cinnamon buns and said goodbye to Debbie and Chris. Saw there was no current at the dock, so we started them up and headed out around 9:45. Uneventful drizzling trip over to Pierre's arriving just after noon. Again, no Telus signal the whole way, but EG was able to download all their email just outside the bay. When we arrived, we asked to be put at the back so they put us on the "lodge" dock. When we arrived, there were constant swells coming in, not from boat wake (or maybe it was some boat wake) but from the tide. (This according to Sam the dock guy). In any case, the boats were slamming around. So we asked to just move around the corner to be in front of "Gambit" (cat from Ocean Falls) so we could take the swell bow on. Then EG asked to move around to behind the lodge dock, all bow out. We were the complainers. But it was much nicer. And, true to Sam's description, the swells subsided after about 1/2 an hour.

Up to the store to check in, get on the internet, have some coffee and some lunch. Around 3:30 we headed over to Billy's. They have a new "skookum" bridge over to the island and the trail has some brand new and numerous signs installed. We were able to sit, just the 4 of us, with Billy for about an hour just shooting the shit about everything Echo Bay. It was quite pleasant. He talked about shooting a bear this winter after it attacked and ate all his chickens, tore apart the hen house, tried to get in the smoke house, and then the final straw was attacking Buster. So now some guys across the island have skinned it and are cooking up the meat. I asked Billy if he ate any bear meat and he said "god no!". He also said that all the deer are gone (he never had trouble with deer!! Wha?) because there are a couple of cougars hanging around all the time. They're eating everything!



We left around 5:00 and headed back to the boats. Not too much time before we fed the dog and then headed up to dinner. Sue had saved places for us and for Jim and Judy from Sparky, and Rob and Sharon from Serena to sit together, and then we were also joined by another couple from Sidney who Rob&Sharon had hooked up with. It was fish n' chip night so we had Pierre's famous halibut and it was delicious. I pigged out on fish. Then there was also some kind of chiffon pie (lemon?) for dessert. Tove was her usual "kindergarten teacher" self and kept us all in line.

After dinner we met on EG and did some trip planning as we had no idea where to go. Rob and Sharon joined us as well, although they have been bouncing around here for quite some time. We had never been to Viner Sound before and it's on the way up to Kwatsi so that's what we decided. Weather coming from the south so according to Rob, not a good time to be in the "islands" part of the Broughton's.

Tuesday August 22, 2017

Byron and Greg went off fishing this morning. I was able to get on the internet and clear out my email and work on a couple of support requests. Then back to the boat to make some pasta salad for lunch. The guys came back from fishing empty handed and were pretty disheartened. Lunch on board and then a quiet afternoon.

We went to happy hour today since we hadn't been to any yet. Had a nice time with all the folks there. Back to EG for dinner where Sue made chicken kabob's with a nice rice and kale salad. Early night for this crew.

Monday August 21, 2017 - Happy Solar Eclipse Day

Full cloud cover this morning in the Broughton's. I spent the morning in the Happy Hour tent trying to get the marina WiFi to be nice to me, but it took a lot of work. Greg went back and forth from the tent doing the laundry and connecting to the internet, while I looked after the dog and did *not* connect to the internet. Byron and I spent the morning unplugging and plugging in the repeater that was there and that would often, but not always help. Eventually, after a couple of hours, I was through all the email and support requests and was done.

We had lunch, and then Byron and Greg took the dinghy out to go fishing. The fish are in theory running out by James Point and the place was filled with fish boats as we passed on the way in. They returned just before the Boaters net Ham Radio call, but had no joy. The afternoon on Spellbound cleared up and there was some blue sky and it got warmer. I did some reading and some Blog updates.

After much cleanup, we had a mini happy hour on Spellbound before heading off to dinner at 6:15. Chris made Indonesian rice and Asian prawns for dinner, and we even had cake for dessert. They served beer and wine with dinner, however, remind me not to have the house red again.

We went for a walk and ended up spending some time talking to Gary and Ginger from "LivLife". It turns out that he is Canadian and has also lived all across the country. Then we walked out to the "golf course" and Byron tried his hand at getting onto the platform. It is a hell of a long way out there and he had to whack the golf ball hard to get anywhere near it. His last one was quite close, but no free moorage. (Also, you need to do it while someone watches anyway). Back to EG to look at Sue's "critter pictures" slide show.



If you stay 2 nights at Sullivan, you get free moorage for your 3rd night. Since the weather is supposed to be good, we decided to stay for the free night so that Byron and Greg could go out fishing again. The opportunity is available and it doesn't cost us anything, so we might as well take advantage of it. Chris tells us to "fish the flood", go down to around 70 or 80 feet, and the hot colors right now are red and copper. OK. And he says Cody is going out on a charter in the morning so just follow "Wizard" around out there. OK Check.

Sunday August 20, 2017

Slack at Stuart Narrows wasn't until around 1:45 so we certainly had some time to kill this morning. It was a bit dreary, and at one point in the morning it seemed like the wind was coming up, but then it died off again and was it's normal glassy self.

Sue made fresh made scones for 2nd breakfast, so Greg made coffee's all round on Spellbound and we sat around and pigged on fresh scones and home made Jan Jam. Lovely. Some activity on the dock but not much. We spent some time talking to Inid on Astral Star and she talked about the logistics of getting her husband Richard into proper medical care while traveling up north. He ended up being medivacked from Bella Bella down to Vancouver and spending almost a month there. Although Inid is Canadian and originally from Vancouver, Richard is from New Zealand and that is where they currently live. And is where the boat is registered. They shipped it from NZ to Victoria last year, cruised to Alaska, and kept it in Anacortes over the winter. He is clearly much better now and they are working their way south to be in Vancouver for a followup appointment on August 31st. Not pleasant of course and they will have some decisions to make long term, but at least it was good to hear a positive story about the Canadian medical system.

Picked a few veggies out of the veggie garden, worked on the Blog, but otherwise didn't do too much. Our new shadow, Sparky, left first and then we also left and cruised slowly down to the Narrows in cloud cover but lovely water conditions. Sullivan Bay come up sooner than expected and there was no current at the dock so it was an uneventful trip. Headed to the store to check in and to pick up some groceries. The place was very quiet with not very many boats. Debbie said that it was the slowest June and July that she'd ever seen in 11 years. She said it was the weirdest year ever. And she said that the season was tapering off already as the number of boats had been decreasing. The amount of "stuff" in the store certainly reflected that too as it was quite cleaned out. Debbie and Chris were heading to Port McNeill though tonight to do a freight run in their own boat as the water taxi had "double booked" for tomorrow. Since it was pretty slow, they were taking a rare night off on shore and returning the next morning with freight for the store.

We bought some ice cream with our groceries and came back to EG to enjoy them. Had some quiet time and then had Fajita's for dinner on SB with nanaimo bars for dessert. (How did the store still have these, we don't know). We watched a so so supposedly "rom com" movie on DVD that we found in the movie bin in the laundry area.

Saturday August 19, 2017

Greg and Byron picked up crab traps in the morning - no joy. Slack at Stuart Narrows was around 12:30 or so, so people already at Jennis Bay would likely not be leaving until close to noon. We were pretty much ready to go even though it was too early, and we wanted to go look for this elusive cell signal and catch up on email. So we left around 10:00 and at first just drove around the Muirheads to the west and the north side looking, no joy. Then we cruised down Drury where others had said they had had a good signal - no joy. We cruised past Jennis Bay and ended up seeing a pod of Orca instead! We stopped and took photos a couple of times and just floated. You know, just in case the cell signal would come floating by - no joy.

Just before noon, EG arrived and we went in right behind them. Byron called for the harbor master a few times, but no one answered. There were a few boats on the dock, including "Astral Sky" who they had met before. There was some miscommunication about where exactly the harbor master was. Anyway, EG was able to pull in right behind Astral Sky. There was room on the other side of the dock for us, but then one of the boats that was already there was leaving, so once we waiting for them to leave, there was a ton of room.

Got tied up and asked for the WiFi password from the others. Got a *great* connection!!! We were able to download a ton of email messages without issue. Also, "Sparky" who had been in the nook with us in the Muirheads came in and we did some boat moving to make room for them. Then Greg and I sat on our computers answering support requests that had come in in the past 5 days. It was a mad dash to try and get them all answered. Although other people were saying that the network wasn't that good and went "in and out", it was completely solid for us and we were able to get a lot done. Finally joy.

After a couple of hours, it was time to lift our heads from the computer screens. We went for a small walk and took a look at the garden. The previous caretaker, Warren, is still around and has planted a bunch of vegetables all around the compound on land, and in every conceivable container on the dock. He apparently says for everyone to help themselves. There was a lot of lettuce and a lot of "wanna be" tomatoes, and lot's of spaghetti squash. Sue tells me that Warren said that you shouldn't plant spaghetti squash in your garden because it will cross pollinate with *everything*. I don't know what that means veggies will look like though!

At this point, EG said that they had 4 bars of Rogers on their boat. And we checked and we had nothing. So, Greg wants to know why. Is our cell amp broken or what? So after some tests and checks, he "borrows" EG's cell phone amp and brings it over to Spellbound. Now we have a cell signal too. So now we know at least that our antenna is fine, but that either the Amp itself is broken, or Greg thinks that it is just no longer for the right frequencies. Unfortunately, we need to use Telus as our internet connection for the rest of the trip, so it's not clear what the right solution is.

Richard, on Astral Star, informs us that he will be making dinner for the 6 of them on the dock that have been here all week. He says he would like to include us as well, but he checked and just not have enough supplies to include us. We say not a problem of course, we can bring our own dinner and just join them on the patio. He says they'll get together around 6:00 and have dinner between 6:30 and 7:00. So we bring some drinks and some chips and salsa to the patio for 6:00, but it's just EG, SB, and our new friends on Sparky. The rest end up going to eat on their own at 7:00 inside the office cabin. OK fine. So we have prawn pesto pasta on SB for dinner, and Sue bakes fresh chocolate chip cookies. Whatever they ate, couldn't have been as good as what we ate.

Friday August 18, 2017

A bit of a lazy morning and the wind is up. After a while all 3 of us went out to check the prawn traps. There were about 20 (probably more) red rock crabs in each of the 2 Canadian style prawn traps, and not a single prawn. But we did see remnants of a prawn! It seems that the larger openings on these traps let the crabs in as well, and they just eat the bait and the waiting prawns! We also pulled up our US style prawn trap and it had 16 large spot prawns in it and only 1 very small crab. Byron pulled his up as well and, no prawns, just lots of crabs. Unfortunately, he managed to drop 1 of his prawn traps overboard while he was in the midst of changing the bait! And it wasn't attached to anything. So the plan is to just put them back in for a few hours and then pull them again so the crabs don't have a chance to "setup" in the traps. We gave Byron one of our traps so that he had a 2nd on his line and we only needed to put out 1 line instead of 2.

Also picked up the crab traps and Byron had 1 Dungeness and 1 Red Rock. Sue cooked them up for crab cakes! We picked up our crab traps and we also had 1 and 1. So Sue cooked those up as well for more crab cakes later.

Back to Spellbound for coffee and lunch. Apparently Byron and Sue are getting a Telus signal on their iPad, and we're getting nada where we are on our iPad, so we headed over to EG with iPad and laptop in hand. Of course *our* iPad could not get any signal while their's did, so I used theirs. Even so, there was just too much data to move around the link was just too fragile so it didn't work out well. Mac's are just not that great with slow data links. Byron and Greg checked and pulled in the prawn traps again, and we got another 60 odd prawns. Sue and I started cleaning the crab that she had already cooked. Then they returned with a few more very large red rock crabs to add to the bounty. So Sue cooked up those as well. Then we all sat around the table and cleaned mucho crab. We made a *huge* mess, but fortunately it was all contained on the table. The wind was up and blowing the boats around for most of the day, but it wasn't too too bad.

We went back to SB to feed and water the dog and get some supplies for dinner, then back to EG where Sue made crab cakes, I made a salad, and we each had a huge crab cocktail appetizer. Dinner was wonderful. We looked at some Haida Gwai photos and by the time we returned back to Spellbound, it was really dark. I don't know why, but it's still surprising.

Thursday August 17, 2017 - Happy Birthday Mom!

We got underway around 9:30 to head for the slack at Stuart Narrows at 11:00. We allowed extra time so that we could hang out in Wells Passage and get the Telus signal. I needed to make a phone call and we thought that we would download email while there. But there was no Telus signal to be found! Weirdly we had AT&T and Rogers, so I was able to call Mom and wish her a Happy Birthday, but there was no Telus so no data. At least for us! Turns out EG had had data for awhile and so they went ahead and started through a bit early.



As we then started up Drury Inlet, we ended up having to go behind a boat that was apparently not paying attention, or didn't care. And it was slower than us.

We decided to go on the south side of the Muirheads instead of in the nook. That way, we would be closer to EG and have a greater possibility of Telus (or so we remember). It was a lovely flat calm day with no wind. As it turns out, again no Telus for us, but EG was able to pull it in intermittently. But when it did come in, it didn't really work well.

We all had some lunch on EG. The rest of the day was spent putting out prawn traps and crab traps. We all went for a dinghy ride around the Muirheads to make sure it all looked the same and to scout out crab trap locations. There was a commercial crab boat putting traps out where we thought we would put them, so we kept looking. There was a very young eagle standing on the edge of the eagles nest that's on the far eastern islet. It has been there ever since we have been coming here. No sign of any parents though. Byron and Sue went back for their "Boaters Net" call and we headed up to put out our crab traps where the commercial guy was cause we couldn't find any better place. As we were putting them down, we saw first one and then a second black bear on the beach. The first disappeared before we could get closer, but the second one stayed around and kept a wary eye on us. He too started to leave as we got "too close" so we headed back.




Back to SB to feed the dog and make some salsa for an appetizer. Great dinner on EG and a pretty early evening.

Wednesday August 16, 2017

Had some rain last night and this morning and it was low clouds around the bay. Greg went out (in rain pants) to check the prawn traps, while EG had a late and lazy morning. We got more prawns! Again, the "Washington" trap (i.e.: Washington legal which means bigger holes) had way more than the others. Greg back to pick up Byron and they went out to check Byron's traps. Not many but a few more. I had a shower and actually worked on the computer for something completely different!

Lunch back on SB, then Byron and Greg went out fishing. I finished up the work on the computer and then did some reading. It had stopped raining and warmed up a bit, but not exactly sunny. They didn't catch any salmon, but caught more small rockfish. Back to the boats for EG's 4:30 "Boaters Net" Ham Radio call. Greg went out to pull in the crab traps and got a very large red rock crab - big enough to warrant eating. We immediately cleaned and cooking it for an appetizer. Then Greg and Byron headed out to pull in the prawn traps again for the last time. Still more prawns! In the end, we had enough for a 2nd dinner tonight, and 2 packages of 48 prawns, 1 for each boats freezer.

Prawn taco's with lime cilantro crema and coleslaw on SB for dinner! It took a while to pull it all together and everything created a bunch of dishes. By the time we ate and cleaned up, there wasn't much time left for anything. It's noticeable now how early it's getting dark.

Tuesday August 15, 2017

It was high clouds this morning and a little chilly, but not too bad. We talked to EG and all decided that it was better to go touring around this morning while it was closer to high tide, than it was to go at low tide this afternoon. Since we had all had a lazy morning, it was closer to 10:30 by the time we headed out. We cruised over and took a closer look at the petroglyphs along the way, we can get much closer in the dinghies. Then to the head of Grappler Sound and took a look at the reversing rapids there. We had done a "crazy ivan" there in Spellbound on the way in as we waited for a supply barge to come through the narrow channel there, but it was fun to see the reversing rapid there up close. Lot's of rocks showing already.



Then we headed up into ????? Lagoon to take a look around. It was calm and peaceful but we didn't see too much wildlife. It did look like a perfect bear place though, we're sure there must have been one around there somewhere. Then back towards Turnbull and did the obligatory cruise by "Roaring Hole". It's another reversing rapid near the entrance to Turnbull. Went quite far in and then rode the ride back out again!

Back to the boats for lunch and Greg put together our 3rd prawn trap to take out. Byron and Greg dropped the "new" trap and went out fishing for a few hours. Nothing caught that way. But we did get some prawns! Byron's traps were filled with crabs and squat lobster parts and several other sundry sea creatures, but no prawns. Greg's first 2 traps had a small number of prawns in them, but the 3rd "Washington" trap that had only been down for a short while was loaded with them. Go figure. So they moved everything closer to where that trap was.

The afternoon got warm and sunny so I was happy. Was able to put on a short sleeved shirt and shorts! Bella and I spent a lot of time just hanging out in the sun and reading and soaking up the rays.

We feasted on prawns for dinner, and Sue made a salad accompaniment and we BBQ'd some zucchini and had a great warm evening.

Monday August 14, 2017

We did all our morning errands of going to the bank (some/enough funds released), getting more loonies for future laundry, going to see Carol the Bead Lady, and a last minute run through the IGA (they had re-stocked with some fresh produce since yesterday). It was a lovely morning of light winds. We said our "see you later's" to Steve and Jess and got some photos of Stu-y and Harley. Stuart is looking pretty old these days and certainly has some bad hips, but he seems very happy. Harley is only 2 or 3 now and a going concern but still oh so mellow. And beautiful coloring.





We left at 11:00 and left EG to do a few more things at the dock and headed out around the corner into Broughton Straight to try some fishing around Malcolm Island. Byron ran into Chris from Sullivan Bay at the bank and so we found out about their food schedule. They're doing meals 3 nights a week, and Monday's are Indonesian night. (Other nights are the popular beef and pork nights). So Sue emailed and made reservations with Debbie for the following Monday.

At first we tried "buck tailing" which is just leaving the line and lure on the surface and trolling along behind you. Coho will apparently come to the surface at speed to grab it. (Sure they do). Then we used the diving thingy and put the line down deeper. We had only one engine in gear which meant we were going 3.7 to 4.0 kts which is also apparently not too fast for Coho. (OK, sure). EG caught up with us as we neared the northern point of Malcolm, Pulteney Point. We then went around to the other side of the island where we fished with Chris from Sullivan Bay two years ago. We put the lines in for a short while there, but we also watched the couple of small fish boats there to see what they were doing. And they all appeared to be packing it in, bring their lines in and taking off. We also had the fish finder on and saw no fish. Not signs of a good place to fish. So we bagged it and caught up with EG for the crossing. Queen Charlotte Straight continued to be "like glass" and it was a lovely day.

Up Wells Passage and continued up into Grappler Sound and then into Turnbull Cove. Beautiful and quiet and calm and glassy and comfortable as usual. Kinda like coming home. We anchored up next to EG and then went and put the prawn traps out. Bella and I went along for the dingy ride.

Back to Spellbound for Spaghetti Quattro dinner and we introduced Byron and Sue to Chelsea Handler. It was officially dark when they headed back to EG which was almost new now. The days are certainly shorter as the season has progressed, and as we've headed south.

Sunday August 13, 2017

Errand day here. Did laundry in the morning after Sue, then back to the boats. We can't figure exactly how, but I know that I have been to Gus's Pub before and Greg swears that he hasn't been there. So Greg suggests Gus's for lunch. It was sunny enough that we sat outside. Initially. Of course it started to sprinkle and we moved inside. Also, it turns out you don't go to Gus's if you are in a hurry. Probably the slowest lunch imaginable.

Straight from Gus's to the IGA to do some provisioning. Checking out, I overheard a cashier say that a big boat had come into the store yesterday and provisioned and she had rung up $6,000 worth of groceries by herself! We

Saturday August 12, 2017

The main task today is to move the boats over to North Island Marina. But Steve has to clear out a space for us first. He had boats moored at the fuel dock overnight (Venture) and even ended up moving Bruce's boat to a tiny spot on the outside. We knew we weren't going anywhere until after checkout at 11:00, so we prepared to head up to Mugz. Danny stopped by to say "see you later" and Susan and Lowla too, and she mentioned there was a farmer's market at the top of the dock! Yay!

There were fresh veggies and jam's etc, but the most popular booth with a lineup was the baker! We all got scones, nanaimo bar's, cinnamon twists, and we bought a berry pie … mmmmm. I also bought some Garlic Jam which I have to figure out how to use, but just sounded enticing. And I also bought some fresh picked very ripe raspberries. They'll probably be the only ones I'll get this summer. They came on a plate and we all just ate them right away - they were wonderful and felt a bit like summer after all. Up to Mugz to sit and have coffee and eat our treats. It wasn't warm, but it was clear and blue skies which was nice.

We called Steve around 11:30 and he said to listen to 66A and it would be just a couple of minutes. And it was. He squeezed us on C dock between two larger vessels. He put EG on the end of D dock with her bow sticking out about 10'. But it was good to be back and nicely tucked away. It looks like he had many boats there for extended stays, including La Perouse who was in front of us.

We needed to fuel and one of the benefits of North Island Marina is that they can fuel boats while they are in their moorage spots. One of the boats behind us was already fueling and so we thought we would just wait and fuel when they were done. But then someone else needed to go ahead of us, so we waited for them to finish. Then someone else fueled. So we did the squeaky wheel thing (well, *I* did) and then we were able to fuel. But it was close to late afternoon by the time that happened. Greg did the math and it worked out to around $3.40 USD per gallon, which of course is not great by our standards, but not that terrible either. Because tomorrow is Sunday, B&S and I headed up to the liquor store to grab supplies since they weren't going to be open tomorrow. We then headed back to the boats to drop it off, and then picked up Greg and headed back to the "Shoprite", the fishing supply store. We picked up a fish cutting board that we had seen before and decided was too expensive, but now realize that it was the right answer. Byron picked up some "Carlyle Cat Food", the preferred bait for prawns according to some, and a "diving thingy" for salmon fishing. Lot's of things to look at there.

Byron and Sue had found out about a new restaurant just outside of town that Steve recommended and said was the only one around town that was good! So we made a reservation for 5:15 as it was the only time available! And we reserved a taxi for 5:00 to take us there. So we were up at the top of the ramp before 5:00, and waited (in the rain I might add) for a while. Taxi was late and didn't get there until 5:15. We called ahead to the restaurant to say we were still coming and not to give our table away. When he dropped us off, he said he'd be back in 1.5 hours. I thought this might not be long enough.

It's about a 10-15min ride up the coast and on First Nations land, and part of this large campground resort. Lot's of trailers around. The restaurant is right on a nice beach overlooking Broughton Straight. It's quite fancy and a little expensive, but they are certainly going for high end and seem to have pulled it off. We all had beet salad which had the most wonderful dressing, and then the 3 of us had Chicken and Fig pasta with Gorganzola sauce! YUM! Greg had Linguini Vongole. All very good. And everyone else had a nice dessert of Tiramisu (Greg) and Chocolate Mousse (B&S).

It turns out that the restaurant doesn't have a liquor license yet, but you can bring your own wine. We didn't know this (or forgot), so it was a "dry" meal for us too. We suspect that since it's on First Nations land, it will never have a liquor license, but we don't know this for sure. But without "libation" so slow us down, and the restaurant being extremely quick bringing our order, we were finished the main meal by about 6:10!! But we dragged out dessert and tea until just before 7:00 in time for the taxi (which was exactly on time). Back to the boats. Can't remember what we did after that.

Friday August 11, 2017

We listened to the weather forecast and of course it changed since last night. Today is still good with light winds and good for a crossing, but it comes up Saturday morning now and then rises to a gale in the afternoon. Jesus - can't we go 5 days without a gale warning?!?!?

We're off at 6:30am. There is some fog but it's high and the visibility is good. There are about 1,000 (OK, maybe not quite that many), little fish boats sitting outside Fish Egg fishing. The place is grand central station. We head down Fitz Hugh and it eventually get's swelly. Once we get past the island, it's really swelly. We're up to around a 3.5 on the Bella meter. We have a couple of hours of this unfortunately. There wasn't any wind to speak of, somewhere between 1 and 3 kts which was nice. But apparently the swell was better at West Sea Otter Buoy as they reported better numbers than we were seeing. But anyway!

We listened to the 10:30 weather report and it had (possibly) changed and got worse for tomorrow, so we decided to go all the way into Port McNeill or Sointula. We turned down Gordon Channel expecting it to be better, and it was actually worse. But it was at least directly behind us so we were able to put the throttle down at bit and even it out. Another hour or maybe less down though, it evened out and we slowed back down to normal and had an OK ride. And it just got better, and even the sun came out!

Greg called Steve and double checked that North Island Marina was still full (it was) and then Sue called Sointula and they said the fishing fleet was in and it was unlikely there was room on the dock. We decided if need be we would anchor out. But they had room at the municipal dock and so we both went in there around 3:45pm. And who was there to take our lines but Danny from Potest Fieri. And we were moored right behind Merrion as well. So the band was all back together Merrion is having engine problems still and so was working with a mechanic to try and figure out what the problem was. We are on F dock on the outside, and again, if anyone goes by with any kind of wake, we get quite rocked. Hopefully things will calm down as it get's later.

One of the big reasons to be in Port McNeill was so that Byron and Sue could go to CIBC to deposit some money. So Byron high tailed it up right away before the bank closed for the weekend. We walked up and Greg got a hair cut, we went to the bank and got some cash, and then had a snack at Mugz. Ran into Susan and Lowla again and said Hi and got a wildly delightful greeting from Lowla as if we had been reunited after years. Not until she saw Greg and Bella though, seeing just me was not quite enough - we all needed to be together.

Byron reports that "as per policy", CIBC will put a hold on his deposit until next Thursday, but that if he comes in on Monday to talk to the manager, they might be able to "do something" sooner. Good thing we have reservations until Monday I guess. Dinner on Eagles Gig and an early evening as we are all tired.

Thursday August 10, 2017

Foggy and calm this morning as we left around 8:45. We were heading to "somewhere" in Fish Egg Inlet. We headed down Lama Passage and out into Fitz Hugh Sound. We could see many many boats on AIS heading into Fury Cove to prepare to cross tomorrow. So we were even more desirous of *not* going there. Visibility was down to 1/8 mile in a few places, but in general it was fine. We took a detour to look at Namu on the way down as well. We need a new acronym - YARDC - "Yet Another Run Down Cannery". This one was was also falling apart.

Fitz Hugh was a little choppy in places, like passing Hakai Passage, but not too bad. We decided to check out Greene Island Anchorage as it was close for getting out into the sound, and wasn't too squeaky to get out of if it was socked in with fog in the morning. It turns out it was a lovely cozy anchorage and the sun came out just after we arrived. We hopped in the dingy's and went touring around all the little channels. Then Greg and Byron went fishing for about an hour, but alas, nothing caught. Back to Spellbound for salmon dinner, and an early night.

We decide to leave tomorrow morning around 6:30am and head for Clam Cove. I mention that the recommendation is to round Cape Caution on the flood, which would mean leaving 1.5 hours or so later. But I was over ruled.

August 9, 2017

Slept in. A lot. By the time we got going, B&S had finished their laundry and we all went up to "Chaos" again for coffee and baked goods. We took our laundry up with us and got it all started and hung out at the picnic benches while waiting. Laundry is not as big of a chore when you have coffee and baked goods to keep you pre-occupied.

We put laundry away and then went back up and got a souvenir (earrings for Jan) and these chicken roll ups for lunch. Back to EG for a team meeting to figure out the plan. Decided to cross Cape Caution on the upcoming calm day on Friday. Called Steve and made arrangements to stay in Port McNeill on Saturday. So we'll stay in Clam Bay on Friday night so it's not quite as long of a trip in 1 day. Had lunch, and then Sue and I took the "Sea Bus" over to Bella Bella to look around and go to the grocery store there. It doesn't take much to see the place, so we didn't need much time. I asked them about getting some fresh herbs, and they pointed me to the free community garden to pick whatever I needed. They didn't actually have what I needed of course, but the concept was interesting. Spent 2 minutes in the band store before heading back on the bus.

It was nice and warm today. The other kids wanted some ice cream so we headed back up to Chaos again for ice cream - half of us in the sun, and half in the shade. More general hanging around and did some boat cleaning. One of the NWE boats, Discovery, had come in the day before and also ended up talking to other folks on the dock. We ordered take out pizza for dinner on EG.

August 8, 2017

Greg picked up the crab pots in the morning (surprise - no crab!) but then also did his Bruno Gerussi (sp?) imitation by moving a large log out of the way of Spellbound. We headed out around 10:00 to try and be in Shearwater around 11:00. Although it looks foggy above, it wasn't bad and was clear before we got too far.

Although B&S had an issue previously getting tied up at Shearwater, they did have a place for EG when we got there, and for us too, as long as we rafted to EG. So that's fine, and we did. We headed up to "Chaos" for a coffee and a bagel for lunch. The cloud lifted and it got quite sunny and lovely and warm out. We did some grocery shopping and then headed back to the boats for some sunshine and warmth (or shade if you are so inclined ).

Had some beers on EG's flybridge, and then dinner in the pub. Had an early evening as we were quite tired.

August 7, 2017

Did I mention yet that we've been crabbing at Ocean Falls? Yup, so far no crabs of course. But we read that the crabs were deeper than we were putting the pots, so yesterday Byron and Greg put them out around 90'. Greg went out this morning first thing to pick up the pots (again) and we had 2 keepers! Miracles never cease! So Greg showed Danny and Susan how to clean and cook a crab, and we gave them 1 and kept 1 for us. We cooked ours as well and then put it into the fridge for later.

We said "see you later" to Lowla and Susan and Danny this morning. They are heading south a little faster than us. They weren't sure where they were going to go, but they didn't need to go to Shearwater. (Also said "see you later" to the boat Merrion). We all left around the same time and headed down into Fisher Channel. We turned off into Gunboat Passage and had a lovely cruise through Beales Bay.

We had fresh crab plus some soup for lunch on Spellbound, and then headed out in the dingy to cruise. There is a reversing rapids that you want to traverse at slack into the "outer" and then "inner" lagoon. So we did. It was lovely in there but didn't see anything special. Just gave it about 1/2 an hour or so after slack and then headed back out. Don't want to get crazy or anything. We continued out into Gunboat Passage and into some small islets next door.



Back to EG for "oh-beer-thirty" and dinner and a lovely evening.

August 6, 2017

The internet worked OK enough for email's this morning, so that's what I did. Writing this now, it's a bit of a blur where the day went. Danny and Susan walked over to Martin Valley, and B&S and ourselves walked around town again. We went to go to the gift store, but she had closed up for the day. So we went through "Nearly Normal Norman's" emporium with Norman. We had not been in before and it was a real kick. First, the building is built on a slant. We all thought the slant was due to "decay", but no, it was built that way on purpose - the building is solid. Norman has been living there full time for 30 years, and was initially hired to do cleanup there. So he "cleaned up" a lot of junk and just saved it!

We walked through the entire building as he gave us the "extra" tour. There was a fisherman from Idaho who kept his boats in "the ways" and was living upstairs. There were a couple full bathrooms and showers. He also showed us the kitchen area. Norman had done a bunch of work on the building over the years including putting in sliding glass doors and windows.

August 5, 2017

We left around 8:00am and had a beautiful ride up Return Channel and then down Johnson Channel. The wind picked up a fair amount once we got into the channel, but the current and wind were all behind us so it was fine. We arrived around noon at the dock and there was some maneuvering to get us all on the dock, but the 3 boats all got on the inside. It was pretty gusty and breezy as we came in, but there were no issues.

Greg put the dingy down and prepared to go put the crab traps out with Danny. Between us all arriving and then, the wind had picked up significantly and was now howling through the docks. We all had some lunch, and then Byron and Greg took Byron's traps out as well. He had to squeak in to a spot and didn't have room to put his dingy down. They got a little wet with the wind whipping up the Bay. Susan came by and said there were some signs up advertising a free pig roast in town tonight, and one woman from another boat stopped by to confirm that they wanted all the boaters on the dock. No particular reason given.

Time to get off these howling boats, so we decided to go for a walk through town. Sue stayed behind on EG so it was just the 5 of us and the 2 dogs. We saw a "marmot" in the rocks just past the top of the ramp, and it appeared to be slightly tame? It just sat there looking at us and started getting closer, even with Lowla barking her head off at it. Got photos. We eventually ran into "Rob" who runs the Darkewaters fishing outfit here. We had heard that they don't have the restaurant open because they ran out of food. But he is one of the people putting on the free pig roast. He said they want to do it every year on this "BC day" long weekend and want word to spread to the boating community so that more people come in. (Where would they put them on the docks?). Anyway, they had both chicken and a beef roast stuffed inside the pig as well, and were providing salad and buns and dessert too! All we had to bring was a beverage. How cool is that?

We continued on our walk and went to the gift store (I felt like I should purchase *something* but didn't) and then off through town and up to the dam and then up to the lake and then further down the lake. It was nice to be out of some of the wind, and it was quite warm too. Back down through town and around to look and see what has changed - not much.



Back to SB and then the festivities started at 5:00. We left the dogs behind to make life easier. We sat and talked with folks at the picnic benches and met new folks. Eventually they had carved everything up and had all the salads done etc and we all lined up at the buffet table. The food was *really* good! We had Caesar salad, Potato Salad, Pork, Chicken, nice home made buns, and then some cake for dessert. The gentleman that seemed to put the whole thing on, "Bear", worked his butt off getting it all done, even though he had help. So we're helping to spread the word. If you're boating, you might want to be in Ocean Falls for BC Day long weekend!

August 4, 2017

Left around 7:00 for a planned trip to Rescue Bay. As it turned out though, the weather was improved from the last report we were able to get, and so Danny called on the radio and talked about heading all the way down into Millbank Sound and around the corner. We had a nice ride down Tolmie Channel and got some Telus along the way. We exchanged some text with Byron and Sue who were on their way to Wigham Cove.

We did a drive by Klemtu for the cell signal and downloaded some email and did some internet things. We headed out into Finlayson Channel and it looked OK, so we gave the go ahead to go around to Seaforth Channel the shorter way, but the more open ocean way. (i.e.: not Reid Passage). It was mostly OK until we got around and just at the entrance to Seaforth we ended up taking the swells on the beam. The Bella meter got up to around a 2.5 or 3, and so we sped up and zagged for a bit and then it was fine. Pulled into Wigham Cove around 3:00pm and there was Eagles Gig!

We finished anchoring and were putting the dingy down when Potest Fieri came in as well and anchored. We told them to go take Lowla for a pump out and then to join us on Eagles Gig. It was over 90F in the cove and in the boat salon's, so the crew of EG was sweltering and a little cranky. It was even a little hot for me. Apparently it had been like this for several days, and so it was wearing them out.

We sat up on the flybridge to catch the breeze as it came through. Danny and Susan and Lowla joined us and we sat around and talked boat stuff for awhile and caught up. They left and then we had beers and continued to try and chill. We headed back to Spellbound and made a simple pasta dinner as no one wanted to cook. Byron and Sue came over and it was a quiet relatively early evening. After dinner as we were just chatting, Danny and Susan came over in their dingy. They had just taken Lowla for a pumpout and had seen a bear on shore and so went to watch it afterwards. They were able to get very close and the bear just stayed put and ignored them, even with Lowla barking at it! So the 4 of us hopped into our respective dingy's to go take a look. There was a young black bear munching on barnacles! We turned our motors off and just floated in front of him and you could hear his teeth grinding away on them and a VERY loud crunching sound. He even drank some sea water to wash them down. He would look at us for a bit, and then go back to eating barnacles and nosing around on the shore. We eventually got a little too close I think as he started moving further down the shore, so we left him be. Back to SB and dishes and a gorgeous evening.

August 3, 2017

Sorry to leave Bishop Bay, but it was time to move on. Initially the conditions were good, but by the time we reached Butedale, it was blowing to beat the band. Potest Fieri was probably going to stay the night there, but we were going to try and push on to Rescue Cove. However we were going to stop for lunch and a couple of hours to look around.

We tied up and the boats were rockin' at the dock and it was howling. A boat called Nellie came in shortly after our two boats came in. After having lunch and listening to the wind howl, the royal "we" also decided to stay and spend the night there. We met Cory the caretaker, and he said that the wind shut off, "like a light switch", at 7:30pm. (OK, Cory, you're on). At least it was warm and sunny with blue skies.

Had some lunch and then we walked around the facility and looked at the old generators. We wanted to stay off the boat so we sat around up near the patio area. Then Danny decided we should walk to the lake. Cory said it was quite muddy and we should take our boots. Pfffft. Talk about an understatement. It wasn't really a walk, it was a workout, and it was muddy and bug infested. Nice. We all got completely sweaty and got quite the workout which wasn't a bad a idea. Could have done without the bugs though. It certainly gave us a reason to have afternoon beers on the patio! We talked to Bob & Karen on "Nellie" from Oak Harbor and found out that this was also their first trip to Alaska. They were not that impressed and probably wouldn't go back and were also happy to be in better weather! (Karen was getting cranky too). And they "crab-ed" everywhere and also didn't catch even one! (OK, so it's not just us - there's a theme here!)

Interestingly, a "fast" boat came in to just see the place and look around. He was probably our age but clearly had his Mom with him. Turns out he was on his way down to Rescue Bay to spend the night. After talking for awhile, we find out he is a dentist (sort of) and he has to be at work on Monday in the Seattle area. He is planning on being in Anacortes on Sunday! Today is Thursday. My jaw dropped. He admitted that he doesn't pass a fuel dock, but still! He had about a week off so he went to Petersburg Alaska and back with his Mom!

Back to SB for a late dinner and early evening. Yes, the wind died down eventually, but not what *I* would call like a light switch

August 2, 2017

Although we probably should head south, I just loved yesterday and thought wouldn't it be great to have another day just like it. Also, why head towards a gale when you can stay where you are and float in glassy water with hot sunshine and bright blue skies! It turned out to be the right decision.

More bathing in the tub in the morning. More lunch. Greg and Danny decide to do more fishing! Hallelujah the curse is lifted! Greg caught *2* salmon!!

August 1, 2017

Weather report for further south has 2 days of "Gale" force winds on Wednesday and Thursday. Although we want to go south faster, it seems like a good idea to stay out of the way. So we decide to go to Bishop Bay with Potest Fieri. Not a breath of wind in the harbor, but Douglas Channel is blowing like stink with a huge outflow. So we zig zag around and then go up the other channel and take it on the nose so it's not bad. By the time we get to Bishop, it's lovely.

There are 3 mooring balls, all empty. We read in Waggoners that they dragged a mooring ball in 10kts of wind, but we decide to take one anyway. We hope that BC Parks as fixed them up for people to use. And we has 0.7kts of wind so we're probably fine for now. We go to the baths for a quick dip and enjoy the warmth of the sun and water. Potest Fieri gets in about 1 hour later - they stopped outside Hartley Bay to get a cell signal and internet. They also tie to a mooring ball and then come ashore for a dip. We are just sitting on the bench there enjoying wearing bathing suits and soaking up the sun. It's awesome.

We all go back to the boats for some late lunch, and then I talk Greg into going fishing in the dingy with Danny (no catching done though). I strut around on the boat in my bathing suit going in and out of the cabin, alternatively sun bathing and then cooling off. Time goes very quickly. Susan's ear infection has come back and so she's not feeling great. We each have dinner and enjoy a beautiful evening. Danny comes over for a night cap while Susan sleeps.

July 31, 2017

Coming down Grenville was fine. We wanted to stay at the dock in Hartley so that we had the cell coverage and internet. Danny and Susan elected to stay in the anchorage that didn't. It was a bit windy when we came into the dock area and there were a bunch of kids playing on a giant water trampoline - probably not a good idea to run over a kid. As we circled, we noticed that a small boat left which left us lots of room to tie up at the dock. Hartley Bay offers free moorage and free power to boaters. It is a "dry" village and so they ask you to keep your alcohol "quiet".

We downloaded and cleared our emails and then Danny and Susan arrived so we all went for a walk. Beautiful hot sunny clear day and it was really interesting to wander around. Every building is on a raised boardwalk and so everyone get's around via golf carts or ATV's. Everyone. Peoples garages are ATV sized! We also walked up to the fish hatchery, but there wasn't a whole lot to see. Still more people swimming in the river though.

Back to SB for a beer, Danny and Susan and Lola left. We chilled and stayed cool.

July 30, 2017

We spent the morning looking at the weather and talking to various folks. Many were staying and many were heading south. Susan and Dan ended up heading south around 11:00. We met the folks from "Golden Days" who are in a group of 3 boats with "?? Patriot" and "Knight Star" from Delta. We have been following each other around since Lowe Inlet on the way up. Then "Cavok", a GB that we know from the rendezvous showed up on the outside of the breakwater in front of us. They were staying an extra night as well and got kicked out of their spot. We waffled back and forth for awhile and ended up leaving around 12:30 ourselves. We were surprised.

It was pretty windy and pretty rough as we headed around Holland Rock. But it was on our nose and it wasn't too much back and forth. About a Bella 2.5.

We arrived in Kumealon Cove about the same time as "Harmony" who had left first thing. Potest Fieri was already there and the Cove was lovely and glassy, so they asked if we wanted to raft to them so we did! We had some appy's and beers and talked and visited. We pooled our dinner resources (salmon and halibut) and Susan made a salad and we had a great dinner and a lovely evening. I even tried maple syrup flavored whiskey - maybe not a good idea.

July 29, 2017

We had reserved a rental car for today to do some touring around. Greg went to the office and picked it up and then drove it back to the dock. There was a gale warning up for today and the storm had come in last night. It had poured rain heavily all last night and the wind had started to come up. It was probably going to be a good day to be off the boat. Unfortunately, the rental car company did not allow dogs in the car (unlike other times we've rented from National where it was fine) as they didn't want "pet dander" in the car. So we put our newly clean blanket over the passenger seat and then also brought a dog towel and wrapped her up in that.

We drove out to Brutze rapids which is on the other side of the island and is the site of a reversing rapid. The walk out to the rapids was nice and it had stopped drizzling. Then we drove down to Port Edward and the Cannery. We arrived just after a tour had started and so we caught up with it. There was about 30 people in the tour! Who knew! Great to see the entire "camp" and all the buildings and to get an appreciation for how big it was. From a heyday of 200 different canneries in BC, there is now just 1 "boutique" cannery in Nanaimo. This one was just 1 of a half a dozen that were on the Skeena River here.



We had thought about going for the drive to Terrace as we were told by "Jack" that it was a very scenic drive along the Skeena. However we only had 100km mileage total on the rental car and it was ~140km each way. So it would have cost us a bit to do it. And of course there was the whole "dog dander" thing with a $250 cleaning fee if they decide to. So we headed back into Rupert (( We went to Safeway to use the WiFi and to get some groceries. God it was windy. It was so windy, I saw people who couldn't get into their cars because they couldn't keep their car doors open against it. The man almost lost his kid into a car door slam as he couldn't keep the truck door open long enough for the kid to scramble in! We were well protected in the Safeway parking lot.

We decided to drive the 1/2 block to Walmart to check to see if they had something (they didn't) and we ran into Susan and Dan and Lowla again. They suggested dinner at the Breakers and we thought it was a great idea. So back to Safeway for actual groceries this time, and then back to SB. Greg vacuumed and returned the car while I unpacked. Dinner for Bella and then up to the Breakers for us. We checked to see whether we would be able to spend another day at the marina if we decided to stay, and fortunately it was no problem.

July 28, 2017

Oh yeah, now we remember. The docks here can rock and roll when there is wake from other boats. And the fishing fleet appears to like to head out around 5:00am. So we were woken up again as we rocked for about 45 mins, and then everything calmed down again and we all (i.e.: Bella) went back to sleep.

We caught up a bit on computer stuff, and then headed out to Cowpaccino's for some coffee and lunch. They were slammed busy so it took quite a while. We ended up spending a couple of hours talking to a local guy, Jack, who worked for CN. He was very interesting and was also very interested in our views on the States. He was an ex-RCMP member as well and had some interesting tales and stories about people he had come across. He was thinking of moving back down to the lower mainland.

After that we went back to the boat to drop off Miss B, and then walked over to the museum. It is in a really lovely building and it has some great exhibits. I do love BC in that we learned all about the Tshimsian nation from our tour guide, Krishna Sharma. After that, Greg wanted something to eat so we went into the Breakers pub where we could also get a beer and a Ceasar! As we were sitting at the table waiting, we noticed someone walking their doxie on the dock in front, and realized later that it was "Lowla" from Potest Fieri who we had met in Sitka. I went out to say Hi to Susan and Danny and of course the dog. They took the dog for a "pump out" and then met us in the pub and we had a beer together. It was quite warm out so we even tried sitting outside, but eventually it just got too cold.

Back to the boat for a late, very light dinner. Greg also laundered a lap blanket that Bella had pee'd on, and that turned into a bit of a project.

July 27, 2017

We had the alarm set for 5:00am but sadly we were both awake before hand and couldn't sleep. Left at 5:30am as planned and headed out. Not great when we left but then it got a little worse. Not terrible, but we were going into the wind and the waves and the current so we did a lot of slamming. Then as we got further south, the swell had more of an effect so we were also rockin' back and forth. Good day to have been on a boat that had stabilizers. I'd call it a 3.5 to 4.0 on the Bella meter.

But true to the forecasts, the American's were right and it was 15kts and 3 ft seas all the way down to Cape Fox, and then once we got to Dixon Entrance, the Canadians were right and winds were light and we had flat calm seas. Go figure. So the actual crossing was a break and quite nice. Wind came up slightly after we reached Dundas Island, but it was nothing. So the rest of the trip was fine.

We arrived at Cow Bay around 4:00pm so a long day (9.5 hours) of traveling. When we arrived, the harbor master had found a spot for us for all 3 days and we didn't need to move around. How great is that? We were quite happy. He took one of his slips and turned it into a linear dock. So he said to pull as far forward as we could which we did. No one else around at the time, but just before we left for dinner, a couple of small runabout / fish boats tied up on either end of the slip behind us.

We called Dolly's and made a reservation for dinner at 6:00. Really good food. Greg ate too much and we probably had too much beer. But after today …..

July 26, 2017

Checked the weather again this morning, and the Canadians have done a complete reverse on their weather prediction. Thursday morning is fine, but then the wind comes up in the afternoon and now Friday and Saturday and Sunday are complete blow outs! The Americans are in violent disagreement. The GRIB files show that Thursday is OK and Friday morning is OK but then starts to build from there. So now we're thinking we'll go all the way on Thursday.

Weather turned for the worse here too. It poured all night and was still raining in the morning. It stopped eventually though and we walked over to Safeway to get some provisions (mostly for the crossing) and then went and got some ice at Tongass Marine. Back to the boat and had some lunch. Then we decided to go downtown, but we stopped at "the mall" at a hair dressing salon so that I could get a "bang trim". Keep the hair out of my eyes! Then we hopped on the free downtown shuttle and went into town. Walked around, had coffee and a scone, went to the museum. Place emptied out again as the cruise ships left.

Back to SB for showers and dinner - had to eat up all our veggies that we can't take into Canada. We did a pretty good job! Met our new neighbours, Mac et al on Harmony, who are also apparently thinking of crossing tomorrow. Greg filled the water tanks and it's pouring. The weather really got worse and it's blowing 15kts in the harbor. Took the garbage up tonight before heading into Canada - Quote: "It's fucking miserable out there!".

July 25, 2017

Worked on the computers, then Greg did the oil change which went very smoothly. I did some website updates. Lunch. Then we headed up to Laundry and did several loads. Brought cleans clothes back and then put them away. Thought we would take Miss B for a walk so we headed up to the liquor store to get some American Beer to take into Canada (so sad!). We stopped by the Veterinary Office to see about getting Bella's nails trimmed. Turns out it was "Toe Nail Tuesday" today from 10:00 to 2:00 and we had just missed it. They had no one available anymore today or tomorrow to do nails. Yeah, that's the McLaughlin luck we expect.

Back to the boat, dinner, some television. Greg has a pretty good migraine going. The weather is looking better for Thursday and Friday and Saturday, so we're thinking of going to Foggy Bay on Thursday and crossing Dixon Entrance on Friday. We made reservations at Cow Bay for Friday and Saturday. They called us though and said they were full on Friday and they only thing they could offer was the outside of the Breakwater, so we took that. But they have room on Saturday. Guess it's getting busy with people heading back.

July 24, 2017

Not a great sleep last night, but the dock was fine. When we woke up, we decided to bail and head to Ketchikan and just start back towards BC. We didn't really leave early enough as it was close to 8:00, but we were at least able to pay the harbor master for the nights moorage and power and not just leave what we hoped was enough money! (No prices listed anywhere)

It was fine for the first few hours but the wind picked up steadily as did the current in the opposite direction. Tongass Narrows it got a bit choppy as we ended up with "wind over tide". We went all the way down to the fuel dock to fill up so we wouldn't have to deal with it later. We also filled up both the propane tanks, and the gas can. The whole process took some time and you can really get slammed there with not much protection from the wake or chop.

We called the harbor master and he said they were filling up. He directed us to Bar Harbor North and Float 13, slip 24. We are quite a bit further away than the last time we were here, also not as protected. We walked up to the harbor masters office with Miss B, and then walked north to look for Napa Auto Parts. Last night Greg determined that we had put 200 hours on the engines since we left Bham. He likes to do an oil change at 200-250 hours, and considers an absolute max was 300 hours. Doing the math, it's clear that we'll put more than 100 hours more on them between now and the end of the trip so we would blow by that 300 easily. Might as well do an oil change now, as it will only get harder to find somewhere to do it later. Here we have a place to dispose of the oil right at the top of the dock. But he wanted to get some new oil filters so that we weren't "using up" our spares. So, off to Napa Auto Parts which is where the fuel dock get's it's marine oil filters. OK then.

We stopped at "The Landing" which is a hotel right across from the local ferry terminal. It has a coffee shop inside and we got some very late lunch to go. We ate it outside in the pet area of the hotel which has a nice picnic bench. Although it is grey and cloudy, it's not raining and we can tell that the overall outdoor temperature has increased a bit, i.e.: we can stand to sit outside!

Turns out there is more than 1 auto parts store in this direction. So we hit both of them and learned more about oil filters and which ones are compatible with what. Also got a jerry can and we were able to get more diesel fuel additive. Success!

Back to the boat. Greg started pulling stuff out and found out that he only had 1 spare oil filter. So B and I stayed on the boat while he went in the other direction to the marine stores to see if they had any compatible oil filters. He returned with more information but no filters. We fed the B and hung out for awhile. Then we went back to "The Landing" and went up to the bar (Jeremiah's) to have beer and appetizers for dinner since we had such a late lunch. It is a bit breezy but it was nice to be able to walk outside and not be freezing.

July 23, 2017

It was bright and calm this morning which was nice and we could even see a bit of blue sky. We talked to Reiki Master on the radio and they were getting ready to go out to put an anchor down on a pinnacle and start fishing. They had not decided where they would go afterwards - whether it be Coffman Cove, or back to Wrangell. We decided that if it was nice enough out there, that we might go all the way down to Thorne Bay instead of Coffman.

So we said our goodbyes and see-you-soon's and headed out. It was flat and glassy and warm and sunny. Whodathunkit! So we cruised all the way down. As per the McLaughlin way though, as we arrived it clouded over and cooled off again.

When we arrived at the marina, we could not hail the harbor master. There was also a couple of "Reserved" signs all along the transient moorage area. A sailboat was just leaving a slip and said the harbor master had put them there as transient and so we should be fine there. As we were about to pull in, a woman beckoned us a bit further down it and said we should go there. She said the harbor master doesn't work Sundays and they were expecting a tour boat so we should just use this slip. So we did. As we pulled in, we recognized Dan from "Adventurous Ohana" who was helping us with lines. We had talked with him in Meyers Chuck just after we left Ketchikan. They had been cruising the area and were heading back to Ketchikan to get grand kids the next day. There was some fishing and crabbing talk, but of course we are still batting 0% there. He did mention that there is a place though where you can rent a truck to drive around Prince of Whales Island which we thought would be a good idea.

We grabbed a bite for a late lunch and then went for a walk with Bella. We walked to the small grocery store, but we really didn't need much. We dropped the groceries at the boat and also left Bella there as she is too much of a pain to walk, and went cruising around the town. Of course, everything is closed on Sundays and again we managed to arrive on the wrong day. We couldn't find anywhere to eat, nor the place to rent the truck or find out if the truck was available tomorrow.

The tour boat came in just before our walk - "Alaska Dream". What a weird looking boat. A giant wedding cake catamaran, and it seemed to hold a *ton* of people. They all walked into town at some point and we could see the group all together. Maybe 40 people? When we walked by the Library, *they* were open as they were expecting the tour. (What tour goes to the Thorne Bay Library?). As we walked back to the boat, there was woman setting up a table selling hand made items. Like it was a cruise ship. But the best part is another woman arrived and set up a table selling fresh baked cinnamon buns to the group. We got ourselves one of those!

Dinner on the boat. We exchanged some text's with Byron as they had arrived at Pruth Bay and had internet. It turns out they are not going to go as far north as they originally intended. So they are going to hang out in the Shearwater area instead and will just "gunk hole" around. They were wondering what our schedule was. So we went through some ideas and back of the envelope stuff and thought we would be in Shearwater between 10 and 14 days. Give or Take.

July 22, 2017

It poured down last night and was a little bit slappy against the hull while we slept. We checked the weather in the morning and it was blowing 7 kinds of stink at Lincoln Island. We headed over to Reiki Master to see what was up with them and they were not inclined to go anywhere either until the wind was down. We decided to check again around 11:30 to see what was up.

The 4 of us played "Rummy-O" in the cabin which was nice. We looked outside occasionally and it looked really really awful out in Clarence Straight. We had a good view of it, but were nicely tucked away where we were. The one downside is that the wind or tides would keep the boat facing in one direction, but the swell was coming in from another. So the boat would rock back and forth. On Reiki Master, it wasn't that noticeable. We listened to the later weather report and just started laughing when we heard the Lincoln Point one - we were clearly not going anywhere, even though the fish were not biting at all! Roger had a line in the water but it certainly was not getting any action which did not make him all that happy.

Kim had made Split Pea soup in her new "Insta-Pot", but we decided to go back to Spellbound for lunch and give them a break from us. Back to Reiki Master for halibut taco's for dinner.

July 21, 2017

Left around 6:00am to catch the flat water and arrived in the cove around 8:30am to see Reiki Master. We anchored behind a small islet and then headed over to Reiki Master to say hello and connect. I stayed on Reiki Master with Bella for a while and visited with Kim while Ken and Greg went fishing. It got a little too snotty out there so they came back, just in time to take Bella and myself back to Spellbound to use the mat!

The afternoon was a bit of rockin' and rollin' as the boat was facing the opposite direction to the swell. Bella meter was about a 2.5. Shortly after lunch we invited ourselves back for a visit. It seemed like Reiki Master was getting less rockin, but it may have been an illusion. We visited and played "Rummy-O" while fishing. Kim served dinner to everyone which was nice.

July 20, 2017

Today was our day to go to Anan. It was a bit sunny this morning and a bit warmer as well which was nice. Had a shower and did the morning routine and walked over to say Hi to Kim. Ken returned after picking up his father and they headed out to Kindergarten Cove to do some fishing with the family. We went for a walk with Bella to try and tire her out a bit and came back and had lunch. A huge sailboat came into the marina while we were there and we watched it and the world go by for a while. Then another recreational boat came in too. We were no longer the only transient in the marina!

We borrowed Ken & Kim's truck and left around 1:10 to head into town to catch the boat. We were a bit early and so had coffee from the shop and wandered around a bit. As we were waiting at the picnic tables for the boat to be ready, we met our boat companions. It was one family with Grandma and Grandpa from Iowa, Son from Thailand, and Daughter and 2 young granddaughters from Virginia. They were traveling throughout Alaska for 25 days. We talked to Gramma and she said that initially, she bought the tour tickets online, including 2 "kids" price tickets, only to read later that children under 12 were not allowed on the tour! She ended up talking to them and finding out what behavior was needed for the kids and they all determined that their kids would be fine. Apparently the tour people just say that so they can "vet" kids beforehand.



We piled into their jet boat and noticed that it was a bit bigger and nicely appointed compared to the previous one. And of course, they had a bathroom on board. It was about a 50 minute trip at 39kts to the Observatory. They had Black bears there! We had a great time, more detail and way too many photos later. Here's a sample.

July 19, 2017 - Happy 13th Birthday Bella!

Slept in. Did some work on the computers and hung out. Kim called and she was available to go to the grocery store, so we packed up our shopping bags and tagged along for the ride. Ended up getting a lot of stuff and going to both grocery stores so it was good to have the truck. It was quite warm and a bit sunny which was also a nice change. No rain coat required!

Kim invited us to Happy Hour that evening. Back to the boat for lunch and then we grabbed Bella and headed out for a walk into town. She is still not walking at all well and no matter what we do, we couldn't seem to get her to go. So we did a bit of "remediation" and it seemed to go well. We walked all the way into town and to the Library. We brought our iPads to try and download some shows, but it was not that good. Walked back to the boat.

We had a nice Happy Hour on Reiki Master, meeting Ken's step brother Roger and his father Jack. Good conversation about their trip to Jack's camps and old family life. Back to Spellbound for dinner and a movie.

July 18, 2017

Engines on a 5:30am! We needed to be at "Devil's Elbow" at 8:45am for high slack, so that's when we needed to leave. It was a beautiful calm glassy morning and the ride down and through was lovely. Certainly needed to pay attention, and there were spots with pretty low depth of 11' or so, but it was fine. Lot's of kelp.

We hadn't planned to go all the way to Wrangell today, but we didn't know exactly where to stop. We were thinking of Point Baker, Port Protection made for too long a day the next day. So we continued on as the conditions were ideal. We were thinking of either Totem Bay or St. Johns. We also ended up going *into* the current the whole way which was not ideal. But, we thought we could be in Wrangell at 3:30 as that's what the route said, so we just kept going. It turned out to be 4:00pm. Long day.

We texted Ken and Kim and asked if they were interested in going out to dinner at the Stikine with us and they said yes. So we arrived and I showered and we went out and had a really nice dinner. They have had buckets of company and had more arriving the next morning so we had an early evening.

July 17, 2017

Meant to leave earlier but didn't. Got to Chatham around 8:00. No wind and calm, but a bit rolly polly at first. Didn't take long before the swell disappeared. Had a lovely ride into Kake. Looks like they don't get much in the way of transients there. We couldn't raise the harbor master on the radio and so ended up getting his cell number. All the slots were empty so we could just choose.

One of the reasons we went there is because they have a good cell signal. So we had lunch and then started making arrangements to go to the Anan Wildlife Conservatory. We were aiming to go Friday. We wanted to go with the same guy who took us on the Stikine River tour, but we had left him a message and he had not called back. Also, his website said his tour was 10 hours long! A bit long for us. So we started googling for other operators.

Long story short, we ended up calling the Forest Service directly and getting our own permits over the phone for Thursday. And we got on a boat with "Alaskan Waters". (They had room on the boat but no permits). There tour is only 5.5 hours which seemed a bit better and less of an issue for Bella. It's ridiculously, disgustingly, embarrassingly expensive, but chest la vie. It's a unique opportunity to see wild bears close up. Gotta try. So since we were going to Anan a day early, we decided to do Rocky Pass tomorrow.

By this time it was late afternoon so we went for a dingy ride towards the town. We got there and it was difficult to see that there was any "there" there. We eventually found what we thought was the right "City Dock", but it was covered with barnacles and we were worried about the inflatable. Also, couldn't see any of the buildings that the books said should be there. So we didn't stop.

Back to Spellbound for dinner. Another boat showed up with was a local Alaska boat preparing to go through the pass as well. But they had never been before either. A nice couple from Klawook (sp?) with some friends from out of town. They said they would follow us through.

July 16, 2017

We left early in the morning, but not quite early enough I guess. It was a really lumpy ride down. The wind was blowing even though it wasn't supposed to be, and we went into it and slammed for awhile, then it was fine, then it was worse. We pulled out into this little bay for a half hour or so and took a break. Then it was only another 3 miles to go and we hugged the shore so it was fine.

This place is often described as "land locked" as you have to work your way around some islands to get in there and the whole things is well protected. We got to the head of the inlet eventually and one of the mega yachts, Serengeti, was already there. So we picked a spot on the corner so we could see both the waterfall and the stream delta.

We put the prawn traps out "next to the cliff" which is where it was recommended. Picked it up later on, no prawns, full of mud, wrong spot.

Serengeti left and it was replaced with a few more boats. Several big ones, plus a couple of small "cruise ships". We pick the popular places.

July 15, 2017

We had sun today!! Woo Hoo!! We decided that Takatz might be our favorite place in Alaska. Beautiful scenery, protected anchorage, and internet.

Fish still jumping everywhere so Greg went out fishing for a while on his own in the morning. No luck.

July 14, 2017

We got going relatively early this morning in order to get around the corner. Peril Straight was glassy and calm which was nice, and there were two other recreational boats going in the same direction as us, one called "You Dear" and another called "Peregrine". Chatham was fine as cruising as well.

We had been texting with Ken and Kim about planning a trip to the Anan Bear Conservatory later in the week, and Ken mentioned that he saw we were close to "You Dear", and if we saw them, we should say Hi for them. We anchored up in Takatz just after "You Dear". While coming into the Bay, there were fish jumping everywhere. So we had some lunch and then jumped in the dingy and tried fishing for about an hour. Oh shock, we didn't catch anything. But we got the "gist" of the new "Diver" gizmo thingy we bought so we could fish without the down rigger. We stopped by "You Dear" on the way back in to say hello to them on behalf of Ken & Kim. We met Peter and Gail and they were very nice.

Back to the boat. Did stuff, had dinner, and decided to stay another day. We decided that Takatz was a really great place because you were hidden in this lovely cove, but you still had a cell signal, and still had internet! How cool is that!

Several other boats arrived as well so apparently it is a popular place. We also had a couple of *big* yachts come in which was amazing. Fun to watch them stop, anchor, dump all the water toys (kayaks, jet ski's, inflatable dingy's) and then also have the accompanying fast boat / fishing boat. Not our peeps.

July 13, 2017

Greg went out first thing to collect the crab pots, and sadly still no keepers. There were 2 in the pots at least so they apparently do hold crab. When we left, we noted that another boat had anchored in the outside part of the cove last night after we were in. Wow! Three whole recreational boats is a new record!

The ride down into Peril Straight was lovely. Our plan was to go to Appleton Cove so that we could put the crab pots out there as we heard that others had been successful. But when we arrived, one of the fish boats had completely carpet bombed the whole cove with pots, and was actually in the process of checking them. There are so many pots that we had to pick through them to find a place to anchor. We also thought about going out into Peril Straight and doing some fishing there.

We had some lunch, and it started to sprinke/rain so then it was nap time for some. And then the wind came up and it was fairly unpleasant outside so we read some more. Late in the afternoon though, the wind died completely and the sun came out! We hopped in the dingy to take advantage of the opportunity. It was now high tide and so we went down to the flats at the end of cove. And sure enough, we saw Brown Bears! They are not a myth! They were still small even in the binoculars, but we could see 4 cubs and Mom. Just lazing around in the grass and sun. No photos as they were too far away. We did row closer up the "ocean stream", but then they appeared to retreat into the forest. Bella fortunately did not make good bear bait.

Back to Spellbound for dinner and ended up seeing a single bear back there. So we popped back into the dingy with cameras to see what we could see. The single one (male?) left by that time, but we could see the sow and 4 cubs hanging around. She knew we were there and kept an eye on us, but we were far enough away that we didn't bother her. Got some "proof" shots.

July 12, 2017 - Happy Birthday Jan!

We had a bit of a lazy morning since. Slack at Sergius Narrows wasn't until 2:00 so there was no point in leaving any earlier than what we needed to. We left around 10:15 and had a lovely cruise up. Even Salsbury Sound was flat at we went by. We did see a cruise ship, the EuroDam, tied up to the container dock just north of town, so now we know that they *do* get cruise ships in Sitka. We also actually saw a couple of other pleasure boats!

We arrived at the narrows early, but it wasn't an issue. We had heard two other boats over the radio go through ahead of us as well. While it Sitka, we saw a boat called "Evergreen" tied up at the dock. We recognized this boat from Rosario on Orcas Island. As we pulled into Baby Bear Cove, it was anchoring just outside the small "nook" and we waved.

Although it had been a clear ride up, it immediately started to pour. Greg put his full rain gear on and went to drop the crab pots. We now had some salmon as bait so he put out 3 pots, 2 with salmon and 1 with halibut as an experiment. The guy from "Seeker" had told us that he limited out when he left his pots there so we were very hopeful we might finally get our first crab. We had planned to go for a dingy ride and see the sights but each time the rain let up, it just started pouring again a couple of minutes later. It was like someone knew when we started to think about it. So we had tea/coffee and read and kept looking to shore to see what we could see. No Bears. Bears are a myth in Alaska.

Eventually it was too late, and we made a nice dinner and watched one of my favorite movies.

July 11, 2017

Mostly a chore day today, and not a good puppy day. We did laundry in the morning and then came back to the boat for a coffee and a short time with the pooper. Then back out again and had lunch at the hotel right above the harbor. They have a decent restaurant. Then a walk down to the "Bishops House".

This is now owned by the Forest Service and they had 2 rangers there. There was a downstairs that you could walk around on your own, and then they conducted tours of the upstairs. It has been completely restored to make it safe to go in, and has been furnished just as it was when the first Bishop from the Russian Orthodox Church was there. It is still "consecrated", but there are only a couple events a year done there.

Walking back towards town, we picked up a Christmas Tree Ornament from the Russian Christmas Store of course. Then to the grocery store to provision. We didn't need much because it really hasn't been that long since we provisioned last, just a few more new fruits and vegetables. Back to the boat to try and appease the puppy a bit. Raining harder so we needed to dry our pants a bit too.

We had been recommended a nice restaurant by John and Judy called Ludwig's. Greg made reservations for dinner tonight as soon as we arrived in Sitka. We knew we might be leaving on my actual birthday so we decided to have birthday dinner the night before. It's a very small quaint restaurant and only seats about 20 people. But the food is amazing! Uses local seafood and has a Spanish / Italian bent. Quite high end with an amazing ambiance. We ended up with several appetizers for dinner and a lovely chocolate torte with raspberry sauce and sea salt for birthday cake. Yum.

Back to the boat for some puppy attention before watching a movie and going to bed.

July 10, 2017

Slept in. Ended up doing a bunch of work on the computers and so were hanging out on board for most of the morning. Danny and Susan came by around lunch to say Hi and look at Cell phone amps. We needed to get out and so we left Miss B behind and went to the Backdoor Cafe for a coffee/tea and a sandwich. Then we walked up to the Alaska Raptor Center, which was a bit of a hike. We arrived in time for a walk around and video, then a look at the 20 bald eagles that were currently in the indoor flight area. The windows were all "one way" so they couldn't see us, but we could see them. They all had various injuries but were on their way to being released. And then a "presentation" with Narwal, the great horned owl.



Like most "rescue, rehab, and release" organizations, there are some animals that can't be released into the wild, and so if they are a candidate, they become "ambassador" animals. Narwal had a broken bone in his wing and he had surgery and was on the road to release. However due to the surgery, he ended up "too loud" when he was flying and so he wouldn't be able to get food as he would announce that he was coming! I thought that was quite surprising.

Then we walked over to a small shopping plaza for some dog treats and other things. Then a long walk back to the boat. We got our exercise today! Apple watch says 6.85 miles of walking.

July 9, 2017

We had to go through Sergius Narrows at 6:00am so we left around 5:20 in the morning. Just leaving the cove we saw that "Seeker" the cargo boat from Warm Springs had spent the night in Bear Cove and was straight ahead of us. So we let him go first and just followed. The ferry Manuska called us on the radio and asked if we would stay at the north end to let him through first and we of course said we would - that was our plan. After that there is one spot for about 20 minutes that is open to the real ocean, and so we zag-ed a bit and sped through it. Otherwise, the transit was fine, however surprise - it rained the whole way. We saw that "Stella Maris" was just leaving Sitka too! We had assumed they would stay until tomorrow, but they had decided to leave and go south and seek some sun. (This is becoming a common theme). We talked for a short while on the radio and they re-iterated that this was the worst summer they had encountered.

Had to call and find out where the fuel dock was. Of course once you know where it is, it's obvious It was raining hard when we arrived and we were not able to plug the electrical in because the power box was locked. Greg walked to the harbormasters office but it was closed on Sunday. We called on the radio and the harbormaster said they would come down and see if they could un-lock the box, but he didn't say when. So we ended up just hanging out on the boat and then having some lunch. The harbormaster did make it down a couple of hours later. Turns out he really likes Grand Banks boats and said some very nice things about Spellbound.

The rain slowed down and sorta kinda stopped so we decided to head out for a walk. We hadn't gone far on the dock before we noticed a boat registered in Thunder Bay, Ontario - a 42 Nordic Tug. Don't see that too often. There was a woman standing on the back swim step who saw us walking Bella and said she had her own doxie inside the boat. We ended up chatting about dachshunds and Canada for quite some time across the dock, and so she invited us over for a drink later.

We continued walking as best we could, but Bella was not helpful. We walked all through town, looked in a couple of shops that were open on a Sunday, down to the library and cruise ship area, and over to the Totem Park. It was a longish walk out there but seemed like a good idea.



There were quite a few large personal boats in Eliason harbor with us, plus a few smaller cruise ships in the harbor closer to town. There is a permanent National Geographic tour office plus another named one, inside the visitor center. We stopped and talked to some other dog people along the way as people asked about Bella.

It was close to 6:00 by the time we got back, so we thought we might be too late to stop by "Potest Fieri" for a drink. Susan was there and said "no problem" and Danny was just on his way back from the liquor store. We met their mini black & tan short haired doxie, "Lowla" too. What a real sweety. Lowla had back surgery last October, and was still recovering somewhat. She could walk, but her back end was a little "loose" and she was slightly wobbly. But she sat on my lap and cuddled with me so she must be a good girl. We had a great time talking with Susan and Danny. They bought the boat new in 2005 and spent 10 years boating on the East Coast all over. They have done the great loop 1.5 times, have been to the Bahamas in it, and all up and down the Coast and through the Great Lakes and Rivers. They were retired the whole time and seem to have boated ever since. They had the boat shipped to Victoria in December 2015 and started boating on this coast, and this year is their first time to Alaska as well. They made it up to Glacier Bay and are meandering back down.

We ended up talking dogs, boats, American tourism as a Canadian and food. They even made me a Caesar. With rim spices. I was impressed. We didn't end up leaving until after 10:00pm and no one had had dinner yet. Ooops. Back to Spellbound for a quick sausage dinner and to bed.

July 8, 2017

We listened to the radio in the morning and found out that the wind is coming up a bit tomorrow, so we decided to go further than anticipated and all the way into Peril Straight today. And so we ended up leaving earlier than Sleighride's 8:00am request, we left around 7:15 or so. Talking to Scott and Judy, they were going to leave early right after us as well.

Another long day but the weather was good and we had a cell signal for the majority of it which was nice. We did see some humpbacks in Northern Chatham Straight, and actually saw a group bubble feeding! (We might have a distant photo proof shot). It was a long way up and over and down again. Saw a few fishboats a long the way, but no other pleasure boats - everyone seemed to be headed south. It's certainly been a case of "what do they all know that we don't"!

Baby Bear cove is a bit of a path to get into, but was nice and protected when we got there. After sprinkling all day, there was blue sky and the sun came out! So we just sat on the flybridge to soak up the rays. Did some reading and maybe nodded off a bit enjoying the warmth.

Made a plan for going through the narrows the next day. Although it's "preferable" to go through at high slack, we decided to go through them at low slack so that we weren't coming into Sitka in the afternoon. That meant up at 5:00am and raising the anchor around 5:20. But this also meant leaving Baby Bear Cove at what was possibly a minus tide. The chart here is not that detailed and it shows that we came in through some shallow water which wasn't actually that shallow. But we hopped into the dingy and went over so the shallow spots with our dingy depth sounder and verified that there *was* actually lot's of water to leave in. Bak to Spellbound for dinner and an early night.

July 7, 2017

Ended up leaving a bit late, around 8:30. Greg picked up the crab trap - surprise! - no crabs. Had a pleasant ride down Frederick Sound - flat calm water for most of it. We stopped to see some humpbacks and some otters a long the way.

We didn't really time it right for our arrival though. It got a little windy as we entered Warm Springs Bay, and had to stop to let a humpback go by who was sitting inside there feeding. We managed to arrive at high tide, which is the wrong time. When it's high tide, the waterfall flows directly into the dock and causes some rockin' and rollin' and some current. Also, since we arrived so late, there was no room at the dock. Fortunately, a sailboat offered us to raft to them so we did. We met Scott and Judy on a sailboat called "Sleighride" from Astoria, OR. We managed to put out about 3,000 fenders and all was well. (But we had to turn off our furnace so we didn't melt their boat).



We had some lunch, and then went for a walk up the board walk to "scope things out". We walked up to the Lake where we met a nice family (and their lab Greta) who were there trout fishing. They have a cabin near Angoon and were just over on their skiff for the afternoon. They had some fishing suggestions for us and gave us some good information. We walked back down and then over to the hot pools - the "hot" one was really hot. Talking to a couple there, they said start at the slightly less hot one and then work your way into the "hot" one.

It was spritzing and then sprinkling and then raining on and off. We had dinner and then decided that we would try the "public" bath. They have 3 little "rooms" (bathhouses) where they have a locked door and a tub of water and a view out over the bay (with curtains). They have some hot water from the springs as well as some cold water from the stream. I had to add some cold to mine cause it was too hot to get in. When you're done, you take the plug out and let it drain and use the supplied brush to clean it out. Then you put the plug back in and then just turn the hot on and let it run. The "plug" is actually a tube that will drain when it get's to a certain height. Even when you turn the hot off, it still runs and everything just drains into the cove underneath the bath house. They ask for a donation for upkeep which seems reasonable.

Back to the boat we talk to Scott and Judy. They say that they have decided to only stay 1 day and want to start heading south tomorrow so want to untie around 8:00am. They have been coming to Alaska every summer for 9 years and this is the worst weather they have ever had. They're leaving early to find sunshine south. Hmmmm ……

There was a fair amount of activity around the dock until quite late. A cargo boat, "Seeker", had been unloading lumber for someone further in the bay, and so then they squeezed in and did a "med tie" on the inside. A sea plane landed and dispatched 3 people and so much "stuff", you had to wonder how it took off. Turns out it was people staying at their cabin. Then another smaller personal fishing craft came in just before bed and rafted somehow to it and another boat and let off a large group of people. It seems like we're either completely by ourselves, or in a hubbub of activity.

July 6, 2017

Long day. Left around 8:00am and got into the cove around 2:30. Put the crab trap out and then went for a dingy ride to look around. No one else there directly, but 1 boat from CA way over on the other side. There is a fishing lodge called the Pybus Point Lodge right at the entrance though and they had two skiffs out looking around as well.

Back to the boat to just hang out and relax and have a nap. Another boat showed up next to us. We did see several sea planes coming and going from the lodge. No bears.

July 5, 2017

We aimed to leave at 7:00 but it was closer to 7:30. Leaving the harbor there was low cloud and limited visibility all the way down the channel, so that meant very little wind and flat calms seas. Only 1 cruise ship passed us. We were originally going to go further south down the passage, however when we got out of the channel, the skies opened up and it was blue sky and sunny!! It's been a long time since we've seen the sun. So we decided to take the day and we we back to Taku Harbor instead. We wanted to try some fishing and enjoy a day in the sun for a change.

We got there pretty early, and then went out and put the crab pots in the water. Airship had caught 1 crab there a couple of days ago and so we thought our chances were good. Then we did a little tour in the dingy around the bay. The wind was up and quite strong coming into the bay from the north this time. Back to the boat for lunch.

Over the course of the afternoon, the place turned into a hot bed of boating activity. We had been the only boat around for so long, it was nice to know that other recreational boaters existed! A boat we saw in Tracy Arm, "Howdy", came in as did one with locals from Juneau. There was also a small boat that came in with 3 people who were staying in the shore cabin. An a Nordhavn flying a German flag anchored out. The gill net boats were everywhere, in and out, as well as their supply ship.

We decided it was time to test out the fishing gear, so Greg loaded up Bob and out we went to see if we could figure it out. It was quite rough and bumpy in the wind in Bob, but we at least eventually got the line out and the down rigger down. Greg certainly needed to figure out the routine given that there is no space to do this in the dingy. And we have this giant net leftover from charter times that takes up most of the room. So we did one run and came back in.

Then for a walk and talked to some folks, and then just sat in the sun. A beautiful older "yacht" called "Discovery" came in and docked right across from us. It does Alaska charters and was apparently stopping for the night. It was built in 1931 and was covered in varnished teak from stem to stern. Just lovely. So it was fun to watch them work and see what the guests wanted to do.

Eventually, the wind died down and it was lovely and warm. So we went out fishing again, to make sure we had the routine. It was still a little windy but not too bad if we stayed close. We trolled for about 1 hour with no strikes. Back to Spellbound and then Greg went out to check the crab pots - he had caught a flounder. We were able to sit on the flybridge again and have a beer, and then it was a late dinner. It stills cools down quite considerably at a night. The folks on Discovery were having their last night so they had a bit of a celebration - with Tequila. Fortunately, once in the aft cabin, we couldn't hear a thing.

July 4, 2017

We slept in. A lot. We ended up spending the morning working on the computers and doing some software support stuff. It rained and poured all morning. We decided to "lunch" at the same cafe though so bundled up, put my big girl rain pants on again, and off we went. We took Bella inside with us again, and ordered. Greg verified that it was OK for Bella to be inside, but the person this time was actually the owner who said, no we don't allow that. But it's OK this time since you're already in. OK.

We walked over to Foodland to finish up the grocery shopping and get some more ice. We brought the trolley to make it more feasible. Back to Spellbound.

I had exchanged some messages yesterday with a friend who works at NWE. Elvira was in Juneau for work and then taking a couple of days off afterwards. We left Spellbound all packed up again and started walking into town to do "something". I got a call from her and we arranged to meet in town for a beer. We tried a restaurant but it was closed for the holiday. Then we headed down to a place called "The Hangar". We sat and chatted with El and her friend Craig for awhile over beers. Greg and I ordered dinner but they had had a late lunch.

Walked back to Spellbound for an early evening in case anyone was doing more fireworks. Fortunately it was pretty quiet.

July 3, 2017

We talked last night about options, and one was to go to Juneau. For one thing, we were so close, it seemed just odd not to go. But we also decided that if we went, we could fuel up too. Although all our various calculations plus added conservatism said we were fine, well, it's just nice to have fuel.

The dock kept rocking all last night and the boat would occasionally slam against the lines, so Greg did not get a great sleep. We went out in the morning to talk to and meet the "AirShip" folks. Kevin and Laura run a flotilla and a Blog called slowboat.com with another person/boat Sam on "Safe Harbor". The flotilla officially ended in Sitka some time ago, but 3 of the boats including AirShip were still cruising around SE Alaska buddy boating. We knew "of" them but had never met them so had a nice chat. They were leaving to go south to Tracy Arm, Endicott, Fords Terror area. We confirmed that it was probably better ice wise to go that direction. We decided to go to Juneau at the last minute and left about 9:30.

It was really crappy leaving the harbor and we had to dodge some gill netters. It was pretty crappy out in Stephens Passage too but the wind and the swell were behind us so we just cranked up the speed and had a relatively OK cruise up towards Gatineau Channel. There were two cruise ships behind us, and then there were in front of us. We listened to them conversing on the radio for some entertainment.

We arrived at the fuel dock which is right across from the transient "Harris Harbor" around noon, and then pulled into our assigned slip around 12:45. We got all settled and then headed up to the Harbormaster's office to check in. It appears to be in the other direction from town though. We asked about the fireworks tomorrow, and found out that they were actually tonight, at midnight, right in front of the boat. Oh great. We thought about leaving on the 4th so we didn't have to deal with Bella and the fireworks, having no idea that some places to them early. Yeah, apparently it's a thing.

When we left, surprise, it was pouring rain. We walked towards a recommended coffee shop and got soaked. We were of course wearing full complete rain coats and boots, but our legs got completely soaked and of course Bella did too. Greg went inside to order coffee and lunch while I sat outside with her. But they offered to Greg that Bella could come inside if she would just sit there quietly. YES! We were able to warm up and dry at bit and use their free WiFi. Can't ask for more than that.

We walked over to the Foodland Grocery Store to pick up a couple things (milk) and to check and see what their hours were for the holiday tomorrow. Fortunately, they did not appear to recognize it

Back to the boat to warm up and dry off and clear out email. We thought about having a nap and decided that we shouldn't. Greg suggested going into town and going to the Red Dog Saloon and having a beer. A much better idea. So I put on my very fashionable rain pants (not!) and we called a cab. It was only raining and not pouring now but we were unsure exactly how far it was. Our cab driver told us that he said we were smart to go early as it was going to be busy later. He also said there were 7 cruise ships expected in tomorrow for the 4th, and there would be about an extra 20,000 people in town. He had taken the day off and wouldn't be working and was quite happy about it!




A small lineup to get in the Saloon that went quickly. The hostess spends the off season in Bellingham! They make sure that everyone has a seat in there so it was very comfortable. They had a singer / guitar player that was entertaining and certainly catered to the cruise ship crowd. It was very entertaining to sit and drink beer, have appy's, and watch. We left and walked around town for a while to case the place. It was just drizzling and fine now. We thought about having dinner but eventually just walked back to the boat. We saw people who had setup little tents to watch the fireworks and set off their own on the way back. Some folks had already started as we were walking. When we got back to the boat, Bella was listening to Enya and sleeping fine. We grabbed a light dinner and put a loud action James Bond movie on to watch. It seemed to drown out the fireworks for Bella.

I fell asleep only once in the movie, and it ended before midnight which was the main event. So we went to bed and played Enya off the computer as loud as we could. Bella was uncomfortable for some of the time when the booms happened between songs, and the main event fireworks were really loud. Then ended around 12:30 or so and so we were able to all get to sleep by 1:00.

July 2, 2017

It was a bit foggy when we first got up, but it had cleared by the time we left around 7:30. We were headed up Tracy Arm to see if we could see the glacier. It's about 25 miles up the Arm and so it's a "project". It was a bit windy when we left but not too bad. By the time though that we got to the 2nd to last bend, the ice bergs were thick enough that we had to go in and out of idle to steer around them. We reached to about the next bend where we could barely see Sawyer Island, but there was this "wall" of small ice bergs. Greg got on the bow and we nudged up to one to see if he could move it aside with the boat hook. Hah! Fat Chance. I got the turn around sign. Not *this* fiberglass boat.

We were in a narrow spot and it was even hard to turn around. Then we twisted our way back through the maze again and then eventually into slightly clearer water and then to reasonably clear. But the bergs persisted. We had flat calm glass conditions for the entire way back. We also talked to a mini cruise ship that was heading up, the Wilderness Adventures.

Back out through the channel where there was 1 big berg right smack in the middle of the channel - fortunately there was still lots of room to go around it. It was pleasant enough back in Stephens Passage for awhile, but slowly the wind came up again from the South. By the time we reached the Taku Harbor entrance, it was 20kts.



There were quite a few boats on the dock which was surprising. We have barely seen any other pleasure boats cruising around here. Low and behold, it was half of the "SlowBoat" flotilla, which is now down to 4 boats.

We tied up and immediately went for a walk on the trail to stretch ours and Bella's legs. We ran into the group at the cabin and by that time, it was raining pretty hard. Not a very chatty group, most headed back to their boats and we spoke briefly to Laura.

By the time we got back to our boat (Bella walked the whole way), it was really pouring and the wind was up again and was blowing straight into the harbor. All the boats were rocking and rolling at the dock and there were white caps inside. Not particularly fun. So we had beer and crackers and cheese and listened to the weather report. Not that great but not that bad for the next 2 days and what we were experiencing wasn't happening. The good news is that my cold is a bit better.

Short nap, reading, Blog. Dinner. Wind down a bit but still rocking.

July 1, 2017

Happy Canada Day!

It rained pretty hard last night but took a break this morning. Shortly before we were to leave, the wind came up inside the cove which was weird. Not much, just 5kts, but we had seen nothing other than 0.4 so far. When we got out of the cove it started building up like it was some sort of storm and we had 20kts of wind. Whaaaa? Then we got out into the passage a little bit and it all went away, back to 2kts or something. We think it may have been more outflow from the bay further south.

We had an uneventful ride up to Tracy Arm Cove. There were icebergs out in Stephens Passage as we made our way into Tracy Arm. When we arrived in the cove, we were disposed to stay to the West, because apparently there is a bar into the cove and the big bergs are supposed to get caught on the bar and not go there. But of course there was a big berg on the west side and and nice calm spot on the East side, so we went there instead.

We had coffee and lunch and then relaxed in the cabin. It varied between sprinkling and pouring rain and Greg kept thinking he should go out in the dingy and do something, but it never did happen. We were visited by two young Forest Rangers to came over to say Hello and make sure we were doing OK and did we need anything. They were very friendly and talked about what they were doing there. They had just gone for a walk in "the nook" and had been collecting trash, and now they were visiting each of the boats that were anchored in the cove. They were on their way back to Harbor Island which is where their base camp is. Apparently, they also sometimes camp at the head of the arm where the glacier is as part of their job. One mentioned how loud the glacier is when you are camping. She also mentioned that there was a lot of ice and that it would be difficult to go past Sawyer Island.

Then about 4:00pm, the wind came up and whipped up the cove. It was coming from the south west-isa and so the boat was facing into it, but the chop was coming into the cove so we were getting it broadside and the boat was rockin'. Probably should have anchored on the West side of the cove, but it was hard to tell for sure. It was *not* fun, and quite uncomfortable and of course, not in the forecast. Bella was not happy. Fortunately, our anchor was set well and so we just waited it out. It calmed down around 8:30 or so and so we had a quiet night.

June 30, 2017

This morning, there was a National Geographic small cruise ship anchored near Spray Island. We had thought about anchoring there ourselves, ….., but didn't. We had planned on leaving early, but left later than we hoped, around 7:45. It took an hour to get out of Thomas Bay and into Frederick Sound. We had some rolly polly's initially, and then it flattened out again. We got a nice push from the Ebb and made good time. The Douglass book said to expect some mixed currents once we reached Cape Fanshaw, but it was just fine. Once out in Stephens Passage though, it got a little choppy, but not too bad. Although the forecast has been winds from the south for forever now, there was a small wind from the north. When we passed Port Houghton though, there seemed to be quite an outflow and we had small waves on our beam.

We thought we would check out Hobart Bay, specifically a small cove on Entrance Island. We had talked to Carmine on "Sleepless" in Petersburg and this is where he caught his inflatable dinghy on a metal something or another. But he said they had not seen the "right" float that they should have been at until after it was too late. So we nosed into the cove at low low tide to take a peak. It was dead calm and lovely so we inched our way towards the float. Initially, Greg thought it looks submerged, but it wasn't, it's just riding REALLY low in the water. We knew we couldn't get any less water under the keel so we just kept going forward towards it and watching the depth sounder. We stayed on the outside of the float and we had 5' on the depth sounder so it was fine.

We wolfed down some lunch as soon as we got there, say around 1:00pm. There is a house on land a stones throw from the dock. It was calm and still and quiet and really lovely. We watched the birds for a while and listened to the king fishers complain about the intrusion. We had another quiet afternoon on the boat as Greg had a nap, and I read and downed some Hall's cough candies.

Our anemometer has been only showing apparent wind and not true wind, so Greg messed with that a little bit. Then he went out for a dingy ride to take a look around. I thought about going, but Bella and I stayed behind to write a Blog and read. He found another boat inside the Bay and also found the "thing" that "Sleepless" had looked at tying up to. Dinner and some shows in a very cute lovely cove.

June 29, 2017

We wanted to wait until closer to slack to leave Petersburg, so we had some time in the morning. We headed back up to Java Hus to have a coffee and abuse their WiFi. Between the 2 of us, we downloaded the whole next season of "Orange is the New Black". There was an "American Cruise Lines" cruise ship in town so there were a lot of people around. We spoke to one woman and she said it carried 88 passengers. Apparently you can notice 88 extra people in Petersburg. We also had a rather talkative local tell us his life story. He used to fish full time until he retired, which is a good thing because now there are no more fish. It's the whales. Now that there are so many whales around, they are eating the fry and so there are no fish coming back to fish. Need to start hunting humpback whales again he says.

We of course had "The B" with us, so sat outside. I think it was too soon for my cold to sit outside for awhile and I started feeling quite lousy. Back to the boat and we headed out around 11:45. Nice crossing over to Thomas Bay. Holy crap what a huge Bay. We cruised up to the northern section and took a look at Baird Glacier, and into Scenery Cove which was only somewhat scenic - it had an abandoned catamaran anchored in it, and you couldn't really see much. So back down to the south end where we had planned to anchor for the night. A small cruise ship boat was coming in as we passed the entrance, and it could have been the ACL boat but we're not sure. We decided to go right to the anchorage just in case it was also spending the night in there, and arrived around 3:00pm. Driving around the large bay, you could "feel" the water getting colder. We saw the temperature go from around 44 down to 36. It was quite "milky" with all the glacier runoff.

I was feeling pretty crappy and, oh surprise, it was raining out and so I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything. Greg put a crab trap in the water since the place was "filthy" with crab traps, and then we sat on the couch and I got out my blankey, coughed up a lung, and we watched television. (The ones that were about to expire). Just before dinner, Greg checked on the crab trap and got nothin'. We had some of the halibut on the BBQ for dinner which was lovely. Even some vegetables too.

June 28, 2017

A late-ish morning doing stuff on the computer - we paid for 24 hours of a WiFi hotspot here. Turns out it was probably not worth it. Today was errands and just walking around and soaking in Petersburg. We didn't really need to, but decided to do a bit of laundry at the laundromat. On the way up the ramp, we ran into Carmine from "Sleepless" who we had met on Stella Maris in Wrangell. It turns out he had damaged his dinghy after leaving here, so had returned to get it repaired. He was certainly going to need a dingy for the rest of the trip! Talked to some folks at the laundromat from M/V Cheryl Lynn who were with us in Wrangell and who also came up here yesterday. Fairly nice laundromat.

Then down the street to a Cafe for lunch. We had a cranky owner/waitress and absolutely wonderful smoked salmon chowder and cinnamon roll bread pudding! Then, along to the Java Hus for a coffee, but also to check out and use their WiFi. We were able to download some Netflix shows there! We saw a sign at the laundromat for a hair salon, so we walked to the courthouse building and Greg got a haircut. We continued walking down towards the South Harbor to see the town. Ran into Carmine there again and had a chat. Then walked up to the grocery store which is a bit of a hike. But the "mall" there is quite nice and the grocery store is fabulous.



Then a walk back to the boat for dinner. Some of our netflix shows are expiring (after 30 days) so we needed to watch a few of them before they did. Relaxing evening and a nice dinner onboard. We probably won't have cell/internet for awhile so no Blog updates either.

June 27, 2017

Well, it didn't rain today! It was grey and cool, but no rain. We cleaned up a bit in the morning and did email and blog posts and then went over to Stella Maris to look at their photos from a previous trip to the Anan Bear Observatory. They had had a fabulous bear experience there a couple of years ago, and so it was great to see what it *can* look like. We were just too early when we went, which we knew. So we have resolved to go again on the way back down. Ken and Kim and Emilie came over to say goodbye and safe travels. We got ourselves together and left with Stella Maris around noon.

Wrangell Narrows is a "right of passage" for mariners. And we passed. We had a nice cruise following Stella Maris over to the entrance and then up the narrows. It was pretty empty of traffic so a complete non issue. We did time it so that we arrived in Petersburg about the same time as slack though so that helped. We went into it for a while, and then got a big push going up the narrows.

The harbor master assigned Stella Maris to the South harbor, and we were assigned to the North harbor. We got in around 5:15 or so. There was still some current at the dock which seemed to come and go as we were approaching - just kept me on my toes. We walked up to the harbor office and checked in - we're not sure if we are staying 1 night or 2 so we just kept it open.

Back down to Spellbound where we fed Bella and then waited for John and Judy. They came on board and we chatted for a while and they made the mistake of agreeing to see photos of our "rebuild" project. They think we have a new boat. Up to Papa Bears for pizza for dinner. It was pretty good. Petersburg has a reputation of not having any restaurants for people to eat at - which is quite odd really. The population here is double that of Wrangell, but apparently no one eats dinner out

We think we'll stay a 2nd day here. We're probably not going to stop again, and so it just seems weird to be here and not actually see anything of the town. Maybe it's not worth seeing the town (!), but we'll have to find that out for ourselves

June 26, 2017

Fooled you. You thought we were going to leave Wrangell today. Well so did we! But we got a phone call from Ken in the morning. He had received a phone call from Rachel who said that they were planning a dance / presentation at Chief Shakes House at noon today, and would we be interested in going! There was a $15 each fee. Their next scheduled one was June 30th for the cruise ship and Ken would not be around then, so they wanted to go, and we did too as it was a great opportunity. The thought was that depending on how long it went and how we were feeling, we could motor over to Roosevelt Inlet afterwards. (Yah, didn't happen). We also asked if John and Judy from Stella Maris would be interested and could they come as well and that was all fine too.

So we worked on the computers and did some boat stuff and oh surprise, it was sprinkling. We met Reiki Master at the top of the ramp and Ken drove themselves to the Harbor and we started walking. Then he came back and got the 4 of us and drove us the rest of the way. Some other folks from a B&B joined us, and then another woman joined us as well for a total of 10. We listened to Arthur, Virginia, and Lou take turns telling us about themselves, the Tlingit history, and the house. There was a small short dance and song that was part of one done for the recent re-dedication in 2013. We learned that it took 3 woman, 3 years to "adze" the boards needed for the sides. 22,000 strikes per board. It was a great presentation and everyone really enjoyed it. They stopped and took questions all the way through so it was quite interactive. A lot of times, a question resulted in answers to many other things!

We went our separate ways afterwards and the 5 of us went looking for lunch. We tried the "new" pizza place but there was no where to sit down. So we walked over to Zac's Cafe which Ken and Kim had never been to either. It had tables and was warmer and was fine. It was close to 2:30 and so we headed over to the "Nolan Center" which is the museum. Ken went back to the boat but the 4 of us wandered through. We were all surprised at the number of people that were in there. The town was less "ghost town" today and stores were open. For the size of the town, the museum was quite incredible. Everything was quite new and so you could tell that they were investing in the community.

Back to the boat around 4:00 and it's still sprinkling. We started planning "The Narrows" trip so we were prepared for the next days travels. And we had invited the Reiki Master folks for dinner, so we started preparing that. Our classic standby - Turkey Burritos. We opened some wine and had a nice visit. A relatively early evening for everyone. Sure nice to have internet!

June 25, 2017

We spent another day here in Wrangell as we hadn't really seen anything of the town yet. One of the attractions here is the petroglyph beach. The best time to see them is a low tide, as they can get covered at high tide. So after Ken, Kim, and Emilie went to drop off some fish at the cold storage place, they came back and picked us up at the boat around 9:30.

The 5 of us and 2 dogs piled into Ken and Kim's 2 seater truck and we headed down to the beach. There are personal homes right next to the entrance and the deck and walkway was littered with small children's toys. We wandered around and found as many as we could and spent time trying to figure out what they represented. Ken saved the "orca" one till last. It has been moved up above the high tide area so reduce the erosion on it.



Then we headed back into town and parked at the Stikine Inn. Greg and Ken headed off to the hardware and marine stores to replace the bilge pump we gave him. Emilie and Kim and I wandered the town. Pretty much everything is closed on a Sunday so it was a complete ghost town, however the main store, Angermans, was open and we were able to shop a bit in there. They had a great selection of clothes and gifts, but surprisingly, I didn't buy anything.

We continued to walk through town looking in the store windows and to catch up to Ken and Greg. We stopped at the cultural center to admire the small totems outside that were being worked on. There was a woman inside doing some sewing on a sewing machine, however it looked pretty much closed. But she ended up opening the door for us and welcoming us all inside for a look. She introduced herself as Rachel. The building is new and was built to house and cover some other totems that had been taken down. They were in various places but were rotting and needed to be taken down as they were a safety hazard. It was great to be able to look at them up close and to see the different "forms". They had modern ones as well as old ones.

There is a cemetery near the harbor where the white folks are buried in rows in a grassy area, and the natives are buried in the adjacent forest. Kim and Ken end up walking there with the dog fairly often. At one point, Kim asked Rachel if she knew anything about a grave site that Kim was fascinated with there, "Emma", who had a lovely frog engraved on her tombstone. It turns out that Emma was Rachel's Grandmother! Ken also mentioned his book and how he had dedicated it to the local Tglinkit (sp?) tribe. Rachel asked if they had ever seen inside Chief Shakes house (a longhouse in the harbor) and they had not and of course we hadn't either. So she offered to meet us there and open it up for us.



So we walked back to the truck and then drove over to the harbor to meet her. It has be restored many times and was just restored again in 2015(?), so it was really lovely. The inside totems and the artwork stored there and the stories were fascinating. My favorite where the hanging lamps that used "hooligan" oil to burn (a small fish).




OK, gotta move this Blog along! Then we drove back to the Stikine Inn and had a late lunch. The portions are huge and the food really good. Then back towards the harbor with a stop at the most recent Chief Shakes grave. Parked at the harbor and walked over to the cemetery so that the 3 of us could also see "Emma's" grave. Cool frog.

The Reiki Master gang went back to have a nap, and we headed back to Spellbound. But we had exchanged some text's with our new friends John and Judy on Stella Maris. They had arrived on the dock yesterday and we had said that we would try and catch up with them today. So we walked a few feet down the dock to say hello to them. They had met some other people at church that morning and so we also met Carmine and Carol on "Sleepless" who came over as well. We all talked boats and routes and waves.

Back to Spellbound to make some salsa to take as a appetizer over to Reiki Master where they again served dinner. But it was also movie night, so we watched "The Hundred Foot Journey" which was great. Probably should have done better than it did, but it's a "feel good" movie so …..

Back to Spellbound after another surprisingly busy day given that it was supposed to be a bit of a "down day". Our plan is to move to Roosevelt Bay tomorrow.

June 24, 2017

At dinner last night, we all talked about what everyone was doing next. I had mentioned that I really wanted to do a Stikine River tour while we were in Wrangell. It turns out that Ken and Kim had not done one yet, and Emilie was interested as well. There was a sign on a boat at the end of the dock that advertised jet boat tours, so Ken called and the 5 of us were set for today. It was $175 each but I figured …. when in Rome right?

We met at 9:00 and helped him get some fuel and then went to the Stikine Inn dock and picked up a 6th passenger, Kyle, who works for the forest service and who we had met at the Anan Bear Observatory. He had the weekend off and was also interested in the tour. Oh, of course it was raining.

It turns out that this morning was a fairly low tide, even by Alaskan measures. And the delta where the river flows into the ocean is *really* shallow. So Mark (and others) have a "track" that they follow on their chart electronics that they know was deep "enough" the day before. Mark hadn't been out for awhile and so was planning on going out and making a new track today or the next anyway, so he would have one for the next tour. Suffice to say, even Mark was a tad …. mmmm … mindful of the track we were taking. He requested that we all wear our seatbelt's in case we did find ground unexpectedly. It's rather odd to be traveling around in a boat in the wide wide open space of brown water, and see your boat zigzagging through some "imaginary" path. But it wasn't imaginary. The boat draws around 1' when it's going fast, and 2' when it's going slow. So contrary to my boating style, when it get's shallow you speed up. The operator all talk to each other and it wasn't long before we heard and then saw one of the other operators high and dry (without passengers)

About half way through, he pulled up to the sand bar above and we "borrowed" the pit toilet from a USFS cabin there. It's their "administrative" cabin. Hah! The boys used the tree's.



Then we keep going up the river towards the Chief Shakes Lake, where the Shakes glacier is. The ice bergs have floated down and are sitting where they can't go any further down the river. Apparently sometimes there can be so many that it kinda "blocks" the area - not getting in, but getting out! Not so today. Mark grabs the obligatory small berg and places it on the back of the boat so we can all touch it. Traditionally you take it back to have ice in your "cocktails", but … it was a little early.



Then on up to the glacier itself where we spent quite a bit of time hanging out, looking at the scenery and taking too many photo's of the ice and each other. The air coming off the glacier was much cooler - very Thankful for the heater on the boat at this point. Would run in and out of the cabin to not get "too" cold.



Back down and then Mark took us to an area where there was a river running out and an area where campers or someone had lit a campfire. It was mostly a leg stretching exercise but it was a cool location.



Moving right along! We got the bow of the boat all muddy so then Mark took the boat right up to a small waterfall and ran the front of boat right into it to wash it off. I got video! Then a bit of a long ride back, but at this point the tide was up so we only had to follow the "track" back out again for a short while and then we could just zip right over the delta back to the harbor(s).

No one had eaten yet and it was about 3:00pm. The Reiki Master crew decided to head over to the Stikine Inn for a big late lunch, however since "Miss B" had been locked up along for so long, we decided to pass and just have lunch on the boat. It was rainy and grey. I had woken up this morning with a stuffy nose and a sore throat and cruising around in a drizzle had not exactly helped. So I wrapped up in a blanket and we hung out and worked on email and read a bit.

Around 6:00 we walked over to Reiki Master to say hello and catch up. We found Ken buried in the bilge trying to figure out why his bilge pump was not working properly. Like many things, it kinda worked but really kinda didn't. And in the rain, they get fresh water in their bilge. And their "high water" alarm had gone off that morning and they ended up "bucketing" a bunch of water out before leaving on the jet boat. Fixing the bilge pump turns into a "project". Greg goes back and forth to Spellbound a couple of times to get more tools, and eventually a new spare pump. With the alarm going off periodically, Bella turns into an anxiety mess, so I brought her back to Spellbound for dinner and to stay again. Kim and Emilie were watching a movie, "Becoming Jane" and so they graciously restarted it so I could catch up. Kind of a chick flick, but Ken and Greg ended up only watching the last half hour or so. Back to Spellbound for a late light dinner and then to bed.

June 23, 2017

It was an absolutely gorgeous morning in the Bay. Blue Sky and warm right from the start. Ken went out to check his crab traps first thing, and had 2 keepers. Greg checked ours but no keepers. He is not surprised, it's a gift.

So we are invited over to Reiki Master for crab for lunch. Before that, it's showers and I made some strawberry and rhubarb crumble. (Had to make room in the freezer for halibut). Ken brought the cooler full of guts over to our boat so Greg could take what he wanted to save for crab bait. Man, there were a lot of guts. Yucky guts. So he made up some baggies of stuff and then the rest went overboard. Then he cleaned the cooler out - yuck! And then we had to find more room in the freezer for the bait too!

Greg put the fishing rod in the water for a while, but nothing interesting. We could see Kim and Emily on Reiki Master do the same, but there was nothing happening for anyone today. We had fresh cooked crab and garlic toast for lunch on Reiki Master and then we all packed up to leave around 1:15. There was a slack at "The Narrows" at 13:50 so we wanted to be there around then. We ended up arriving in Wrangell around 4:00 and it was an uneventful ride over. A bit of wind and current but not much. Once around Wrangell it was no wind and glassy and really warm.

Ken brought over some halibut that they had left out for tonights dinner. We offered to cook dinner since they had been hosting everything for the past couple of days. So we got caught on on email, the weather, and events in the world for about an hour and then started preparing dinner. Ken, Kim, and Emily came over around 6:00 for dinner and we even sat on the flybridge for some beers an appetizers first! It was that warm. Then we all squeezed into the salon for dinner and dessert.

June 22, 2017

An eventful day today! We pulled up anchor around 9:30 to head over to Anna Bay and the "famous" Bear Observatory. It took us just under 2 hours to get there. It is also "famous" for not being a great place to anchor and the recommendation is to leave someone on the boat when you go ashore. But the conditions were near perfect and Kim was going to stay on Reiki Master anyway since "she doesn't do bears" and so Ken, Emily, Greg, and I all went ashore, leaving Bella to guard Spellbound.

It's not actually open yet as it's a bit early in the season, so we didn't need a permit yet. Ken spends a lot of time in the "back country" and has a "bear gun" and he had that with him. Greg and I had our weapon of choice - whistles. It's about a 1/2 mile trail along boardwalk to get back to the area of the river and the viewing platforms and Ken recommended that we keep talking and making noise along the way. Wouldn't want to surprise a bear. We got to the end and unfortunately, but not surprisingly, there were no bears there yet. But the sun came out and it was a beautiful blue sky and warm and an incredibly scenic location.




Back to the boats and Kim had prepared chicken soup for everyone for lunch! (She keeps feeding us!). We pulled up anchor and headed down Ernest Sound towards Blake Channel. This is also the "back way" that will eventually take you to Wrangell. We had decided to anchor in Berg Bay for the night. We went into the head of the bay and there is another USFS float and cabin here. There is apparently a trail and a hike up to a lake (that's nice).

After watching Kim fishing of the back of the boat while at anchor yesterday, Greg decided it was time to pull out the fishing poles that we had brought and see how they work. We just had some squid for crab pot bait so pulled one of those out and cut it into a few pieces to put on the hook of our "jig". Neither one of us are remotely knowledgeable about fishing and didn't really know what we were doing, but hey, ya gotta start somewhere. There were certainly things down there as they were able to pull on the bait and take it, but not get caught on the hook. We fed the whole squid, plus another herring that Greg dug out, to whatever was taking down there. And we caught a piece of bark too. That's it.

In the mean time, Kim and Emily are fishing off the back of Reiki Master again while Ken is ashore with Chibby. We hear a lot of excitement at one point, and we see Kim struggling to bring in something heavy. We both pull out binoculars to watch the action. The fish comes to the surface and Emily takes the pole from Kim. All of a sudden the net goes away and Kim goes to get the "gaff". Then she starts back to the back of the boat and then goes back in again. We hear a call on the radio to Spellbound - "It's too big! I need help!". So Greg jumps in the dingy and heads over. She has a very large halibut on the line and she gave Greg the gaff while she reels it in again. No, Greg has never been that close to a halibut in his life and has no idea how to "gaff" it. She told him to get it through the gills. Greg places the gaff in that general area but it slides into it's mouth/jaw, which promptly rips open and the hook and the gaff slide right through and the fish sinks nicely back down into the water. Gone. Greg felt just awful. Kim was just fine with it. She was so excited that a halibut that big was in this bay! Keep fishing.

Ken came back with Chibby and he started fishing too. About half and hour later, we hear some hooping and hollering and we watch through the binoculars again. Ken brings the line to the back of the boat and reels it in. There are some more whoops. Kim takes the rod and Ken grabs the gaff. They have caught another large halibut and we watch to see how it's done. When it gets up close to the back of the boat, Ken uses a full swing "I'm chopping firewood" kind of motion to try and gaff it. He has to try several times to get it as he misses in the heavy swing. There was no chance that Greg was ever going to get the first fish after watching Ken with this one. Finally, after more reeling in and swinging, he get's it and slides / drags it up the couple of stairs onto the back deck of the boat. It's huge and it starts thrashing around wildly. Kim stands behind it so that it can't slide back off the boat. At this point we can't see anything and just listen to a lot of whooping and laughter. Once things have calmed down, we hop in the dingy and head over to see the action up close.



They had measured the length of the halibut which then gives you the weight - 77 lbs. I think it was 54" long. The same table says that a fish that big will give you 58 lbs of meat! Oh my! No one more than Greg was so happy that they caught another large halibut. No, this is not a place where you would expect to catch halibut. This is the largest one that Kim and Ken have ever caught too!



After "bonking it" and "bleeding it", they just left it in that big cooler while we had dinner. Kim had already pulled some halibut and yellow eye out of the freezer to make fish and chips for dinner (we brought the chips). So we did that and then everyone pulled up their socks to start "processing" the fish. Ken and Greg did the filleting, then Kim skinned the fillets, then Emily cut the giant fillets into 2 person serving sizes. Then I ran their vacuum sealing machine and made a little bag for each serving, put the fish in, then vacuum sealed it up again. The whole process probably took 1.5 hours with the 5 of us. I'd estimate that we made over 70 packages of fish. Greg and Ken kept the leftovers in the cooler as we were going to package up some of it to use for crab bait. Kim started labelling the fish and putting it in their freezer. Then they gave us a shopping bag full of little packages for us to put in our freezer.

Still light out, we headed back to Spellbound around 9:30 - the plans for movie night foiled.

June 21, 2017

We were able to sleep in, relatively speaking. It rained last night and was sprinkling this morning. Through the magic of the internet, Greg received a text from his cousin who lives in Red Deer. She was on a cruise ship in Juneau and found out that we were in Alaska. After a couple of text's back and forth, we found out that she was on one of the cruise ships that was in town on the day we left Ketchikan! If only we had known!

We left around 9:00 and headed around the corner down Ernest Sound. It was a bit lumpy right outside Meyers Chuck and going around the corner, but not too bad. Down the sound about an hour, it flattened right out into smooth sailing. We had arrange to meet Ken&Kim in Zomovia Cove for the evening, so we took the scenic route around Deer Island and checked out Santa Anna Inlet. It was like glass through the Seward Passage area, and we even saw some canoeists paddling around. When we came back on the topside of Deer Island though, Ernest Sound had already got a little choppy. The "Sounds" and "Straights" up here are so big and long that they are easily affected by wind over tide. Once on the other side, it was calm again.

Ken and Kim on their 42' Africat Power Catamaran, Reiki Master, were already in the cove when we arrived, and they invited us over for lunch. So we anchored Spellbound around the corner and dropped the dingy to head over. We brought cookies and Kim served a great lentil soup. They have a childhood friend of Kim's visiting with them, Emily. So we chatted and caught up and then Kim and Emily did some fishing of the back of the boat while Greg and Ken messed with the generator which wasn't starting. The two of them got it working and we enjoyed some warm sunshine on the back of the boat. Kim caught a small flounder and Emily caught a couple of crabs! (not legal).

We came back to Spellbound to make sure everything was in order and Greg put out a crab trap. We cooked up the rest of our prawns to bring back over to Reiki Master for an appetizer. Kim served up some "yellow eye" fish tacos for dinner which was lovely. Back to Spellbound for a quiet night.

June 20, 2017

Yup, it's really called Meyers Chuck.

We left the dock around 6:30 to be at the Fuel dock (south) when it opened at 7:00. Had to traverse back down the harbor to get there. Picked up around 228 gallons of diesel and then left there around 7:45 to head North. It was a little windy but we made sure we were going in the same direction as both the wind and the current so hoped it wouldn't be too bad. It started getting lumpy just as we reached Guard Island, and crossing Behm Canal was pretty rockin' and rollin'. I'd say the Bella meter was about a 4. Fortunately, it didn't last too long and the current and wind got back directly behind us and the seas flattened considerably. We reached the entrance to Meyers Chuck just "in time" as the current had started going in the other direction and the seas were picking up again.

A bit of a tricky entrance here but fine. There was room on the dock behind a big Krogen that acted as a bit of a wind break which was nice. Cost for overnight here was $9.42. We went for a short walk and went up to the "Gallery" but it is only open if you call "Cassie" - she'll come over and open it up for you.




We saw a cool "art display" on the way over with a spider web and a metal spider in it. There is a mix of full size houses and small cabins, but the place was empty and we didn't see anyone else.

Back to the boat for lunch and then Greg had a nap while I read my book. It was a bit gusty out but it wasn't raining hard. The Krogen in front of us was called "Adventurous Ohana" which of course meant they lived in Hawaii at some time. We ended up meeting "Dan" on the dock and had a nice chat. They left Anacortes about 60 days ago and are going to stay around this general area for awhile until they pick up their grand kids in Ketchikan. He said they've not had good weather at all and have had rainy days for 56 out of the 60 they've been away. His wife is tired of rain so they're not going any further north. Hmmmmmm …..

One of the other great things about Meyers Chuck is that they have a "tower" here on the point to deliver cell phone coverage to the straight. So we have good phone service and … internet!! (Happy Jan). Another boat arrived in the rain, a Nordic Tug. Cassie also delivers cinnamon buns to the boats in the morning if you order them the night before. But she has a minimum of 8, so Dan and "Fred" arranged to get 8 buns between the 3 boats.

June 19, 2017

Pouring rain last night. Still pouring for most of the morning. We stayed in the boat and did some trip planning and trying to figure out where and when to go next. Probably Meyers Chuck. We also exchanged some email with our friends Kim & Ken who live in Wrangell, and made arrangements to meet them Wednesday in a small cove near Wrangell.

Today was a dedicated chore day. Around 11:00 it had stopped raining, so we headed on up to Safeway to provision with more fruits and veggies now that we are across the border. Also picked up a few other supplies at Tongas Marine Hardware. Back to the boat to unload them and put them all away. It takes awhile on the boat as you have to find room for things and organize at the same time.

Then we packed up all the laundry and went up to the laundry mat. Excitement galore. During the dry cycle, Greg headed back to Safeway to get beer and ice. It started to pour again. Fortunately, we managed to make it back with all our stuff during a small lull / sprinkle. Put away the laundry. Some downtime and more chores. I got stuff ready for dinner and Greg did engine checks, filled the water tanks, and checked the water maker filters. Dinner. TV Show. Early to bed.

June 18, 2017

The first order of business was to go back to sleep. We had a late and lazy morning catching up with showers and email etc. It was beautiful and sunny and warm again today, so we decided we had better take the most advantage of it we could and go walk around outside! We headed out around 11:30 or so and walked up to the bus stop at the mall. The city provides a free "hop on hop off" bus throughout the downtown area and this marina is at the far western end. We showed up with Bella in Greg's arms and they had no problems with us bringing her on the bus.

It was a "3 cruise ship day" in town and so it was quite crowded. We looked for a "local" coffee shop and were directed to "Frickin Chicken" (yes, really) and we had coffee and bagels for lunch in a lovely patio. Then in was time for a walk. So we walked over to the Creek Street area and walked the boardwalk and looked in the windows of all the shops. Then walked up to the Totem Heritage Center and down to the Fish Hatchery (not open yet) and did the basic walking tour of Ketchikan.

It was 3:30 by the time we made it back into town. It was now a ghost town! One cruise ship had already left and the other 2 ships were "preparing" to leave so all the passengers needed to be on board already. A lot of shops were closed, sidewalks rolled up. We watched while one of the cruise ships was waiting to go, but were still missing two people. The local agent and port security were scouring the area looking for anyone who looked like they were to be on board. Eventually found, we watched the cruise ship leave the dock. Big thrusters moved it sideways into the channel, and then it was able to motor northward. The other cruise ship needed to turn around before it could go northward and we thought it would be fun to watch that, but it apparently waited much longer than we wanted to.

Took the bus back to the boat for 5:00, fed the dog and grabbed a bite, and then headed back out again. There is a race called "Race 2 Alaska" (www.r2ak.com) which is a "no motor" race from Port Townsend, WA to Ketchikan. Human and wind powered vessels only. Winner get's $10,000 and second place get's a set of steak knives. We've seen some of the vessels in previous years of cruising, but this year we are at the finish line. The winner came into Ketchikan on Thursday, the day before we got here. But vessels are still arriving. Although the race is planned out of Port Townsend, Ketchikan has decided to "own" the 2nd place prize. And they had an open "block party" tonight in celebration of all the people who participated. It was free and they had music by Ray Troll and the Batfish Wranglers. Ray Troll is a pretty famous artist and I like his images, so we thought it would be fun to see what his "band" sounds like.

Back on the bus into town to the "logging show" venue. The set totally reminded me of the old PNE logging show we would go to as kids with a pool with logs in it that people would stand on, big stumps that they would climb up etc etc. They had some talks and some rah rah stuff, and then the band. Just after we got there, they had a "special guest" who started the set which a spectacular version of "Major Tom", and then they did a bunch of rock cover stuff including Prince, and then some original stuff which was more folk. It was fun, and as I said to Greg, regardless of the music, the whole event got a 9.5 out of 10 on the people watching scale.

Bus had stopped running by the time we left, so we had to walk back. It's about 1.5 miles apparently, but it didn't take long. The evening was still nice and warm. We got back to the boat around 8:00 and watched the rest of the movie that we didn't finish the night before. (It was just OK).

June 17, 2017

Anyone who actually reads this Blog knows that I'm not a morning person. So it was with great difficulty that I woke up for the 2nd day in a row at 5:30am after a not very good sleep. Fortunately, Greg learned a long time ago to not ever expect sunshine and smiles so we just did our routine and got out the door. Turns out, the entire Prince Rupert fishing fleet decided to leave at 6:00am as well. Maybe because it was a Saturday too? And flat calm? I don't know but there were at least 100 boats of every size zooming around the harbour at that hour.

It takes a while to go through Venn Passage to get out into Chatham Sound, then forever to cross Chatham Sound and then around the corner into Dixon Entrance. That photo above was taken around 9:30am. We could not have wished for better conditions than we got, so it was all worthwhile. God what a long day though! It was Greg's day at the helm so he did the majority of the driving, leaving dog duty to me. During the "worst" part of the crossing (and I say that sarcastically) she was a bit squirrelly as the boat was still doing a little bit of corkscrewing in the swell, but it was very short lived and then we went back to Bella meter of zero.



We saw a couple of pleasure boats cruising south into Rupert, but we were the only pleasure boat around that was making the crossing. It's been the same story most of the way up. I get excited when I see another boat that appears to be doing the same thing as us. And of course any that we meet are all bigger boats than us.

A long way up and then another long way up and another long way up and then we arrived at the south entrance to Ketchikan around 3pm BC time, or 2:00pm Alaska time. (Aside - funny thing, my Mac changed to Alaska time while we were in Rupert! Crappy Mac products). Couldn't resist taking a photo of someone's personal yacht waiting here for them. (Note the side garage with the speedboat waiting to go in)



It's 300 ft long. Maybe we should just put Spellbound in their garage and go with them? Also, 2 cruise ships in the docks as we went by as well - The Disney Wonder and the Norwegian Sun. Weird to be cruising by them so closely. Good thing we knew they weren't going anywhere!

There are several marinas here where boats can moor, and you just call the Ketchikan Harbormaster and they assign you a marina and a slip based on what is available right when you call them. We were assigned Bar Harbor South and finger 8 slip 28. We found it easily enough and are in amongst the fish boats on a low "small boat" dock. The sun was shining and it was warm and there was no wind so it was lovely. We decided to take advantage of the great weather and immediately locked up the boat and took the dog for walk (such as her walking is). Good to stretch the legs after such a long day.

After going to the harbor office to pay (3 nights) we started in the other direction towards "the mall" to see what was there. As we walk along the street we aboat to step around 2 couples who are standing on the sidewalk talking. One woman looks up and exclaims "Oh it's you !!". Errrrr, maybe? It turns out that we had cruised by them and their boat while we were docking, and she *loves* our boat and thinks it's gorgeous and wanted to know more about it. Nice! It turns out their names are John and Susan, and they are from Cleveland Ohio. They *trailered* there (clearly smallish) boat from there to Bellingham, put it in the water there, and have been traveling up the inside passage since! They are doing essentially the same thing as us, only on a much smaller boat!

We walked around and went past the mall, but didn't see too much interesting. The tourist part of town is about 1.5 miles down the road, but it also appears there is not much between here and there. So back to the mall where the local's shop with includes a Safeway and some fast food. I peeked into the indoor portion and saw a lot of empty units but also the regular mall inhabitants. We went to Safeway and got a snack at the Starbucks and some light groceries to have for dinner. They also have a $1.50 DVD movie rental with pretty recent titles. So we rented "Logan" to watch later. (I mean for $1.50 ….)

Back for dinner and then we decided to walk the dock a bit as it was still great weather. The couple right next door to us was out on the dock so we chatted. They are a BC Ranger Tug that is probably around 26' long. They are from Kitimat and they also just arrived in Ketchikan today crossing Dixon Entrance much earlier than us! Also looking for the good weather to cross. So a 2nd boat in the same day that is smaller than us doing the same thing as us. I have to eat my words.

We started the movie too late and couldn't get through it. Maybe finish watching it tomorrow.

June 16, 2017

Slack in the narrows was at 6:30 and would take us just over half and hour to get there, so it was up at 5:30-ish to leave on time. The narrows was a none event and we continued chugging up Grenville channel against the current for awhile, and then with it once we got out into more open water. It was a little choppy and a little windy, but not bad. We arrived in the "new" Cow Bay Marina somewhere around 11:30. It was not as protected as we thought it would be any so anyone in the harbor who did not obey the "no wake" area could rock the boats. It was also quite breezy, but also nice and sunny which was a welcome change from the pouring rain.

We checked the weather report of course upon arriving. Although we had made reservations for 2 nights here, the conditions for crossing Dixon Entrance tomorrow look spectacular, and then very much less than that the following few days. We pretty much decide to "make hay while the sun shines" and cut our time here short by a day, and cross tomorrow.

We went for a walk down to the Walmart to buy a few supplies. Poor Bella needs her nails clipped so we needed to by some dog nail clippers so we can do it ourselves. A little harder to find dog groomers up here, and it's just something we forgot to buy. Also, Greg managed to put holes in the knee's of all his jeans and so he ended up buying new jeans at Mark's Work Wearhouse! Ahh, the luxury of cities we do miss sometimes.

Back towards the marina area looking for a late lunch, we ended up at "Cowpaccinno's". Really good coffee and really good panini's and Bella got a "pawscotti" biscuit. All is good in the world.

Back to the boat where we put stuff away, and then notice a large familiar boat arrive and tie up on the breakwater dock. It was Stella Maris with John and Judy who we met in Port Harvey. We deposited our recycling and then stopped by to say Hi on our way to the grocery store. It was great to catch up and they also were planning on going to the famous "Cow Bay Cafe" for dinner, we made reservations for the 4 us. We picked up some ice and some pre-made food for the trip tomorrow.

Back to the boat for some more maintenance, clean the sea strainers, and some downtime. We met John and Judy at the restaurant at 7:00 and had just a wonderful evening and conversation. They have done the trip up around 9 times and so it was good to get some "local knowledge" about going into Ketchikan and just general Alaskan stuff.

June 15, 2017

Still raining. Sometimes pouring, sometimes less hard, but always raining.

One of the other reasons we came to Baker Inlet was because a gentleman at Shearwater raved about how much he loved it. In a previous year, he apparently spent a week in here just crabbing and prawning and enjoying the scenery. And we certainly wanted to re-try our fishing since we've had a spectacular fail so far. Yesterday, it was nasty so no go. But this morning the wind was still down and so Greg go everything together and went out and set the crab pots near the boat. He then scouted some locations for the prawn traps in the main inlet and then came back and got them, and then back out to put them in. Bella and I took care of the boat and made sure it didn't go anywhere.

Fortunately, there was no wind at all today. Rather weird since today was supposed to be *the* storm day, and yesterday just the prelude. Go figure. But it was nice having no wind, and it certainly made fishing that much nicer. Greg still had to done his boot shoes, his rain pants, and his heavy rain jacket just to go outside, but at least it wasn't windy too.



Coffee, Lunch, some work on the computer took up the day. Around 5:00 he went out to check the prawn traps, and glory be! He returned with 90 prawns! The jinx is now over Then he went out to check the crab pots, but they had just a couple little ones in them. So he re-positioned the big crab pot a little deeper and came back in.

We froze half the prawns, and ate the other half for dinner. Greg was back out around 7:00 to check the crab pot again and got an "almost" legal sized one. In retrospect, we probably should have put the traps more in the middle / deep part of our lagoon. Oh well. It takes some time to put all the fishing gear and dingy away, so we made sure we ran the generator and had lots of water for his shower.

June 14, 2017

It rained hard last night, we could hear it on the aft cabin roof. We woke up pointed in the same direction in the same place, so we'll call that a win. Didn't see much in the way of birds or wildlife here yesterday at all. Alaska Dream was gone very early so we never did find out who was on it.

Our plan was to go up to Baker Inlet today. It's supposed to be "the" most protected inlet of them all in Grenville channel. You need to go through Watts Narrows to get into the inlet, and apparently thought not necessary entering at slack water is easiest. So there was a slack around 11:30 meaning we left around 8:30 to get there in time which seemed civilized. There is a point in the middle of Grenville channel where the directions of the floods/ebbs switch. So we had to fight the Ebb going up a bit, but once we passed "Evening Point", then the Ebb was going with us and we got a push. We arrived at Watts Narrows about 10 minutes early.



Where the narrows and Grenville Channel meet, there was quite the kerfuffle, but after that it was fine. The entrance is "blind" meaning you can't see if anyone is coming from the other direction, so you honk your horn to let them know you're there. We entered at low water and so it was really squeaky getting in. It's very deep so you don't have to worry about that part, but you wouldn't want your boat to be pushed around very much. Our friend Alan told us he visited Baker one time and went in and out not at slack and it wasn't an issue. But then the second time, he said he got surprised and ended up "white knuckling" it outta there!

Once inside, it opens up into a huge inlet with cliffs all around. And it was surprisingly windy! Not what we were hoping for at all. We even went through a really quick 30kt gust. We headed down to the head of the inlet which is where the protected anchorage was. Didn't seem all that protected really! It was fine, but there was a valley to the south and since the wind was coming from the south, we were getting some gusts of 20kts. But we anchored and got a really good hold and watched to make sure we didn't go anywhere.

It was just pouring down still with rain. Generally the wind was below 10kts and fine, but then every so often you'd get these big gusts. No conducive to getting off the boat. So we had a hearty lunch, read our books, and then watched a movie. Around 5:00 or 5:30 the wind settled down to nothing for the night. We read some more, had dinner, and watched a bit of TV. Night quiet night. Oh, and it poured rain.

June 14, 2017

Ugh. Long Day. We left Windy Bay at 7:00am with not an exact plan because we weren't sure how it would go. Our original plan was to go to Hartley Bay as they have a cell signal there - internet! We wanted to be able to get a recent weather report and to download some GRIB files to see what the weather would be where *we* are. Oh, and OK, download email too to make sure there was nothing we needed to deal with. But the real question for us was what to do with the Gale warning starting tomorrow, Wednesday. As I said, we have all this information but not enough knowledge to know what effect high winds outside in Hecate Straight might mean for here inside the protection of all those islands. We were thinking about spending the night at Hartley Bay, however there is no marina there, just a free public dock. Which means that you know there will be a ton of boats there, there will be fishing boats rafting up to us, and Hartley Bay is at the crossroads in Douglas Channel where the "inflows" and "outflows" are. So would we be able to get out comfortably and continue heading north? Or should we just stay there for 3 days ? (we can work on the computers and get stuff done if we have internet)

In the end, we knew that Grenville Channel would be fine, and the anchorages just off of Grenville Channel are supposed to be "bomb proof", so we decided to push on through even further to Lowe Inlet. But we did get close to Hartley Bay and turned on the cell phone amp and got a lovely Telus signal. So we downloaded all the weather related things we wanted to, Greg processed his email, I processed mine and confirmed that Cow Marina in Prince Rupert has room for us on Friday and Saturday, turned around and went back to where we came from when we *lost* the signal, downloaded a few more things for work, sent a text, and turned around and headed north again. We pulled a crazy Ivan - maybe nobody noticed.

It was 16:30 before we pulled into Lowe, and there were 4 boats here already. One of them was Alaskan Dream, which is owned by a friend of ours in Bellingham and also used to be in the NWE fleet. NWE "borrowed it" for their Leg 1 to Alaska, and now someone, we don't know who yet, is bringing it back to Bellingham. We might go over in the morning to say hello.

We were able to anchor right in front of Verney Falls. We got close enough to them so that the fresh water coming into the inlet keeps Spellbound in the same direction and we don't have to worry about the boat swinging around in a circle. We should stay in the same direction all night. (Better check tomorrow's Blog entry to see if it worked!). Time for an anchor steam on the flybridge.

June 12, 2017

It was lovely and glassy leaving Shearwater at about 7:00am. We headed out to Seaforth Channel towards the open water and for the first time, into "virgin" territory for us and Spellbound.

Greg turned the watermaker on as usual once we got out into "clear" water. After awhile though, the amount of water in the tank had still not increased. We look at everything and the water maker reports that everything is great and it's making water without any issues! So Greg takes the front berth apart and starts to poke around - everything is fine except the water is not coming out. Out comes the manual and it says that the diverter valve might be stuck or broken. Essentially, at the last minute it does a check of the water and if it's not the right salinity or it's not happy, it just "diverts" the water overboard. The manual also tells you how to "hardwire it" to bypass the diverter valve which Greg does. We check the water using the "manual salinity method" and it's great. So we leave it that way to fill up the tank on our way.

We snake through Reid Passage which bypasses the open ocean swell that comes in at the end of Seaforth Channel. It's very scenic and we follow a well traveled, but strict route through the area. We travel through Perceval Narrows which was a none issue, and up into Mathieson Channel. Our original plan was to stop in Rescue Bay, or to go through Jackson Narrows and then up into Bottleneck Inlet. But it turns out that Jackson Narrows appears to be one of the narrows that should be transmitted at slack, and we were there at max. So we "could" hang out in Rescue Bay until slack and then go through, but that would be quite late. Or we could stay the night in popular Rescue Bay and go through the next morning, but we decided to try and make it further north. So we went all the way up Mathieson to Windy Bay. It was a long but calm and quiet passage. As we were about to go through Mathieson Narrows, we saw 2 humpbacks hanging out in the current there very close to shore and our boat. We also surprised a river otter who was swimming around in mid channel for some reason. It's very deep and not an issue at all to transit. Two Bald Eagles hanging out on a dead tree screeched at us as we went through too - it was quite lovely.

As we entered Windy Bay, there was one other boat there. It's a huge bay but quite deep so we tucked around and got as close to shore as we could so that we were in shallow enough water. As soon as we shut the engines off, we heard the distinctive south of a "whale breath" and saw a humpback leaving the bay.

June 11, 2017

It was a long way today and we weren't sure what the wind weather would be like, so off we were at 6:00am. Turns out it was windier in Pruth Bay than it was anywhere else! The forecast was for 15kts-25kts, but we had 5 or less all the way up Fitz Hugh Sound. A bit windier in Lama Passage, but then that went away too. We saw some good Bald Eagle action on the way up as well. There were a lot of logs in the water and there were Bald Eagles using them as "rest stops" while they were hunting. Greg got some great shots as we tootled on by.



We arrived just before noon so it was essentially a 6 hour run which is long for us. But they have WiFi! And even better, there is a fantastic Telus signal here to use for when the free WiFi goes to …. away. Our iPad get's a workout.

So we lunched and caught up on email for a couple of hours, and then went for a walk around the complex. With the Bald Eagle welcoming committee as we walked up the ramp, we probably didn't need to waste time taking photos on the way up!



They have a coffee shop here with nanaimo bars. Guess what we did? We watched the world go by with Miss B outside the coffee shop. It's still early in the season here, so there is really not much to watch. There is a ferry over to Bella Bella and so when it arrives, the population doubles! We walked over to the fishing dock and chatted up a young guy working there. He was out the day before and got 33 spring salmon, but he said no one was more surprised than him! Very unusual for this time of year. Their season doesn't really start until July 1st - Canada Day. And August is the busy season. So not a long season at all! We told him we'd be back in August to try some fishing 😆.

And new this year, the pub has baked goods on Sundays! So we have some sticky buns to help us get through tomorrow morning. It's rough.

Back to the boat at 4:00 where I did some work emails, and Greg checked for a leak in the Starboard injector (not, just the supply line) and then cleaned the water maker filters (filthy). There is always boat maintenance. It got a bit windier at the dock in the afternoon, but it was sunny and warm out of the wind. We watched fishing boats keep coming in all afternoon to the public(?) / fishing dock next door. The RCMP float plane also arrived to get fuel at the fuel dock. Lot's of float planes around here. And helicopters. It's seems quite "empty" to us compared with two years ago, but the harbour master told Greg that it was quiet yesterday too, until 3:00pm when 17 boats arrived all at once. Don't know where they were because we didn't see them!

We decided to take advantage of the services here and had dinner at the pub. (Choose your meal wisely). As has happened several times now, we've been out on the boat and eating dinner in a pub when the Stanley Cup final was on. And here we are again! (Not a Pittsburgh fan at all, but surely to God the Stanley Cup can NOT be won by a team from Nashville!!). During tea and dessert, we ended up sitting and talking with Hank and Lindsay and their niece Taylor whom we met yesterday on West Beach. Hank and Lindsay are from Victoria and are traveling for the summer on their east coast style lobster boat, and Taylor was enjoying a week off of work from the Great Bear Lodge in Seymour Inlet. Can't talk to any Canadians without starting out talking about American politics. Even so, we had a nice conversation. Although "open mike" night at the pub was to start at 9:00pm with a really good harmonica player, it still hadn't started by the time we left at 9:40pm. Oh well. Still so bright out so late at night - Had a great "red at night" ….

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 😆

June 3, 2017

Left early (but not as early as Irish Mist) in order to catch the good weather.



It was beautiful when we left Nanaimo, but as with all best laid plans, it went for poop just after the Winchelsea's and was quite swelly up to Hornby. The weather service added a "Qualicum" to the forecast, meaning it was "wind's light" everywhere, but oh by the way, it'll be 15kts to 25kts. So we put the pedal to the metal and just powered through "Qualicum" for about an hour. It's only diesel and money. After Hornby it was back to "lovely" again and Bella got one of her special "named" treats for being such a good girl.



Then it was just the long haul up the Strait. It was a long day of running, but worth if you consider how much area we were able to put behind us.



When we arrived at Rebecca Spit though, it got windy again!! It was blowing away at about 12kts inside Drew Harbor. Fortunately, it was just one of those afternoon temperature change winds and it settled down shortly after we finished anchoring. Had a total of 9.4 hours running time today which is *far* from our norm. But we're up early again in the morning to catch the slack at Beasley Passage so it will be an early night.

June 2, 2017

The forecast was for a bit windy this morning. It was light when we got up, but was a little heavier by the time we left. Fortunately, the current and the wind were going in the same direction, and even more fortunate that we were going that direction too. So not too bad. One of those mornings though where we had blue sky, clouds, and rain all at the same time.

We left at 9:00am to have plenty of time to hit slack at Dodd Narrows at 11:56. We even found a red canoe adrift and called it into the Coast Guard (nothing inside of it!). The further north we got, the nicer it got and we saw a nice rainbow as we approached Nanaimo.

We tied up on "Hotel" dock and was pleasantly surprised to have no wind and a warm sun. We checked in and then had Halibut Taco's at Penny's Palapa's. Then for a walk to have our regular coffee and a nanaimo bar at Serious Coffee. And a present for Jan. I didn't get my standard "pre-trip pedicure" before we left as things just got too crazy. So I got my "pre-trip pedicure" here in Nanaimo. (Yay!)

Back to the boat where it is now quite windy again (it *is* Nanaimo) and then over to Thrifty to collect some fruit and vegetable provisions. Back to the boat to make salsa, and then a present for Greg - Fish and Chip dinner from Trollers.

We're sitting in the salon where it is again nice and warm and not windy, with the doors open and look up at the boardwalk, and who goes walking by but Scott Blake. He and his friend Gary are delivering Irish Mist to Alaska. So we call him on the phone and tell him to look over his right shoulder and wave 😀. We finally meet his friend Gary who is helping with the delivery, and talk boats (really boat problems), and plans for heading north. Small ocean.

June 1, 2017

OMG! Normal trip preparation is a pain. But trip preparation for a 4 month trip brings it to a whole new level! It's stressful, tiring, and it's been going on for a loooooong time. Great way to start a brand new Blog right? By complaining. "Oh poor me, poor us" - I can hear you playing the miniature violins now . Well you're right! Moving on …

Before I get started, I just want you to know that this Blog is mostly for me, not you I would like to be able to look back at the trip and remember where we went and what we did. So I might not explain all the details needed for someone else to understand. And also, I need an excuse to take more Bella photos.

We moved onto the boat last night, and then went back to the house to finalize a few things this morning. Byron picked us up and took us to the harbor as we wanted to leave the cars in the garage while we're away. A quick trip to the fuel dock to top off on cheap USA diesel, and we're off across Bellingham Bay. Of course the wind was blowing more than the forecast said it would (surprise!) but it wasn't too bad. As is often the case, it was much nicer out in the islands. And it was lovely and flat crossing Boundary Pass. It got a "zero" on the Bella meter.



We told customs we'd be outside the marina at 5:00pm, waited an extra 5 minutes there, and then took off for a mooring ball. We dropped the dinghy and headed to the public dock to register and pay our $14 fee, and back to Spellbound. Just before the crossing, the water maker decided to "alarm". It complained about the "pre-filter" being bad. We didn't really need much water as we of course had filled up the day before, but we want to get in the habit of running it and of course making sure that any potential problems show up sooner, rather than later. So when we got back, Greg took apart the forward cabin and took out the 20 micron and 5 micron filters. The 20 looked fine, but the 5 was a little messy. So he switched them out and then cleaned them up again for re-use. It's a messy job, but we really like having fresh water so it's not hard to talk yourself into it.